SEVERANCE Season 2 Episode 5 explained by Christopher Walken & Tramell Tillman | TV Insider

0:06 has wo Poison the Well from which your team replenishes gayy if so you may have a case of low morale on your hands Don't Panic morale shortages can be reversed by reminding your team of what matters most their quarterly objectives [Music] what I was thinking when I was shooting these scenes the scenes in part two was that it was a lot like you know as a as an actor I see an act another actor in 20 movies and I have an impression of them I think I think I know them it's like

0:52 audiences with actors uh they see them so many times they think they know them and then they meet them in Prim they meet them at a restaurant or at a party and it's the same guy but it's different you know he's not you know I've met some actors who are very funny in the movies and then you meet them and they're kind of they're quiet they're not you know they don't say much they're they're not hilarious uh so I I thought I thought that that that might be sort of like Burton Irving you think you know the guy but and it is the same guy but it's not quite it's a little bit

1:43 different that idea of the paintings that came from Dan Erikson and when he presented the idea he spoke to Ben about it and Ben's followup was you need to talk to trell about this so we were taking a risk introducing this topic you know these paintings and how milch responds to it and my question was very strong with Dan I said you know if you're going to introduce this we have to be very careful and you have to be very sure of how you want milch to respond to it cuz there's many different avenues that you can take he could be one that ignores it he could be one that fully Embraces it and sees the the pleasure in getting the

2:30 paintings or he could be one who just rejects it altogether and so what we see in that moment where he's with Natalie who is also a lumen member of color and who also have received these paintings there's that moment where they're looking to each other and milch is looking for an answer it's like what is this what do I do with this information and he doesn't get it in that moment and they're both asked to develop a performative way of receiving these paintings because the board is listening so that in of itself has a an extreme level of of awareness of otherism in a way and it also speaks

3:19 to the corporate nature of trying to include people in history and trying to include people in their corporate structure and what we see moving forward is what he does with that information now the why of it is unclear and that's what makes it really interesting I believe that viewers will find a way to start conversations around this you know we could have told the story where he get the paintings and he sends his letter of resignation but to me that doesn't ring true right this man is a guy who has given his life seemingly to Lumen he is a company man through and through and just because you have a bad couple days

4:06 at work you're not going to walk away and what he does in the subsequent episodes is he takes those paintings and he pushes them away in the closet and I'm reminded of the many times that we ourselves in our own Society our human nature where we're around people who are problematic where we work for companies that are problematic where we're in relationships with people and they do something or say something that we ordinarily would walk away from or think we should but we excuse it we put it in the back we say oh that didn't happen oh it's okay oh I'll find another time to deal with it and those are the conversations that I hope start to surface from there and even more cuz I'm sure you know our fans are brilliant

4:53 they they are highly passionate and they'll find other things that I haven't even realized or thought about and so I'm I'm looking forward to those conversations