Severance Knows You Can’t Talk About Capitalism Without Talking About Race

Spoilers ahead. Severance is the hit TV series everyone is talking about. The show focuses on four workers who choose to undergo a radical “severance procedure” to split their consciousness in two: an “innie” who only lives to work with no memories of who they are, and an “outtie” who knows nothing about their work life. Praised for its incisive science-fiction take on the very zeitgeisty topic of modern-day work, Severance accurately depicts what it means to have no freedom in the workplace. Season 2 has built on these relatable themes, introducing race as a key factor within the creepy, hollow corporate hell that is Lumon. This season hints at everything from workplace microaggressions and double standards, to empty diversity initiatives and even Black resistance. So what does Severance reveal about what it means to be Black in the corporate world?  

Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) is one of the only unsevered Black staff members in a position of some authority at Lumen, navigating a largely white corporation. He spends a lot of time in series one doing the dirty work of middle management, attempting to discipline and incentivize the Macrodata Refinement team. In Season 2, he’s gotten a promotion, replacing Miss Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and joining the management team, but it's not all it seems. He is tasked with the messy, impossible job of resolving the aftermath of the Macrodata revolt which involves him firing and then (with the help of a pineapple) rehiring all the workers again. He may have a shiny new title, but Miss Cobel’s name is still on the computer welcome message in her office, suggesting Milchick was a quick, maybe even temporary replacement, rather than a worker valued for their talents and thoughtfully promoted.        

Milchick never fails when it comes to having an amazing fit on, but his snappy attire suggests he is more than just a stylish dresser: he’s somewhat of an outsider. The contrast between his trendy appearance and the drab aesthetic of the other managers, or the faceless board, suggests his outsider status means he may never fully belong, and he could be discarded the moment he becomes inconvenient. His leather jacket worn early in Season 2 also hints at a potential to rebel. 

When speaking to Severance director Ben Stiller and actor Adam Scott (who plays Mark Scout) on the official Severance podcast, Tramell Tillman said he asked Ben and Severance writer Dan Erickson, “Does Milchick know he’s Black?...It was important to know if this character understood he is different from this culture.” The push by Tillman to understand Milchick on a deeper level reveals a tension between Milchick’s desire to succeed in the corporate world, what’s ethically right and the racism he also personally faces. Tillman added “I think there’s a doctrine or philosophy, a history [at Lumon] that he really attaches himself to, that empowers him in some way that he continues day after day to be a part of this.”  As abhorrent as Mr. Milchick's complicity in an abusive systems is, his story has a tragic arc; he seems unlikely to ever get the recognition he is looking for. 

His outsider status becomes extremely pronounced in a now viral scene in Season 2, Episode 3  when he meets Black Lumon worker Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander) in his office for an impromptu meeting with the board via intercom. Only Natalie can hear and converse with them through her headset, as she presents him with some gifts on behalf of the board: several “inclusively recannonized paintings” to help him “see yourself in Keir.” The images of the white Lumon founder Keir reconstituted in essentially Blackface seems to be alarming to Milchick, expressing concern with his facial expressions whilst Natalie in a strained smile and a cry for help in her eyes, says she received a similar gift and found it “extremely moving”. The various unspoken ways racialized staff communicate with one another feels extremely familiar — a small glance, a slight widening of eyes —  during uncomfortable or outright racist moments in the workplace. You’re always conscious that your actions are often under surveillance.   

This scene also reveals something that gets to the heart of many corporate diversity initiatives and the limitations of representation. The board assumes that Mr. Milchick will feel honored to “see himself” in the deity-like figure of Keir, and believes this symbolic gesture of diversity by reimagining Keir as a Black man is akin to real structural change. Whilst there are DEI efforts that can genuinely tackle real forms of inequity in an organization, many big corporate DEI efforts are window dressing, an attempt to make superficial changes in the branding or marketing of that company, rather than addressing substantive issues such as discriminatory hiring practices, ethnicity/gender pay gaps or exploitative abuses of workers in the global south. Milchick is later reprimanded in a formal appraisal for having a “too friendly” and paternalistic an approach to the Macrodata team, showing he’s useful to diversify Lumen’s image, but he has no real decision-making powers, nor can he actively push for any real improvement in the severed workers’ treatment. As we’ve seen in real life, once it’s no longer politically convenient to have DEI initiatives, corporations will just throw them away.      

