Last night’s Watchmen finale didn’t answer every lingering question we had—how could it? It had a very long to-do list, and it had to check items off that list and be pretty great at the same time. Yet mercifully, the invaluable supplement Peteypedia managed to answer one of the biggest, most meaningful questions after “See How They Fly” ended: The identity and whereabouts of Lube Man, pictured above.
It did so in a single “file”: a memo announcing the firing of the man behind Peteypedia himself, Agent Dale Petey.
The two relevant paragraphs are below—though trust me, it’s worth reading in full.
(Former) Agent Petey’s computer folder will be deleted from the share server in 48 hours, after which time his meandering, self-indulgent memos (he certainly puts the “I” in FBI) and ridiculous documents will only exist as hard copy. Let the legacy of “Peteypedia” be an example of how NOT to conduct professional electronic discourse. Moving forward, I expect to see only the most succinct analysis and most pertinent information in your folders, not exhaustive summations of television programs as if they were in any way relevant to anything, nor schematics of pornographic space-age sex toys. Understood?
Similarly, a maintenance crew will be boxing up the contents of Petey’s office later this afternoon. Anyone interested in taking anything from the stacks of media, ephemera, and straight-up junk cluttering his workspace — multiple copies of Rorschach’s Journal, hundreds of “comic” books (why our society is still so obsessed with pirates is beyond me) and a jug of what appears to be some kind of canola oil, help yourselves. Let the record reflect that I have personally removed a new album by The Nine Inch Nails entitled The Manhattan Project, as my son listens to that garbage, it is rotting his brain, and it brought me great personal delight to smash this “music” into pieces.
If you were just looking at the PDF, you might say, “Canola oil? That’s weird, but it’s hard to say that reveals the identity of Lube Man. But hover over the words on the PDF in Peteypedia and you’ll notice that it’s a hidden hyperlink; click the link and it takes you a link containing this photo, titled “american-zero-story.jpg.” (Sick burn, FBI.)
So Lube Man is Dale Petey. But that’s not all.
The rest of this post contains plot details from the season finale of Watchmen.
On a more somber note, the memo ends with the news that Petey himself is missing.
My understanding from Tulsa PD is that he has now gone missing. Given the simultaneous deaths of a U.S. senator and a prominent trillionaire, it would appear Petey has taken it upon himself to continue the investigation despite our closing it. It’s clear now from his memos that Petey (Hero Enthusiast-Obsessive/ Solipsist on the Werthem Spectrum) is at risk for vigilante behavior, and most likely, always was. Perhaps sooner or later, this task force will be investigating him.
God help us all,
Max Farragut
Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
We’re hoping he just canola’d down the drain to safety, wherever he is. We salute you, Lube Man.
54 Comments
He’s not missing. He’s not gone. He’ll always be in our hearts.Whenever the wheels of justice need greasing, he’ll be there.Whenever people cry out for friction-less freedom, he’ll be there.Whenever evil fascist bigots need a reckoning of lubrication, he’ll be there.Godspeed, Lube Man. May the Lube be with you. Lube is all you need. /salute
To be honest, I would have been perfectly happy with the scene never being addressed in any way ever again after it abruptly burst out of nowhere and then just as quickly disappeared whence it possibly came from. The sheer randomness and then disappearance as is was perfect.
I mean…duh.
Wir sind alle Schmeirmenschen.
Going to repost here so maybe the physical media gods / anyone with a pipeline to HBO can hear me;Find someway to make the PeteyPedia stuff a part of the Blu-ray set like the Historie & Lore and Interactive Guide from the Game Of Thrones sets.
On that note: in case any of y’all want, I took the liberty to make a fancy-ish digital copy of Peteypedia last night in .pdf format in case HBO decides to take it down some point soon. Hope you enjoy! https://mega.nz/#!pM9FACwS!rw8jK3b4oRAVQTlQaLpVGC3LkfjWgBAQ6D5qb3E3w58
You are the hero I needed due to HBO’s regional re-directing bullshit. Thank you.
Lube Man is a real character? Well how about that ………..I just thought everyone was having fun with John Teti
I am slightly annoyed the fact that the reveal of who Lube Man is was not only pointless to the plot but it wasn’t even revealed in the show. Why include Lube Man if he doesn’t contribute anything to the plot at all?And before everyone starts defending Peteypedia by mentioning Tales From the Black Freighter, unlike the former, the latter is actually included in the comic. Hell this isn’t the first time Lindelof or any of his frequent collaborators did shit like Peteypedia. Like how Star Trek: Into Darkness never bothers to explain why Khan looks like a pasty white Englishman. That was explained in a comic tie-in I’m certain few if any read.
Why include Lube Man if he doesn’t contribute anything to the plot at all?He did contribute. He helped flesh out this world, showing that vigilantes exist, and are still active in the world of masked law enforcement. Not every element has to be a vital plot point, sometimes you just want to add some world-building to your story.
He was also how Blake knew Angela was involved before Looking Glass (forgot his real name) was forced to turn on her.
Laurie’s introduction also showed us that vigilantes existed.
Coming 2021 to HBO Max…
It’s an Easter Egg basically. It’s fun and it fleshes out the world a bit, but completely unnecessary to enjoy the main story
Lube Man’s role was to lure Angela into chasing him right after she dropped a bag of evidence off a bridge. Angela runs after Lube Man, Lube Man slips into a sewer, Laurie recovered the evidence.
I think Chekhov said “If you introduce a Lube Man in act one, the Lube Man should do something of consequence by act three.”
