Riley and her two best friend, Grace and Bree, who all play hockey together, have been invited to a three-day overnight hockey camp. Now three days seems really short, but I'm guessing they did it because they thought two weeks would be too long. They were invited by Coach Roberts, the coach of the high school team, the Fire Hawks, and these three days could determine whether the girls make the team or not.
The girls will be starting high school next year and it's only on the drive to the camp when Grace and Bree tell Riley that they will be attending a different high school from Riley. I'm so confused because they were invited by the coach of the Fire Hawks, so why would she invite two girls who will be going to a different high school? The whole point of this storyline is for Riley to have anxiety about her friends going to a different high school, so she tries to impress the older girls who are already on the Fire Hawks so she can be friends with them and thus won't be a friendless loser when she starts high school.
While the Emotions are sleeping (they sleep when Riley sleeps), they are awakened by a loud beeping noise and wake up to see a big red button blinking. Now, if you remember at the end of the first movie when their control console is remodeled, they see this big red button that's labeled "puberty" or "poo bore tee" as one of them (I think it was Disgust) pronounces it. At that time they're not worried about it (and don't seem to even know what it means), but now the red light is getting brighter and the siren is getting louder. They're frantically trying to turn it off, but that's one switch you can't turn off! Joy manages to rip the button off and places it in the tube that will send it to the Back of the Mind but of course that's not going to work. Did these Emotions not get the handbook on puberty?
A demolition team appears and has come to expand the place for "the others". Of course, this means the new Emotions that we are introduced to. These include Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment, and Ennui. I would argue you can definitely have all these emotions before you turn thirteen, you may just not realize what you're feeling. Also, I understand from a movie perspective, they can't have all these emotions in the first movie.
Anxiety is an emotion I know all too well because I'm pretty sure anxiety controls me most of the time. I am someone who worries about everything all the time. While Sadness is the main Emotion in the first movie, Anxiety is in the driver's seat in this movie for the most part. Poor Riley. I love the designs and personalties for the new Emotions. Because yellow (Joy), blue (Sadness), red (Anger), green (Disgust), and purple (Fear) are already taken, we get new colors for the new Emotions. Well, sort of. Two colors are used again, just a different shade. I was a little surprised that Envy is more of a blue shade than green but after looking up some information about her on the Pixar Wiki fandom (now there's a site you could get lost in the wormholes!), I found out she was supposed to be emerald, but her color was changed to aquamarine so she wouldn't look too similar to Disgust. I think a dark green would have worked for her because Disgust is a shade of light green. Embarrassment is pink (of course) and the biggest Emotion in size and wears a hoodie that he hides his face in throughout 99% of the movie. He mostly just talks in squeaks and yelps and he doesn't utter a sentence until the end of the movie. Quick sidetone: I find it interesting that Riley's Emotions are both male and female while when we see other people's Emotions controlling them (like her parents or her friends), they're all the same gender of whoever the person they're controlling. Ennui is voiced by a French actress so I love the Emotion that's a French word has a French accent. We are told that Ennui emulates boredom, but I found her to have a "too cool for school" attitude, like she didn't give a flying you-know-what. I think being bored and trying too act like you don't care are two completely different things. Anxiety's design is my favorite. She is orange with hair that sticks up and reminds me of a Fraggle Rock. I was listening to the Filmspotting review of this movie and one of the hosts said the same thing, heh. She is also the definition of her name, always scurrying about and worrying about everything.
The same day the new Emotions arrive is the same day that Riley arrives at the hockey camp with her friends. When she gets to the campus, she bumps into Valentina (Val) Ortiz who is the captain of the Fire Hawks. Anxiety takes over because she thinks if Riley becomes friends with Val, she'll be with the in crowd and have friends when she attends high school. This causes Anxiety and Joy to get into an argument about whether Riley should stick with her original friends or befriend the cool new girls. Anxiety says that while it's Fear's job to protect Riley from the scary stuff she can see, it's her job to protect her from the scary stuff she can't see. You know, I never really thought of it that way.
