Inside Out 2

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Warning! This page contains spoilers about Inside Out 2

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Inside Out 2 is a film sequel to Inside Out by Pixar Animation Studios, released on June 14, 2024.^[4]^[5] It is Pixar’s twenty-eighth feature-length film.

Synopsis[]

Inside Out 2 explores deeper within Riley's mind as new emotions start to appear around her new daily life.^[5]

Plot[]

Two years after the events of the first film Inside Out, Riley's emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust) are happily tending to her during a hockey game and preparing her for high school. As they work in tandem, the emotions have created a sub-basement in Headquarters called the "Sense of Self" where they place the memories that help build Riley's character. This results in the creation of a ball of strands that voices Riley's inner self, "I am a good person." Joy has also built a pipe that shoots out terrible memories that they want to forget to the "back of the mind". Riley wants to try out for her high school's hockey team, the Fire Hawks, and the emotions make sure that Riley feels her best self.

In the middle of the night, the emotions are awoken by the sound of the puberty alarm. Suddenly, an alarm goes off, and the HQ is suddenly swarmed with workers, who proceed to take apart the place and make additions to the control board. They leave without having finished, but warn them of new people coming in. The emotions quickly learn that their effect on Riley is much more unstable with her overreacting over minute details. Riley gets ready to go to hockey camp with her friends Grace and Bree. She calms down when she voices her intent for the three of them to make the Fire Hawks together, but Grace reveals that she and Bree are actually going to another high school, much to Riley's worry.

Upon arriving at camp though, the emotions are shocked to be greeted by Anxiety, a new emotion who constantly concerns herself with the worst case scenario in Riley's future. They also meet Envy, who is constantly jealous and amused at the other's traits, Embarrassment, who rarely speaks to the others, Ennui, who chills out on her couch and alters the control board with her phone, and Nostalgia, who constantly reflects on the past, but remains downstairs throughout the majority of the film.

Riley runs into her idol, Valentina "Val" Ortiz, who became a Fire Hawk during her freshman year. Anxiety and Envy ensure that Riley comes off as assured in front of Val, though they manage to make it incredibly awkward. When Riley struggles with either going with Val or her friends, Anxiety forces Riley to ignore her Sense of Self. While in the locker room, Joy gets Riley to goof off with Grace and Bree, but a coach, Coach Roberts, catches them and orders everyone to give up their phones and has them do exercises, making Riley embarrassed.

Anxiety continues to push Riley to look cool in front of Val and ignore Grace and Bree. To accomplish this, she takes her Sense of Self and launches it to the back of the mind. Anxiety tells Joy that she needs to reinvent Riley for the future, and Embarrassment literally bottle up Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear, pin for three holes with a screw, and send them all the way back to the vault, along with Riley's other hidden beliefs and emotions. In the meantime, Anxiety gets Riley to get back on Val's good side and motivates her to practice extra hard and to look good in front of her and Coach Roberts.

While in the vault, the emotions meet Bloofy, Pouchy, Lance Slashblade, and Deep Dark Secret. Deep Dark Secret breaks them out of their bottle while Pouchy produces a stick of dynamite to help them get out. Lance manages to defeat the security guards (by rolling into a ball and inadvertently knocking them into each other) and the emotions escape. They find the stream of consciousness and Joy plans for them to find Riley's Sense of Self at the back of the mind and coerces Sadness to go back up to Headquarters so that she can recall them back via walkie talkies.

Anxiety continues to have Riley alienate her friends in favor of Val and her group. During this time, she has her sarcastically quip about a band she likes, has her eating a protein bar that lacks flavor, and pushes her to constantly overwork herself, making her act out. Joy, Anger, Disgust, and Fear's journey to the back of Riley's mind is blocked off by the Sar-chasm, forcing them to go the long way around through the aisles of Riley's long term memory.

After Fear, Disgust, and Anger voice their frustration with their predicament, Joy admits that she does not know what to do and that she feels hopeless and pushed to her limit over constantly having an upbeat attitude. The others apologize and proceed to venture further. They eventually get to Imagination Land, but find that everything is being rearranged, save for "Mount Crushmore". They find that the massive pillow fort has been converted into a studio that creates future anxieties for Riley. The emotions convince the workers to envision positive ideas for Riley. While this causes Riley to be put at ease, this upsets Anxiety as she finds them unrealistic. The workers start ignoring Anxiety and the emotions flee from security.

