2015’s Inside Out is probably one of my favorite animated films of all time. Maybe I was already too old to enjoy the film as much as I did and to feel as emotionally connected to it as I did, but I can say with certainty that, nine years later, I still feel the same exact way. Now, there’s a lot of trouble at headquarters (you know I had to) both in the case of Disney and Pixar, but somehow, Inside Out 2 is earnest in its attempt at making something authentic and heartfelt. Now, don’t get me wrong, it might be my good old friend nostalgia showing up in here, but hey, at least she helped me feel joy again, and that’s the whole point of watching an animated movie, yes? Yes. Okay. With all that said, let me dive straight into everything that happens in Inside Out 2.
Spoiler Alert
Why does Riley have new emotions?
Homegirl Riley is now 13 years old, and she’s a delightful girl at the top of her class, a good person, and a wonderful friend. As it works in headquarters, Joy, leading her gang of emotions, namely, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust, are all excited to see her next stage in life, her teenage. Riley’s also into ice hockey, a sport that she and her two best friends, Grace and Bree, are fantastic at. Up at headquarters, there’s a new island that’s taken over, the “friendship island,” leaving family island small and hueless, but no need to fret; we’ve got new things to look forward to, no? The film begins with a hockey game that Riley and her friends ace. Seeing how much they love hockey, Coach Roberts invites them over to a 3-day hockey camp. The girls are obviously delighted to spend three whole days together and can’t wait to hang out and play the game they love the most. However, what Riley doesn’t know is that this is the night when puberty is going to take over.
The night before camp, Joy and the gang are alarmed by the sound of fast-approaching puberty. With age come new crippling emotions, and before Joy can understand what’s happening, a big old workforce is in the space, breaking everything down in order to make room for the new kids in town. When it comes to daytime, Riley has to go to camp, and immediately she snaps at her mom, leaving everyone up at headquarters a bit confused. It turns out there are some new folks in town, namely, Anxiety (ouch), Embarrassment (a cute pink blob you just want to hug endlessly), Envy (a cute little pod with the largest eyes for obvious reasons), and Ennui (a cool girl, but she’s French, or at least has the accent). They’re all super excited to meet the older emotions, who’ve brought Riley up all this time, looked after her memories, etc. However, it seems they’ve got some disagreements with controls. Joy’s had the wheel for 13 years, but Anxiety seems to have different plans for Riley. In fact, all she’s got are terrifying plans for the future.
Beliefs come together to form a person’s sense of self. For Riley, those beliefs come from positive memories, like when she helped her friends or when she fed a stray cat. The memories that shape Riley’s sense of self manifest as a positive blue flower that reminds her that she’s a good person amongst other fantastic things about her. On the other hand, the real world has new challenges for Riley too. Riley’s obsessed with her high school senior and Fire Hawks captain, Val. Riley also learns that her two best friends have been assigned to a different school, meaning they’ll be splitting up next year, her first year of high school. No, it’s the worst for a 3-person group to get split! How does one survive this? Now Joy wants Riley to be besties with her old friends still, but Anxiety thinks she’ll be all alone if she doesn’t try to befriend Val and her girls immediately. When they can’t come to common ground, Anxiety ends up forcefully jarring the primary emotions and hijacking the ship (that’s why it feels like that). The suppressed emotions are locked inside the vault, a spot for Riley’s secrets. I’m still waiting to know what her deep secret was, but fine.
In the meantime, Anxiety gets rid of the old sense of self and starts to build a new one with her new emotions. In all honesty, Envy and Ennui don’t have much of a role; they just exist, but at least Ennui is able to save Riley from utter destruction under the control of her crippling Anxiety. The other emotions manage to escape the vault with the help of Riley’s secret friends, a TV show host like Dora the Explorer, and a hot video game character.
How is Riley saved?
In a very Toy Story-like situation, the old emotions try to get back to headquarters to help Riley, while they watch Anxiety basically ruining her life. They feel discarded and low, but Joy keeps pushing, finding the stream of consciousness to get to the top. However, they’re stumped when Riley makes a sarcastic comment in the real world, which creates a “sar-chasm” (I love this pun game) and completely destroys the stream of consciousness. Anxiety’s got Riley to stick to Val while she ignores her old friends because that’s what’s better for her future. Sadness gets split with the team as she tries to make her way up a pipe to help bring the rest up from the back of Riley’s mind. That’s where Anxiety threw Riley’s old sense of self. Soon, when they can’t find a way there and everyone’s complaining, Joy finally gives up too. Anger calls her delusional to think everything is okay, and she tells him that she is delusional because that’s the only way to keep Riley happy. Joy just wants to save the poor girl, but the rest of them can’t stop complaining. Finally, Anger, Fear, and Disgust show Joy that they’re with her, and she’s always been the one to keep them together.
In the real world, Riley’s meant to play a game on the third day of camp that will basically determine her future. Val was the only freshman who scored two goals in this game, but Anxiety decides Riley needs to do more. They push her to her limits after a night out, making her go look at the coach’s red book, where she writes down everything about the players. Riley’s notes say “not ready yet,” which makes Anxiety go into a frenzy. On the other hand, Sadness seeks help from Embarrassment, who is starting to see how Anxiety might not be the best for Riley right now. He helps her stay hidden until she can bring the others up. However, when Riley sneaks into the coach’s office, Sadness tries to control her with Ennui’s phone, getting caught.
On the other hand, the rest of the emotions head off into imagination land, where they find Anxiety’s minions, who are feeding Riley terrifying images of what the future could hold. Joy and the gang hijack the minions, telling them that they’re hurting Riley, not saving her, and changing the images to happy ones, allowing her to get some shut-eye before the big game. After traveling through a brain storm (when Anxiety needs a good idea to get Riley to win the coach over), the emotions finally end up at the base of the stream of consciousness, where Riley’s memories are used to create her sense of self. They use dynamite to destroy the mountain of bad memories that Joy had discarded to get there, i.e., also bringing along the bad memories to help form a new Riley.
In the meantime, Anxiety ends up going into overdrive, and she starts panicking after Riley’s playing so hard that she’s fighting her own teammates and hurting her own friends. When Riley’s given a penalty, she has what we can only call an anxiety attack. She starts to hyperventilate as Anxiety can’t stop fidgeting with the controls. Nobody is able to stop Anxiety, and finally, when Joy and the gang make it to headquarters, there’s an orange storm around the controls. Joy finally dives into the storm and convinces Anxiety to let Riley go. This would be the best thing for Riley. When Anxiety lets go, Riley finally begins to calm down; additionally, a new sense of self starts forming, and this time, it includes Riley’s bad memories, too. She’s a good person, but she can be afraid sometimes. She’s a good friend, but she needs help too. Finally, none of the emotions are controlling Riley, and they all end up hugging Riley’s new sense of self, Anxiety included. Finally, when Grace and Bree come to check on Riley in the real world, she admits that she felt terrible that they were going to leave her alone and acted like a jerk towards them. They hug it out and come back to playing the game again. This time, golden specks travel from Joy to the control panel, making it seem like Riley really wants her. It’s just Riley and her favorite sport that bring her joy.
At the end of Inside Out 2, Riley is waiting to hear if she makes it on the team. We don’t actually see if she does make it, because it doesn’t matter. The emotions are all there for Riley, and she can finally be her true self. Val tells Riley that if she doesn’t make it this year, she’ll always have the next, and in her head, Joy gives Anxiety a special seat, a massage couch that helps her relax and forget about her terrifying future plans.
