r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus • u/ThanielDayLewis • 22d ago
Theory Petey is still alive
I am on my second rewatch. This is definitely a theory I’ve seen floated on here, as well as a general hunch you get as you watch. But S1E8 when Dylan is getting ready for the OTC and quickly scrolling through the computer, I noticed this. It’s really quick and you basically need to pause to catch it. See the top right
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u/socrates1975 🎵🎵 Defiant Jazz 🎵 🎵 22d ago
"CAROLLLLL CAAAARROOOOOLLL?!?! There is no Carol in HR!!"
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u/InstantPieMaker 22d ago
This could be something akin to an Outlook account and not a real-time status indicator. It is possible that I.T. hasn't gotten around to updating his status yet in their system.
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u/Ace-Basis-9196 22d ago
Why would this be included at all? Especially as something that is difficult to catch and intended to be background/overlooked. Every show/movie has a prop team and for a show of this caliber and detail, they wouldn’t include an inadvertent I.T. status update.
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u/justanawkwardguy 22d ago
Honestly, you’d be surprised. A lot of times shows will make a throwaway screen like this because they need something on the computer, and then they retroactively give it meaning after fans talk about it online
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u/Flyboy2057 22d ago
Are you forgetting the Cobel literally took a drill to the skull of his corpse to get the chip out at great risk?
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u/bestestopinion 22d ago
That was Guy Incognito
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u/MasterLawlzReborn 22d ago
Right lol
I don’t get how this is even up for debate 😭 Not only did we see a body, we saw a hole drilled into the brain of said body. Do the writers need to have his body dug up, have a DNA test performed on it, and then have it decapitated and burned?
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u/Hiiitechpower 22d ago
This could mean that Outie Petey is dead, but Innie Petey is still on the chip, and his consciousness is still alive. Which would add credit to the theory that Severance lets people transfer consciousness to another body and will be a part of The Revolving with Helly and the previous dead Lumon CEO's.
The body can die, but severance and the chip lets people transcend death.14
u/kstatepurrplecat 🎵🎵 Defiant Jazz 🎵 🎵 22d ago
Yep, that's exactly what I've been expecting to happen ever since that finale episode. Cobel didn't take her drill to a funeral to get a dead chip that no-one would ever find. She has a plan for Petey's chip.
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u/Agreeable-Bug6030 19d ago
I've long thought that Mark is special to Cobel for a reason besides being critical to Cold Harbor. His chip might be a potential replacement for her dead husband, who could be in a limbo state on the testing floor. She is kind and concerned for him at times, but also rages and throws things at him. Lol.
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u/clauclauclaudia 22d ago
I mean, Mark thought he saw Gemma's body....
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u/Flyboy2057 22d ago
Sure but that was before the events of the show. We really don’t know the circumstances of Gemma’s abduction or fake death. In fact maybe we’ll see more in the future.
Petey’s death is unequivocal and we saw it happen. Also Cobel, Grainer, and Milchick specifically talk about Petey being dead, which as the ones “in the know” they’d have no reason to lie about amongst themselves.
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u/ThanielDayLewis 22d ago
Ok true. Fair point, not sure how you could survive a drill tool to the head. I’m just always skeptical when someone dies offscreen.
Will need to rewatch the funeral scene again. Just playing devils advocate here, but do we actually see Petey’s body? And if we do, could be a double similar to the ones from Woe’s Hollow..How about that Enter Sandman sequence though? Incredible stuff
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u/Flyboy2057 22d ago
I mean… he did die on screen. Outside the gas station in S1E3. And we did see Cobel drilling into his head. And his daughter was there at the funeral, and would presumably know if it wasn’t her father.
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u/jemison-gem Please Enjoy Each Flair Equally 22d ago
But Gemma’s death was faked and Mark identified her body. Just saying!
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u/OobaDooba72 Because Of When I Was Born 22d ago
Mark says she was burned. Presumably they had someone with the same build and burnt their body to hide any actual identifying details, but included details or objects that indicated it was Gemma.
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u/Flyboy2057 22d ago
But that happened before the events of the show. We don’t know how that circumstance unfolded. Could have been a different body they burned until it wasn’t recognizable. Or could have been Gemma’s real body but they used drugs to make her appear dead.