The emotions run into a literal parade of future jobs and capture a balloon of Riley as a judge and fly away. Back at Headquarters, Sadness has holed herself up in a corner trying to read through the manuals for an answer. She is found out by Embarrassment, but he chooses to keep quiet about her existence. Anxiety decides to pull ideas, portrayed as light bulbs, so that she can make Riley change her mind. They call upon several, causing a brain storm to form and hindering Joy, Disgust, Anger, and Fear's adventure. They ultimately escape the storm, but a giant light bulb is brought back to Headquarters.

Anxiety has Riley get out of bed and head to Coach Roberts' office so that she can see how well she is doing at camp. Sadness manages to get Ennui's phone to prevent her from going through with it, but she is found out and captured. The emotions discover that Riley is "not ready yet", causing Anxiety to suggest completely devoting themselves to making themselves look better than everyone else. Riley's new Sense of Self forms, created entirely with Anxiety's emotions, and now utters "I'm not good enough", though Anxiety insists that it will go away eventually.

Joy, Disgust, Anger, and Fear finally reach the back of the mind and climb the mountain of abandoned memories. They found the Sense of Self and contact Sadness who managed to escape thanks to Embarrassment. She is too late to save the other emotions as Anxiety tears apart the pipe back. Joy finally breaks down as she is incapable of trying to put together how to save Riley who has grown into a self-conscious, self-hating individual. Anger calls upon Pouchy who gives them a lot of dynamite so that they can ride a flood of memories back to Headquarters.

During her hockey game, Riley injures Grace and is sidelined, causing her to have an anxiety attack, caused by Anxiety rapidly attempting to fix Riley and creating a wind storm in Headquarters. The rest of the emotions return with the memories imbuing themselves into the threads of Riley's Sense of Self. As they make it back to the top, Joy reaches out to Anxiety telling that everything will be okay and that she needs to let Riley go, freeing her from her own anxiety.

Joy places the original Sense of Self on the pedestal, but it is not enough to stop the storm. Realizing that pushing her mistakes to the back of her mind limited Riley's world view, Joy removes the Sense of Self and allows the flood of memories to create a new one, making Riley complex and emotional. Grace and Bree check on Riley who admits that she was upset over them going to different high schools and wanted to prove herself to make up for it. She apologizes for how she behaved and Grace and Bree forgive her, promising her that they will always be friends. The control panel willingly calls Joy to make Riley happy now that she is better, and it works.

Sometime later, Riley continues to warm up with Val and the rest of the Fire Hawks while still keeping tabs on Grace and Bree. Anxiety now has a corner for herself so that she can relax, Embarrassment becomes more open, though he is still shy, and the rest of the Emotions embrace their expanding family, though Nostalgia still remains in the basement. Riley, now having an ever changing Sense of Self, continues to live her life as she gets a text about her possible Fire Hawks recruitment. She opens it and smiles as the film ends.

Voice Cast[]

Kensington Tallman as Riley^[6]
Amy Poehler as Joy^[4]^[5]
Phyllis Smith as Sadness^[5]
Lewis Black as Anger^[5]
Tony Hale as Fear
Liza Lapira as Disgust
Maya Hawke as Anxiety
Ayo Edebiri as Envy
Adèle Exarchopoulos as Ennui
Paul Walter Hauser as Embarrassment
June Squibb as Nostalgia^[7]
Diane Lane as Riley's Mom^[5]
Kyle MacLachlan as Riley's Dad
Ron Funches as Bloofy^[8]
James Austin Johnson as Pouchy^[6]
Yong Yea as Lance Slashblade^[8]
Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green as Bree^[9]
Grace Lu as Grace^[9]
Lilimar as Valentina "Val" Ortiz^[6]
Yvette Nicole Brown as Coach Roberts^[6]
John Ratzenberger as Fritz^[6]
Frank Oz as Dave^[6]
Dave Goelz as Frank^[6]
Paula Pell as Mom's Anger^[6]
Paula Poundstone as Forgetter Paula^[6]
Bobby Moynihan as Forgetter Bobby^[6]
Kendall Coyne Schofield as Hockey Announcer^[6]
Kirk R. Thatcher as Foreman^[6]
Sarayu Blue as Margie^[6]
Flea as Jake^[6]

Production[]

Discard Emotions[]

At one point in the development of Inside Out 2, there were going to be nine new emotions. A couple of emotions that were confirmed and discarded included Guilt (who was always hiding behind a stack of luggage) and Shame.^[10]