“Inside Out 2” begins a year after the end of the first film, with Riley — now 13 — having acclimated to San Francisco. She also has two new best friends, Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (Grace Lu), who are all going to a hockey camp for the summer together. Meanwhile, as Riley has grown up, her thoughts have also started becoming core beliefs, such as “I’m a good person.” To help with this process, and to keep Riley’s core beliefs pure, Joy has been suppressing Riley’s bad memories by sending them to the back of Riley’s mind with a makeshift machine she made.
Eventually, a red light blinks on the main console, and a “puberty alarm” blares, which introduces Joy and the others to the new emotions of Anxiety, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Envy. At first, there is admiration from the new emotions for the old; however, it becomes clear that the old emotions have a hard time navigating the more complex social situations of young adulthood, such as Joy fumbling Riley’s interactions with the “cool kids” at the hockey camp, especially Val (Lilimar).
Joy’s bumbling leads to Anxiety freaking out and forcing Riley’s old emotions into exile in the back of the mind, along with Riley’s core belief, “I’m a good person” (which looks like a crystalline structure). Now Joy, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear must find Riley’s old belief and return to stop Anxiety from ruining Riley’s core personality.
