The Milchick Theory That Has Severance Fans' Eyebrows Raised

Warning: Spoilers for "Severance" Season 1 follow.

Apple TV+ may still be a new streaming service, especially compared to Netflix or Hulu, but wow, is it making an impact. The fledgling content provider launched in November 2019, per Variety, and it blast out of the gate, quickly bringing in over 33 million users and offering series that are both critical and audience hits, from "The Morning Show" to "Central Park" to the juggernaut that is "Ted Lasso." It's keeping its winning streak going with the latest drama to break through the zeitgeist — and knock viewers on their collective butts: "Severance."

The sci-fi series, created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller, debuted on February 18 to instant acclaim, per Rotten Tomatoes. Adam Scott stars as Mark Scout, an employee of a huge corporation that takes work/life balance to the extreme by "severing" a person's work memories, aka their "innie," from their home memories, aka their "outie." The amazing show is rife with mystery, humor, and commentary, and fans are buzzing about what it all means.

One of the breakout stars is Tramell Tillman, who stars as Seth Milchick, office supervisor and right-hand man to Patricia Arquette's boss, Harmony Cobel — who is also posing as Mark's neighbor Mrs. Selvig. Milchick watches the severed employees, rewarding them when they reach quota, and punishing them when they do something they're not supposed to. Now, one viewer has a theory about Milchick's position, and fans are running with it.

Redditor u/Blucrasher posted a theory that Lumon's middle manager Seth Milchick "lives next to Dylan's outtie the same way 'Mrs. Selvig' lives next to Mark," referring specifically to the Episode 6 scene where Milchick uses the Overtime Contingency protocol to wake Dylan's (Zach Cherry) innie while he's at home. "This would explain how Milchick got into Dylan's house, why Dylan's kid would listen to such a crazy instruction (count to 1000), and why his outtie didn't freak out. Milchick is probably a family friend of Dylan's outtie."

While u/ConsiderationWise631 quickly debunked the theory, pointing out that the outties recognize Milchick as a Lumon employee, the question resulted in a discussion with more than 50 comments, including other far-out theories. Several comments mentioned the employees all know Milchick inside and outside work, so he's not pretending he's someone else. u/Memoruiz7 put forth their own theory, that "Irv used to hold Milchick's position," which u/btherese77 took to an extreme by noticing they're the only ones with mustaches," though that was also quickly debunked by u/kings_lead_hat mentioning Dylan's full beard and mustache. u/Dinierto also stated their intriguing belief, writing, "My thought is that everything is an experiment, and when it fails, they are wiped and start over."

Perhaps the most fun theory stemming from u/Blucrasher's original post is that Dylan and Milchick are domestic partners, and Dylan is their son. "If that turns out to be true, this show will jump from amazing to all-time great," replied u/Al_Redditor.