Ah… Chekov’s Lube Man, one of the great literary tools…
Why would anyone mention Black Freighter? Peteypedia is a clear homage to the backmatter from the comics (Under the Hood, Blood From the Shoulder of Pallas, etc.). It’s also non-essential world-building — I saw people figuring out who Lube Man was long before Peteypedia started dropping hints.
It should be noted that Laurie mentions in the show that she reads all the memos.
I loved it, but there was a lot about this recent adaptation of Watchmen that was frustrating. Lube Man was only one of many irritants:Looking Glass was established as a major character, and then he just. . . stopped being one without any kind of satisfying resolution. Angela’s personal narrative was almost wholly overshadowed by her grandfather’s.
Trieu was another character that could’ve used better elaboration. For all the impact it had on the plot, you could have taken all the time spent on Veidt’s self-imposed exile and dedicated it instead to fleshing out Trieu.Raising interesting questions and then not doing anything with them is kind of a Lindelof trademark, so I should’ve expected it, but still.
But are you complaining about that one great episode Looking Glass had? Lindelof sacrificed one thing for another, he sacrificed all the hangout time we wanted with these character or their own involvement in service of very satisfying single episode arcs. I wanted more LG too but can’t have everything.
I’m sorry. I am so sorry! I just keep imagining you waking up in the
morning, sir, looking in the mirror and then in all seriousness saying
to yourself…“You know what would be a really kick-ass name? Laserface!”
. . . and this is his ass!
I took the not-reveal of LubeMan as another intentional parallel with the comic. In the graphic novel, we never do find out who Hooded Justice is. Which inspired Lindelof to do this whole thing. So here’s an opportunity for another creator to do another Watchmen remix.
So, it’s completely off the topic, but I wanted to post this somewhere it might get seen: Anyone else getting the latest Kinja update where notifications don’t actually take you to the comment/reply they reference?Get Ernie on the line, I’m sure he’ll tell me how much I’ll enjoy the change once I use it properly.
I’m seeing that problem as well.
It could be worse. Notifications could actually take you to the comment/reply they reference.
Yep.Edit: Not that you’ll see this.
By going to the article and selecting “Newest” on comments, I can keep track of it.
Yep. Started today.
I didn’t get a Community notification for this?
What is the cause of all these numerous seemingly random issues with Kinja? You’d think with how long the platform has been up that there’d be maybe a couple recurring similar ones, not a series of novel problems du jours. Do the developers just keep changing the code for shits, or is the place going SHODAN or what?
Also, since I updated to the newest version MacOS, I can’t log into my account using Safari. This happened once before and the issue sorted itself out after a few weeks, but just a heads up if anybody’s listening.
No kidding. This recurring adventure is getting old.
Kinja requires you to turn off Cross Site Tracking in Safari to work. Yup. Downgrade your security, just for this bloody site.
Thanks, but I tried that and it didn’t work.
Huh. That’s the only thing that’s ever gotten it to work for me.
Try clearing your kinja cookie and try again.
I tried removing all the relevant cookies and still no dice. The thing is, I vaguely remember doing this the last time the issue came up. Could I be missing anything?I have this problem on my iOS devices, but it can usually be fixed by erasing my Safari history and logging back in. Anyway, thanks.
It seems they decided to break it. It’s being very wonky.
Yup I’m having the same issue. Good luck finding my comment though!
Yep took me ages to find the correct bit to respond to some smart ass this morning.
Its been driving me nut lately.
you’re an absolute simp if you thought this show was good
Just as Lori Blake was the lover of Doctor Manhattan, perhaps, so too will be the fate of Lube Man and Angela Abar. They seem like a natural fit.
Of all the theories and things to keep you guessing on this show, I always thought Petey as Lube Man pretty darn obvious.
Nobody saw it when he showed up on the screen first? Like tall skinny guy with a weird costume, definitely hand-made, and he was messing up specifically with Angela. It was obv that FBI guy, who came with Silk.
If ever there was a sequel to this sequel, I hope Petey remains in some form to archive these misc. pieces of information.
Lube Man is a good example of how the Watchmen got sloppy in the end. Handling the resolution of that character via the Peteypedia was sloppy. And I enjoyed the Peteypedia, but it was not like the original supplemental material, which was actually in the comic books. The eighth and ninth episodes of the Watchmen are why the show won’t be featured in every argument about the best tv show ever made, twenty years from now.
Also, he was clearly inspired by his obsession with Fogdancing. From the previous EP’s Peteypedia, here are two quotes from young Petey’s book summary: “wearing his…skin-tight silver suit shimmering
with SPF-666, looking slick and doing what must be done”“…the lean, mean form of Rawhide,
a surreal sight in his pearly haz-mat jumper and signature combat goggles.
Sneaking into the compound by slipping through the air ducts”
much as I love Petey and enjoyed Peteypedia, his former boss is right that he had TERRIBLE email discipline and the tone of his memos was like “freshman writing an opinion column in the school newspaper” (“tacos for lunch, AGAIN?”)…not to mention sleeping with his boss which even if it was her idea and hard to resist hardly puts him in the company of Melvin Purvis.I agree with a few other people that the final episode didn’t quite land the plane (what does Angela’s decision that she WANTS Dr. Manhattan’s power exactly have to do with overcoming inherited trauma?) but hopefully there’s another season (and we’ll always have those great individual episodes)
On a more somber note, the memo ends with the news that Petey himself is missing.
Uh… has anyone checked Wade’s squid shelter?