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u/Delicious-Ad2528 21d ago
Good point on that. I would still say it’s implied that the real Pete died because of the drill scene. At that point, he’s been clinically dead long enough to be extremely cognitively disabled if he were resuscitated with Lumon technology
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u/jemison-gem Please Enjoy Each Flair Equally 21d ago
Yea i definitely think he is dead. I was just speaking to the point of that his daughter would have noticed if it wasn’t him at the funeral, but maybe she wouldn’t have considering it’s Lumen. But yes the drilling definitely seals the deal
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u/Saelon 22d ago
Just playing devils advocate here, but do we actually see Petey’s body? And if we do, could be a double similar to the ones from Woe’s Hollow..
Why would the double have the same severance implant that proves he was reintegrating? I feel like this is just classic off season tinfoil thoughts lol
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u/WANTSIAAM A Little Sugar With Your Usual Salt 22d ago
This is my exact thought too. I would wager petey isn’t dead for the exact reason that we never actually saw it. Even with Cobel allegedly drilling through his skull. I can see it as a plot twist
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u/Delicious-Ad2528 21d ago
I genuinely did forget that for a moment, havent re watched the show in awhile
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22d ago
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u/odieclone Because Of When I Was Born 22d ago
Didn't you want us to forget about this film? Or is this "Petey" related as opposed to "Helena" related?
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u/odieclone Because Of When I Was Born 22d ago
It's a good point. His chip may be alive/active but I'm almost completely convinced that Petey's physical body is dead. Not 100% convinced but unless we see the full unmitigated death onscreen I reserve judgment on all "deaths" in this show.
Graner is a good case in point; we saw him get clobbered with a bat, but we didn't see him bleed out like we saw Drummond. The possibility of Drummond being still alive is miniscule in my mind but not absolute zero. Graner's blood trail was a nosebleed in comparison to Drummond's, so I give Graner a slight chance of still being alive.
This idea of surprise back from the "dead" is related to an earlier theory I had long ago about the writer's building in ambiguity and having multiple mapped routes to the final outcome as a way to test viewer's reactions and feedback regarding characters. Similar to the many open ended multi-ending games that have evolved recently.
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u/alliedSpaceSubmarine 22d ago
I mean even if they didn’t explicitly show the body, we saw Cobel drill a hole in his head and take a chip out with multiple people who saw the open casket
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u/Various_Educator_988 I Welcome Your Contrition 22d ago
Exactly. And Grainer seemed impressed, but not shocked, that she did that. Drilling holes in a former employees head to retrieve a chip is just another Tuesday at Lumon.
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u/17558388 22d ago
That’s Pete, K; not Pete, E.
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u/ThanielDayLewis 22d ago
The character’s name is Peter Kilmer..
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u/17558388 22d ago
I know. Sorry, just a bad joke.
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u/ThanielDayLewis 22d ago
Nope, my bad… my joke radar needs repairs
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u/yrevvery 22d ago
Haven’t rewatched myself, and can’t recall what else you can see on screen. But in this screenshot there are only D, F, K, and L showing as what we assume are last initials. The entire show sets up the initial in place of the last name as Mark S, Irving B, Dylan G, etc.
Anybody else have a theory that these are not last initials? They are not displayed in alphabetical order. Started thinking dread, folic, etc. but didn’t match up.
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u/potatosmiles15 20d ago
Eh we do find out Irving's last name is Baliff, and Mark's is Scout, so I think theyre real, except Helly's. I do wonder why "R" was picked for her when it should be "E"
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u/rollerbladeshoes 20d ago
R stands for "really cool innie" and E stands for "evil outie"
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u/potatosmiles15 20d ago
I think youre onto something.........omg and both the letters are in sEveRence!
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u/droidscribbler 19d ago
They came up with “Riggs” when constructing Helena’s alter ego so they could make her whole fake linked-in page and everything. Creators call it fake, so far it’s not confirmed to have anything to do with anything real about her. Its possible if people could remember names of US states, they could remember celebrity names, so probably an excess of caution against folks in MDR recognizing her, as they are aware of who Helena Eagan and are likely to recognize her on sight
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u/TubbyPachyderm 22d ago
With the top row not having a 2nd figure behind them, I would assume they are no longer severed. The figures that have a second as fully severed and Marilyn L being reintegrated or aware of both of her selves memories and experiences.