In the locker room before the first practice, Val introduces Riley to the other Fire Hawks, a group of four or five girls. Again, I'm not really sure why they're at this skills camp if they're already on the team, but I guess extra practice is always good. Val invites her to sit with them, but Riley tells her she's saving seats for her friends (they're in the locker room getting ready to play hockey, it's not like they're going to be in there that long). Bree and Grace come in and the three friends are all excitedly taking selfies with Riley's phone, making faces and chatting animatedly. Coach Roberts enters and tells everyone to "settle in" and while all the other girls are giving her their full attention, the three friends are still gigging. When the coach gets stern with them and tells them they need their focus, they get quiet, but it's too late and the Coach starts passing around a box telling everyone they need to put their phones in it. This makes everyone pretty (and rightly) annoyed with Riley. Yeah, I'd be pretty irked if I had to surrender my phone because of someone's moronic actions.
You would think after that, Riley would be on her best behavior, but she keeps talking with her friends and now the Coach has them skate lines. Anxiety does her work and pretty much has Riley groveling to Val so she can get on her good side and try to make a better impression. When Coach Roberts tells them to split into two teams, Anxiety wants her to join the team with Val, but Joy wants her to be on the team with Bree and Grace. Okay, I'm confused....why is Riley even getting the option to choose? Shouldn't the Coach have numbered them off or something or have two captains with a schoolyard pick? I get that it's for the purpose of the plot, but in no universe would this ever happen. Says the person who never participated in sports because no athletic bone exists in my body.
Anxiety ends up getting her way after she tosses Riley's "Sense of Self" away (all the way to the Back of the Mind) and tells Joy that they'll build her a new one. The original Emotions are bottled up (literally - they're all stuffed into a bottle. As Fear puts it, "We are suppressed emotions!") and sent away to The Vault while the new Emotions take some new thoughts down to the Belief System: "If I'm a Fire Hawk, I won't be alone" and "If I'm good at hockey, then I'll have friends." (Aren't these pretty much the same exact thought?)
The Vault is a lair-like place that holds Riley's deep dark secrets, one being that she still likes Bloofy (I'm a guessing a portmanteau of Bluey and Goofy) an animated kids' show about a dog that has an educational element to it. I'm not sure why a thirteen-year-old would like a show that's geared towards three-year-olds. From what I gather, this show seems like it's very basic, teaching toddlers very simple things, but I guess that's why it's one of her deep darks secrets.
Joy tells the others they need to go to the Back of the Mind to get Riley's Sense of Self back and all they have to do is follow the Stream of Conscience (reminds me of the Train of Thought from the first movie) that will take them there. Joy is already imagining how the scenario will go: "Riley will be Riley again" after they put back her Sense of Self and Joy adds, "And then I'll tell Anxiety, 'Hey don't worry so much anymore.'" Heh, that made me laugh. That's like telling Joy not to be so chipper all the time.
Meanwhile, Anxiety has made Riley get up super early to get in some practice. (Probably not too hard for Riley because I know when I have anxiety I can't sleep!) Anxiety feels validation when Val comes in early as well and tells Riley, "You get what it takes to be the best" and invites her to come hang out with her and her friends later that evening. Both Anxiety and Envy are super excited about this.
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| "Oh, Poooooouchyyyyy!" |
Once they're released, they come to the Stream of Conscience which has whatever Riley is thinking about at the moment floating in it. What I want to know is what if she's thinking an abstract thought? They see a bunch of food including pizza, an apple, a burger, popcorn, chips, and milk (eww...pizza and milk...two foods that should never go together, but then again I think milk is only good paired with chocolate). Just moments before, after practice had ended, Riley had told Val how hungry she was and how she could go for a pizza so she had food on the mind.
Joy wants them all to hop on a piece of pizza to use as a raft, but Sadness points out that they'll need somebody at the console at Headquarters to bring them back (this movie gets a bit convoluted with its geography of Riley's mind) in the tube so Joy says someone is going have to climb all the way back in the tube (and it's a loooong way) and Sadness is picked for the job.
So right now, we have three different storylines going on. We have the one with Joy, Anger, Fear, and Disgust continuing their quest to restore Riley's Sense of Self, we have the one led by Anxiety with Envy right beside her both wanting to make sure Riley is set up well for her future in high school, and we have the one with Riley herself at hockey camp.
