Inside Out 2 Ending Explained: Embrace Anxiety And Let Joy In

This article contains major spoilers for "Inside Out 2."

At the end of Pixar's phenomenal "Inside Out," the core emotions of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear are given a new console in Headquarters to better equip the workers for the changes heading toward their girl, Riley Andersen. They've successfully helped her in her transition from Minnesota to the San Francisco Bay Area, prevented her from trying to run away from home, and helped restore Riley to the wonderful girl she's always been. She's on a new hockey team, the Fog Horns, and is embracing a new chapter in her life. But along with the console upgrades like the complete curse world library, there's a little section that reads "Puberty," which Joy (Amy Poehler) brushes off as "probably not important." Oh, Joy. You fool. You silly, optimistic fool.

"Inside Out 2" begins with a catch-up of what we've missed since we last saw Riley (Kensington Tallman), who now has two amazing friends named Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (Grae Lu) and the girls all play on the same hockey team together. The trio are heading into their last summer before high school, but not before attending a three-day hockey camp that may determine whether or not they make the varsity team. This is a big, stressful change for Riley, but to make things worse, new emotions arrive at headquarters — Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and even Nostalgia (June Squibb).

Riley's core emotions of Joy, Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira) are now being bottled up and shoved to the back of her mind to make room for the new kids on the block, throwing Riley's sense of self in complete disarray during a pivotal time in her life.

On the way to hockey camp, Riley learns that Bree and Grace aren't going to be at the same high school as Riley, which is heartbreaking and confusing for the core emotions, but validates the new emotions' belief that they are better equipped to handle such a complex situation. Instead of Joy's plan of enjoying the next three days with her closest friends before they go their separate ways as freshmen, Anxiety sees this as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for her future as a Fire Hawk hockey player by impressing the coach (Yvette Nicole Brown) and the team captain, Valentina (Lilimar). Riley is determined to impress them by any means necessary, which is where Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui get to stretch their muscles.

Anxiety takes control, much like Joy did in the first film, and Riley's ability to live in the moment is replaced by the fear of what may or may not happen, and the countless ways to prepare for it. What if the cool high schoolers don't like her? What if the coach doesn't like her? What will high school be like without Bree and Grace? The new emotions pull out all the stops to help navigate these existential fears, which include some very non-Riley behavior. She lies, she sneaks out, and Ennui even introduces a Sar-chasm to mock her favorite band in front of the high schoolers once she realizes it's "uncool" to listen to the group. These behaviors don't just shake up her Islands of Identity (as shown in the first film), but directly impact her Sense of Self, which is built out of memories that develop her Belief System like "I'm a really good friend" or "I'm a good person."

Anxiety completely tosses out Riley's old Sense of Self with the intention of building a new one, but her new Belief System brings thoughts like "If I become a Fire Hawk, I'll have friends," or most damning, "I'm not good enough."

With the core emotions thrown out of Headquarters and Riley's previous Sense of Self throttled to the back of her mind, Joy and Sadness lead the group on a recovery mission, hoping they'll make it back in time to save Riley. But the familiar world of Joy and Sadness' adventure from the last movie looks awfully different now. Imagination Land is no longer the fun and colorful world it once was, looking more like an abandoned amusement park. There are new places to explore, however, like Mount Crushmore, which features the faces of boys Riley likes, whereas Mind Control sees them all trespassing and sends them to be locked away in The Vault.

Inside, the emotions meet two of Riley's guiltiest pleasures: a 2D animated dog from a children's show named Bloofy (Ron Funches) that Riley secretly still likes and a pixelated anime hunk from a video game named Lance Slashblade (Yong Yea). None of the emotions understand what Riley sees in the latter except for Disgust, which is some pretty hilarious commentary on the "Okay, Hear Me Out..." mentality, or how we all have those weird crushes we know we shouldn't be into but definitely are. The pair (along with Riley's gigantic Deep Dark Secret) help the group break out of The Vault, but their journey is far from over.

Things come to a head when Joy tries her hardest to stay positive about the situation, but can't help but break herself when she's accused of being delusional. "I guess that's what happens when you grow up," she says, "You feel less joy."

The longer the core emotions are away from Headquarters, the more Anxiety takes control of the entire regime. The creative team at Dream Productions in Imagination Land is no longer coming up with fun dreams for Riley; instead, they're working overtime in cubicles coming up with every possible scenario to haunt Riley at night based on her decisions. For example, if she doesn't make the Fire Hawks, she will have no friends in high school and then die alone on a bench. It's the exact type of hyperbolic melodrama that floods teenagers' brains during puberty, so while accurate (and visually pretty hilarious), it's painful to watch. For the adults watching "Inside Out 2," you couldn't pay us to revisit that time in our lives. It's an awful place to be, and yet watching Anxiety try so, so hard to protect Riley to the best of her ability may make you wish you could go back in time and be a little nicer to your 13-year-old self.

Anxiety is presented as the antagonist of "Inside Out 2," but she's not. She's just a new emotion trying her best in a really difficult life transition. At one point, she's moving so fast around the console that she turns into a tornado of frazzled, orange energy. Inside the eye of the storm is Anxiety, hands gripped onto the levers. She couldn't let go even if she wanted to. At the same time, Riley is having her first panic attack, and the combination of the scenes is so painfully accurate to what an anxiety attack feels like it's physically difficult to withstand. But it's Joy, who has made it back to Headquarters with the rest of the emotions, that can get through to her.

As Riley is about to emotionally crash, all of the emotions hold her Sense of Self together as the bad memory marbles Joy has spent years shoving to the back of her mind come flooding to the forefront and also become parts of Riley's belief system. The negative thoughts Joy tried so hard to stifle become the wave that allows them back into Headquarters and strengthens the existing positive memory strands of her Belief System to rebuild her Sense of Self. Riley is back to being Riley, fully embracing all aspects of her personality. She's a good person, she's a winner, but sometimes she's afraid she's not good enough. Sometimes she's a selfish friend, but sometimes she's a great team player. Riley, like us all, contains multitudes, and Anxiety is part of that.

Anxiety explaining that she was just trying to protect Riley is the most poignant part of the film and the central thesis of the entire series — all of our emotions are good emotions because they're there to protect us.

"Inside Out" was a deconstruction of why our minds do what they do, and an examination of how growing up brings its own necessary form of grief to help us become who we are supposed to be. "Inside Out 2" is about learning how to appreciate and embrace who we are in the face of constant change, and how even the smallest decisions — like pretending to like a protein bar that we think actually tastes like cardboard — can have a serious impact on our sense of self. Together, both films are about making space to feel the complexities of the human experience and allow every emotion their place in front of the console.

"Inside Out 2" is now playing in theaters everywhere.