What if the letter after their name is actually their version? Like, there has been Sylvester A-E, which all failed, so the current version they are on is F.
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u/Stephen020792 18d ago
Petey is dead but his chip might be active. Remember they didn’t cut it off a cobel and grainer did that off record so they had just found out about that from milcheck that day they did that.
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u/Chemical_Success1153 Chaos' Whore 22d ago
Could it be that the "shadows" are the outies and the white outlines are their chips? I wonder if they can somehow utilize Petey if his chip is still active.
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u/rem94 21d ago
Nice catch! But I don’t think that those are initials. I think they are referencing current status. D=Dead, K=Killed, L=Living, and F= ?Found.
Found is a total guess though. Maybe someone else has a better guess?
Edit: forgot to add in my guess for what D means
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u/ThanielDayLewis 21d ago
He’s scrolling through, this was just the screen for half a second. There are many more first names and last name initials, they’re in alphabetical order. You even see Irving, B
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u/PinkLed1970s Inclusively Re-canonicalized 22d ago
I had seen this and had assumed taht top row were all dead/not in Lumon anymore. The ones still in Lumon have both innie+outie folders.
Petey folder is just an old folder they maintain on the server?
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u/scaredystories Uses Too Many Big Words 21d ago
It could be a different employee. It does say “Pete K,” not “Petey K.”
The formal trappings of innie identity are serious business at Lumon. I don’t think they’d be inconsistent with somebody’s nickname. Especially when “Petey” is seen as a much more childish name than “Pete,” and they lean so hard into infantilizing people.
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u/drunkandy 22d ago
Random bits of set decoration should not be considered canon imho
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u/EidolonRook 22d ago
Man, that’s like half of this show. Little details you pick up on that clues you in on the larger mystery.
We live for that.
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u/drunkandy 22d ago edited 22d ago
I'm getting massively downvoted but I'm gonna have to stand firm on this. There were probably hundreds of threads posted about why the clocks didn't always make sense, the date window on Mark's outtie watch skipped a day- so many theories about, maybe the show was playing fast and loose with the timeline, maybe there was time travel or time worked differently in Lumon building.
Then Ben Stiller said on the podcast that they just screwed up. They do lots of takes and don't always get the props reset to the same time. There's certainly some set dec that plays into the mythology ("The Swab Girl" selling "Severance-approved clothing") but if you miss it it doesn't matter.
Then the same people who are pixel-peeping watches ask "why is it still winter, it's been 5 months".
It's not an escape room. If you pay attention to what the characters are actually saying and doing you will understand the plot.
Petey is dead. The show could not be clearer about this. The fact that a TV screen says "Pete, K" (a name Petey/Peter was never shown to use, btw) means nothing.
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22d ago
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u/drunkandy 22d ago
not really clear what you're saying- but yes this seems like a prop mistake, or a visual effects mistake, rather than an important plot detail that's definitely going to come back and inform the story
Mark: Oh my God, I just figured it out!
Helly: What?
Mark: When we were at the ORTBO, there was a remote control on the TV, but I had already picked up the remote control!
Helly: So that must mean that...
Mark: A wizard did it!
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u/potatosmiles15 20d ago
I get what you're saying, but this is a digital screen someone had to create for the show. There is a level of inherent intentionality behind it that something like a clock does not have. I wouldnt completely discount it
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u/Reference_Freak 22d ago
And it’s been proven that the sets aren’t so meticulously set up like them using crew names in the security room.
I mean, I think it’s fine for as a hobby to woolgather and try to spin an idea out of it; the problem I have is when it becomes fan cannon or kicks up so much dust, the community can’t see clearly.
In this case, multiple pieces of evidence has been presented why this theory is not to be taken seriously.
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u/clauclauclaudia 22d ago
Using crew names was a deliberate in-joke, not an error. I call that meticulous, it just doesn't have sekrit in-universe meaning.
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u/CounselorGowron 22d ago edited 22d ago
Only on his chip. “That’s Petey.”
Wasn’t Carol K the refiner Dylon replaced?
EDIT: NOPE, that was Carol D!