Anxiety and Envy are now worried when the girls from the Fire Hawks and Riley are looking through the window of Coach Brown's office door and see a red notebook on her desk. The girls tell Riley that their coach keeps all the notes about all the players in there. The emotions (especially Anxiety) are worried that something bad may be written about Riley in there. Now, Val and the other girls (sorry, I don't remember their names; I don't know if they were even given names) are not portrayed as mean girls, but this was kind of a dick move for the girls to tell Riley about it. Now the poor girl is going to be worrying over it. Maybe it wasn't the older girls' intention (and, again, I know it's for the purpose of the plot), but I didn't love this.
Ennui decides to take over so Riley sarcastically tells the other girls how much she loves Get Up and Glow and passes off her original answer as a joke. We now jump back to Joy and the others who have been floating down the Stream of Consciousness but have to abandon ship when a huge chasm appears. They are told by a demolition worker that it's "a sar-chasm." Heh, I can only imagine how proud whoever came up with that in the writers' room was. You know the writers for this movie (and the first one) had a lot of fun with the word play (Train of Thought, Stream of Conscience, and later we'll get a Brain Storm). What I loved about the sar-chasm is that whatever Joy and the others yelled across the chasm to a couple of demolition workers, they heard it as sarcasm. When Joy calls over to them in a very sincere way, "We're lucky to run into you guys, we really need your help", they heard it in a very sarcastic tone and of course aren't happy about it and don't help them.
Back in reality, Riley finds out they're having a scrimmage tomorrow and the girls tell her it could decide her fate of being on the team. The more I think of it, the less I like these girls. They sure do love to taunt Riley for no reason.
While Anxiety and Envy are ensuring that Riley makes the team and maintains her friendships with the hockey girls, Embarrassment finds Sadness and she indicates for him to be quiet. (Lucky for her, he hardly talks.) She is looking at files and he helps her by finding the ones she needs.
Now Joy and the others have entered Imagination Land (I believe that was also in the first movie...isn't that where Riley's dreams were produced?) only to find that Anxiety and Envy are using Rileys imagination against her. They have several workers there (I'm not sure what they were called) drawing different scenes of all the scenarios Anxiety has Riley thinking of that could happen during the scrimmage. These include things like what if she hits the puck in her own net or what if she misses a pass or what if the other team wins. Joy and the others quickly come up with more positive scenarios such as Riley wins and everyone hugs her. Okay, I'm going to let you in a little secret why I think it's better (and maybe that's not the right word) to be a pessimist than an optimist. When you think of all the worse scenarios and it happens, then at least you're prepared for it. However, when you're hoping for the best outcome or a good one, and it doesn't happen, it's even worse! But if you're expecting something bad to happen, but something good happen, it's the best scenario! In this case, if I were in Riley's shoes, I would totally be thinking of all the horrible things that could happen during a hockey scrimmage...the last thing I would be thinking is that I would win and everyone would hug me. But like I said earlier, I'm pretty much controlled by anxiety!
Anxiety is being projected on a large screen and she and Joy have a back and forth:
So there's a very niche reference to a famous Apple commercial from 1984 that was only aired once. I only know about it because I learned about it in an economics class in high school....I think, I don't really remember how I learned about it honestly, but it's a pretty famous commercial. One of the Imagination Land illustrations throws a chair at the screen with Anxiety's face and as soon as I saw that I knew they were parodying that 1984 Apple commercial. Yeah, I felt pretty smug about knowing that. I won't lie. Go Google it. Another reference that I caught was one from Network when Anger tells the Imagination Land workers, "You don't have to take it anymore!" I've never seen Network but even I know the "I'm mad as hell and I don't have to take it anymore!" line from Peter Finch (I did have to look up the name of the actor).
