Burt Goodman

Burt Goodman is the gentle, soft-spoken head of the Optics and Design department on Lumon's severed floor. He has been conditioned by Lumon to believe that the Macrodata Refinement team is hostile and dangerous, just as MDR has been taught to fear O&D. When he meets Irving Bailiff during an interdepartmental visit, their instant connection begins to dissolve decades of manufactured distrust between their teams.

Burt and Irving's romance unfolds with a tender, old-fashioned charm that stands in stark contrast to the cold, corporate dystopia surrounding them. Christopher Walken brings a rare vulnerability to Burt, playing him as a man experiencing the joy of new love for what feels like the first time — because for his innie, it is. Their relationship reveals how Lumon's compartmentalization extends beyond work and personal life to systematically preventing human connection between departments.

When Burt is forcibly retired by Lumon and replaced without explanation, Irving is devastated. The cruelty of their separation — engineered by an employer that views their bond as a security threat — underscores the show's central theme about the cost of surrendering autonomy to a corporation. In the outside world, the Overtime Contingency reveals that outie Burt has a partner, adding another layer of complexity to their connection.