Joy and Anxiety Coexist Following Riley's Anxiety Attack
Late in the movie, Riley's anxiety attack drives Joy, Anxiety, and the rest of the emotions to unite to save her, setting one of the most intense emotional beats in Inside Out 2. Anxiety takes over as Riley's main feeling after she has control of Headquarters, and this leads Riley to finally experience a panic episode. Anxiety loses control of the console, and this is seen inside her as she silently cries even when Joy confronts her and finds she is powerless.
For both Joy and Anxiety, this is a significant event that will help the pair to develop empathy before disclosing the still uncontrolled anxiety attack. It comes down to all the emotions—including anxiety—to gather around her new sense of self and accept. It also supports a key point in the previous movie, when Joy discovers the need of appreciating the other emotions and letting them pass. While the original movie concentrated on Joy learning to embrace Sadness as a peer, Inside Out 2 closes with Anxiety joining Joy and the rest of the cast.
Riley's revised sense of self and belief system explained
Inside Out 2's debut of a Sense of Self marks one of its major innovations. Some memories become Inside Out's beliefs when they become basic to Riley's personality. Visualized as music-like chords that unite Riley's consciousness in one of the more breathtaking images in the movie, this generates the Sense of Self within the Headquarters. Joy first makes sure Riley's views align with only happy experiences, so she is convinced she is a wonderful person while her negative memories are buried and forgotten.
Anxiety removes this when she takes over; most of the emotions spend the next movie striving to retrieve Riley's former Sense of Self. Joy finally realizes, nevertheless, it is insufficient to stop an anxiety attack. Rather, Joy and the other emotions unite to help Riley develop a new Sense of Self from all of her memories impacting her perspective. Especially, Riley's often shifting and flexible sense of self reflects all the contradictory yet consistent feelings she experiences. This is a nice message that fits the ideas of the movie on the need of every feeling uniting to create harmony.
Riley's Situation Following Her Anxiety Attack
Riley's anxiety crisis marks the emotional climax for Inside Out 2's character and finally prepares her for her reunion with her best friends Grace and Bree. Riley distances herself from the duo after learning they won't be attending the same high school together, but the pair renew their friendship with Riley once she develops a new Sense of Self and apologies for her behavior. Riley often texts the duo while at school, so the latter stretch of the movie proves their ongoing friendship. This implies they still hang around too.
Riley gets included into Val's social circle of hockey players, hence she is not alone at her high school either. Riley's ending of the movie even suggests that she would follow Val's footsteps by joining the Varsity hockey team despite her young age, therefore attaining a significant personal gain to close the film out on. Riley's Headquarters is vulernable to incidents like that, but the movie emphasizes that she can conquer her anxiety attacks.
Emotional Ending Highlights of Inside Out 2 show Riley's Character Development
The ending of Inside Out 2 shows the underlying message at the core of both movies and extends the general ideas of 2015's Inside Out. Inside Out revealed the inner emotions guiding everyone over the globe, who oppurate within each person's head. Riley, a small child whose Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust cooperate to guarantee Riley's safety and happiness, is the main subject of both movies. Riley is growing into an adolescent and new emotions including Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment join the ensemble of Inside Out 2.
Riley's trip to hockey camp, where she must choose between her old acquaintances or impressing the high school athletes, gets further complicated by the consequent conflict between the older feelings and their new counterparts. Riley's emotions had learnt to transcend their own shortcomings and misguided attempts at control at the end of the movie, therefore creating a pleasant message based on the ideas of the first film. Here's how the moral of Inside Out 2 complements the moral of the last movie and might prepare a future Inside Out 3.
Why Inside Out 2 Names Anxiety the Villain?
For most of Inside Out 2, anxiety is the main enemy, yet it turns out to be not a sinister one. She distances the major characters from Headquarters, but it's all in service of Riley's development. Anxiety drives Riley to turn away from her best friends and breach moral lines as it gets increasingly desperate and dedicated to "helping" prepare her for an unknown future. But it turns out that Riley's activities have triggered an anxiety attack late in the movie, and she is left in tears since she really believes Riley would be better off developing like this.
Less of a clear villain, Anxiety directly opposes Joy. Both characters learn to let go, are sure of their own beliefs, and accept responsibility for Riley's emotional state management. Joy travels a similar emotional journey learning to let go of Riley's former Sense of Self and allow a new one to blossom. In the end, the film's message is like that of Inside Out's conclusion: it emphasizes the importance of Riley's development by means of all emotions being acknowledged and cherished. This is why the movie finishes with the new emotions—including anxiety—accepted as natural for the group.
How Inside Out 2 Sets Up Inside Out 3
Inside Out 2 functions mostly as Riley's and her emotions' self-contained narrative of personal development. The movie also hints at possible locations for the franchise should Inside Out 3 come to pass, though. Inspired by Toy Story 3, Inside Out may show Riley growing up through high school and finally reaching adulthood, therefore stressing how someone changes and develops as they age. More emotions could be involved, creating conflict between the known ones and whatever fresh emotions surface. Nostalgia suggests that many future feelings could be just waiting.
Although romance has been a relatively little component in the movies thus far, an Inside Out 3 may expand on Riley's remarks of minor crushes and infatuations to highlight how all the many emotions could affect Riley in a relationship. Riley's emotional state during a crisis—such as the death of a friend or relative—could be the subject of the next book. The movie might even go much farther in time, revisiting Riley after she's grown up, completely addressing the kind of adult emotional state the quick asides into her parent's heads have featured.