Now that Anxiety's plans have been foiled, she wakes a sleeping Riley to make her consider sneaking into the coach's office to read the notebook to see what was written about her. Over a walkie-talkie (Riley's mind truly is a complex place), Sadness warns Joy and the others what Riley is up to and Joy tells her she has to stop her. Apparently Coach Roberts doesn't keep her office door locked. I sure hope she does't keep anything valuable in her office! And it's not like she keeps her notebook locked in a desk, no, it's just sitting on her desk just asking to be read. I'm guessing it's really early in the morning (or maybe late at night?) because right before she enters the office, she hears a janitor down the hall and quickly slips into the office and slides down to the floor and locks the door so the janitor can't get in (or see her when he uses a flashlight to peer in the room).
Riley picks up the notebook. Sadness has control over her and she starts crying until Anxiety takes over and Riley wipes away her tears and determinedly opens the notebook. All she sees written under her name is "not ready yet." I'm sorry, but that's all that was written? What are the reasons she's not ready? Some coach! You'd think she'd have a list of things Riley needs to improve on. But maybe that's for the best because I'm sure that would have wrecked Riley even more had there been specifics.
Anxiety and Envy are freaking out and Anxiety says they're going to have "to change Coach's mind" and all they need are "lots of idea." Cut to the other Emotions who are getting pelted with little colorful pellets. It is, of course, a "brain storm". Joy catches a few of them and some of the ideas include "hog the puck" and "trash talk the other team." I don't know how much the latter would help Riley make the team. If anything, you would probably be called out for bad sportsmanship. Anxiety and Envy realize the ideas are too small and they need to come up with a "big idea" (which is in the shape of a lightbulb that gets screwed into the console). Since Val made two goals at the scrimmage that made her a Fire Hawk, Riley's idea is to score three goals.
At this point, Joy and the others have reached the Back of the Mind to retrieve Riley's old Sense of Self which is sitting on top of a giant heap of bad memories that Joy has previously sent there. Riley's new Sense of Self now has a new mantra, "I'm not good enough" and this alarms Anxiety, but she spins it as Riley knows there's "always room for self-improvement."
The only way for the original Emotions to get back to Headquarters has diminished and Joy admits to the others that she "doesn't know how to stop Anxiety." (Who does, am I right?) In the end, they summon their good friend Pouchy who's carrying a bunch of dynamite and they use that to blow up the cliff so they can "ride an avalanche of bad memories back to Headquarters." I couldn't help notice that some of the bad memories were yellow which would indicate joy. All the other colors/emotions I can see being part of a bad memory, but shouldn't there be no yellow in that pile of bad memories?
While playing the scrimmage, Riley makes her first score even though one of her teammates was open and told her to pass it. She continues to play erratically, stealing the puck from one of her teammates and makes another goal. She's happy, but her teammates aren't. She makes her third goal, but at the result of slamming into another player (who happens to be Grace) who goes flying cross the ice. The coach puts Riley in the penalty box for two minutes. She appears to be having a full-blown panic attack (as we see Anxiety furiously controlling the console and Envy tells her she's putting too much pressure on Riley).
The other Emotions have returned and Joy tells Anxiety that she can't choose who Riley is and that she needs to let her go. In the end, Riley's Sense of Self is a mixture of the old ("I'm a good person") with the new ("I'm not good enough"). Riley, like everyone else, is a complex person and her Emotions love her just the way she is. Riley apologizes to her friends and feels much better as Joy takes over and she is able to have fun playing hockey. (And in the end, she does make the Fire Hawks. At least, it's implied that she does.)
Like I mentioned earlier, Inside Out is my second favorite Pixar movie, so of course I was delighted when I found out there would be a sequel. I thought this movie was solid, but nowhere near as good as the first one. While I did cry during this movie, I was bawling during the first one. I also though the stakes were much higher for Riley in the first movie when she moved from Minnesota to San Franscisco. Yeah, having your close friends go to a different school would suck, but she's still going to be able to see them. In the first movie, she moved from Minnesota to San Fransisco. Her parents (voiced by Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) aren't in this one as much as the first one. I did forget to mention a fun side character, Nostalgia (voice by June Squib) who is this adorable granny-looking character who likes to reminisce about the past and the other Emotions have to remind her Riley's not quite ready for her. (She is only 13, after all...does anyone really have nostalgia when they're 13? Well, maybe she has nostalgia for the days when she watched Bloofy!)
