Apologies to all my friends and family who are stuck dealing with me while I watch Severance, because it’s all I’m willing to talk about. Theories about this show run the gamut from genius to deranged, but a fan just hopped on Reddit with one about the Lumon elevator scanner that needs to be discussed.
As we all know, an Outie’s chip activates (prompting them to become their Innie self) during the elevator ride to the Severed Floor. Enter the Elevator Scanner Theory from u/Ostroh, which speculates that there’s actually a transition floor between the outside world and the Severed Floor, where workers enter an “intermediate innie persona” (we know this is possible thanks to Gemma being severed multiple times) and are checked by Lumon personnel to make sure there’s no information being passed from Innies to Outies.
But wait, there’s more: This theory could also explain how Outie Irv has been gathering information: As Redditor u/Ostroh speculated, what if he’s able to “communicate with his innie with his watch using navy signals (they would not know the code)” during this transitional period?
While this is obviously just a theory, the fact that Gemma is severed into dozens of realities—each of which is confined to a specific room—does open the door to the core cast also having multiple severed realities that the viewer doesn’t know about. Though honestly, that would open up a level of confusion that I’m not sure I’m mentally prepared for.
