Spoilers, obviously.
Kier: Hail your earthbound steward, your very own flooooooooooor manager!
[audience cheering]
Milchick: Thank you, Kier! And may I say, you're looking very handsome, sir.
Kier: Thank you. I'd say the same of you, if not for my favorite core principle.
Milchick: Probity?
Kier: No ... Vision!
[audience laughter]
Milchick: Well, it's truly special to host a man so illustrious, so sapient, so magnanimous--
Kier: My, you're verbose. Good thing you didn't write the first appendix. It would have burst!
[audience laughter, Milchick visibly discomfited]
Milchick: It's an honor to receive your barbs, Mr. Eagan. The legacy you've left behind is truly and irrefutably larger than life.
Kier: You mean my company?
Milchick: (coldly) No. I mean this wax statue that's five inches taller than you actually were.
[audience chuckles, awkward silence]
Kier: (darkly) Thank you for that feedback, Seth.
Milchick: Thank you, Kier.
This is clearly a prepared routine. It has setups and punchlines and Milchick is visibly reading most of his lines from note cards. However, the performance obviously goes some way off the rails in the back half.
Who wrote this routine? Who performed Kier's lines in-universe? Has Milchick rehearsed this routine or does he only know his own note cards? Is Milchick's height roast part of the script or improvised?
I'll post my thoughts in a separate comment.
The most obvious part, both halves of the routine seems like they were most likely scripted by Mr. Drummond. The barb about Milchick's use of language is something very specific to Drummond's relationship with Milchick, and Milchick's half of the dialog is deliberately written to set up that joke. The appendix line is clearly a previously-written corny punchline and not improvised.
The Kier animatronic appears to be performed live by somebody. It responds emotionally to Milchick rather than being a series of obviously recorded lines for Milchick to work around. This opens up the possibility that Drummond is also playing the vocal role of Kier, presumably via voice changing tech, but at that point it could be anybody--whether that means a character we know or not, although they do seem to know Milchick personally.
In the real world, Marc Geller (IMDb) is the actor who plays Kier physically and in voice lines, but the actual character is almost certainly long dead by the time of the show, barring any Walt Disney shenanigans. No doubt, Lumon finds it useful to be able to simulate the authoritative voice of their founder for propaganda purposes.
I lean toward Milchick not being made aware of what Kier would say ahead of time. He has his own lines, but I don't think he knows the founder is about to roast his use of language. That seems to have been a surprise thrown in to upset and humiliate Milchick in front of his staff. If he already knew this line was coming and/or had rehearsed it previously, I don't think he would have reacted so strongly.
I do think Milchick's height gag is scripted. There's too much setup with the "larger than life" line preceding it for it to have happened organically. However, I think Milchick spits the line with 1000% more venom than he was supposed to, in retribution for the previous gag at his expense. If you read Milchick's line in a good-natured way, it sounds like perfectly reasonable, toothless corporate comedy. Milchick just imbues it with a power that Drummond(?) never intended it to have.
Kier's final line, "Thank you for that feedback, Seth," is the only one that I think is wholly off-book. Whoever is on the other end of that animatronic is clearly displeased with Milchick's delivery.
Considering the amount of tech they have available to them, could it not be that Kier is actually a light AI based on how he used to be? Maybe Milchick just has a couple of cues on the card and Drummond is just actively making fun of him through Kier. After the 'My, you're verbose', you see Milkshake souring a bit, as if he didn't expect it. He does get a bit snippier after this so it feels more organic. So all in all, I do agree Milchick had no idea what Kier would be saying and that the entire bit was meant to be hurtful to Milchick, indicating that it's most likely Drummond who orchestrated it.
After the bit, I kept expecting Milchick to turn on Lumon in order to help Mark. I figured he'd just concede once he was stuck in the bathroom.
I definitely feel like Milchick is on the path to turning on Lumon. Who knows how long he's been "in" Lumon, but I don't think this is the first time he's ever encountered corporate Lumon racism. That interaction with Natalie up on the second floor, where he tries to connect with her doesn't feel like it's out of nowhere:
Milchick sounds like he has been dealing with this for as long as he's been in Lumon, and he suspects Natalie has as well. I think she's the only other black Lumon employee we've seen (unless he wants to go talk to Reghabi about it) and he's losing his patience, or to coin a phrase, losing his religion. Natalie is not offering him an outlet for those feelings, though.
However, I think he is a true believer. Lumon isn't just a job or a company to him, so it's going to take a bit more to break their spell on him.
Do you mean un-severed employee? Management?There a lots of black employees on the severed floor. Dylan G for starters.
Yeah, I meant un-severed, anybody on roughly Milchick's level who he would realistically be able to talk to about shared experiences within Lumon.