Sometimes identity-related storylines can feel clunky or forced (see Emilia Perez), especially if the writers have added it purely as an “add on” or to tick a box. However, Severance’s subtle exploration of race feels natural to the story. The divisive, exploitative and dehumanizing nature of racism is, for some, an essential component of capitalism. In Severance, the suggestion is that race isn't a separate issue from capitalism, but that it can determine how different characters experience power, labor, and control within Lumon’s corporate dystopia. It’s revealed in Season 1 that Lumon was established in 1865, the same year slavery was abolished in the U.S. suggesting that the company represents the evolution from chattel slavery to corporate exploitation. After abolition, the U.S. economy found new ways to extract labor from Black people: sharecropping, prison labor, and low-wage industrial labor. It also begs the question was the company’s wealth originally built on slavery? Lumon seems to be a corporate embodiment of how racial and economic oppression are symbiotic, and essential to how our modern world functions.   

As well as the links to capitalism, its exploration of race is also deeply connected to the show’s philosophical central question: what really makes us who we are? Are the “innies” — who’ve not been worn down by the weight of the world —  a more accurate depiction of the character’s true selves? Are the innies actually less human as they are totally divorced from the memories, experiences and grief that shape their outties? 

Writer and academic W.E.B Dubois wrote about the concept of  “double consciousness” in his book The Souls of Black Folk which captured the duality of the Black American experience. He believed that Black Americans faced an inner struggle to remain true to themselves while at the same time conforming to the dominant white society. This struggle created a “split” or double consciousness of the soul: the real person and a projected dehumanizing idea of Blackness within a white supremacist society. Du Bois wrote “one ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings.”. In a heartbreaking scene in Episode 5 after Milchick is reprimanded by his superiors for using “too many big words” and incorrectly using paper clips, he stares into a mirror, disgusted and shouting at himself. His body and its reflection are in frame, once again referencing the concept of “two selves,” as Milchick wrestles with himself and the version of himself projected onto him within a racist corporate environment. His presence is tolerated at Lumen because he serves a function—but he is never fully integrated into or respected by the power structure. 

The pressure of this duality is evident in Mr. Milchick’s and Natalie’s characters. Although neither of them are actually severed (as far as we know), they often seem to be playing a part, or hiding their true feelings, in an effort to maintain their positions at Lumen. Natalie, for example, frequently maintains a plastered smile which never feels genuine, using hollow corporate phrases like “the board is jubilant at your ascendance.” When Mr. Milchick speaks with her delicately using euphemisms to cautiously gauge her thoughts on how she really felt about receiving a Keir painting, she never breaks her outer facade and does not engage with what he’s really asking. Both characters seem tempted at times to show more of their “real selves” at Lumen but never quite dare to transgress into their more human side. The show demonstrates that being racialized in predominantly white spaces is also its own kind of “severance” and their racialization as Black staff members is an integral part of that.    

Milchick and Natalie’s complicity in exploitation makes it difficult at times to empathize with them. “He’s participating in dodgy behavior, how does he reconcile that?” asked Tillman to Stiller and Scott on the Severance podcast. “How does he sleep at night knowing what he’s doing to these innies?...I know he senses the ethical issues. This is a man of duty, of task, he has a job at hand and he goes and serves the mission.” There are many historical instances where some Black people were placed in roles that required them to enforce oppressive systems on other marginalized groups — slave plantations, and western imperial rule all relied on some racialized people being willing to do the white master’s bidding. 

But, not all the Black workers are quietly compliant. Dylan (Zach Cherry), the only severed worker of color on the Macrodata team, is also the first to actively resist the system after getting the chance to meet his outtie’s son briefly. He understands just how much has been taken from him, and then rejects the empty company incentives used to pacify workers (like sweet treats or finger traps) and at the end of Season 1, Dylan uses his physical strength to hold the doors open to allow his teammates the time they need to let the outside world know about the abuses on the severed floor. Asal Reghabi (Karen Aldridge) is an ex-Lumen staff member who works from the outside, using her scientific knowledge to attempt the risky process of "reintegrating” severed workers. Her actions suggest she’s not interested in reform of Lumon, but seeks to expose it and destroy it, a militant approach. Whilst we don’t know much about her background, we can assume that she didn’t see value ultimately in attempting to “change things from the inside” which echoes Black liberation tactics. She also is a valuable resource to protagonist “outtie” Mark (Adam Scott), urging him to take action and challenge Lumen’s exploitation.  

Cultural scholar Stuart Hall famously said “race is the modality in which class is lived”. He believed race is often how Black people make sense of their structural oppression, and that your race is likely to determine your class position. At a time when many across the political spectrum are reductively dismissing all forms of  “identity politics,” Severance brings to life the reality that our identities get right to the heart of what it means to live in a capitalist society. It’s definitely a timely message worth listening to.