Inside Job

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Inside Job is a 2021 animated show on Netflix. It is created by Shion Takeuchi. Alex Hirsch of Gravity Falls is a producer on the show.

Reagan Ridley should be on top of the world. She's primed to become the next successor of Cognito, Inc. Her father Rand founded the company and got ousted after he tried blowing up the sun in a bid to cure skin cancer. Now the Ridleys have divorced, and Rand has moved in with Reagan. To make matters worse, her boss J.R. says that she's great at the science and conspiracies, not so much at the team management. He hires a co-leader, a smiling Nice Guy named Brett, to help Reagan earn her promotion to Cognito, Inc. CEO. Reagan hates that Brett gets along with everyone but doesn't have an ounce of evil -- or tech smarts -- in his body. But as they become friends, and deal with shenanigans that may destroy the planet, Reagan may realize this dream to rule the world has a tainted source.

The second season is set to deal with the fallout of the first season finale. Reagan has lost her promotion, and sense of identity. Brett tries to provide emotional support as a new leader at Cognito, Inc. seeks to declare war on the Shadow Council. Reagan may find an unlikely ally from a salty Illuminati assassin.

Season 2 came out in November 2022.

Inside Job is Spoilered Rotten as a series, so be warned, Spoilers may be unmarked.

Tropes used in Inside Job include:
  • Adaptational Villainy: In addition to the celebrities who are secretly Reptoids who plan to conquer the world and (might) prey on humans, there is Buzz Aldrin (who murdered Neil Armstrong and became a cult leader) and the Flat Earth Society (who are an actual terrorist group).
  • The Alcoholic:
    • Rand has been drinking so much that he regularly gets organs from the cloning department at Cognito, Inc. Episode 2 features him blackmailing J.R. to get more livers. Reagan does ask why not cut back on drinking.
    • According to Bear-O, Reagan's alcohol index is at high levels. She gets it from her dad. We know that things are going to suck in season two when Reagan rants drunkenly in the morning in front of the White House, throwing up in front of a tour group of children the way that Rand was in the season one opener.
  • Ancient Conspiracy: Cognito works for a cabal of secretive folks who claim to have ruled the world from the shadows since, as they put it "the dawn of time". This isn't as easy as it used to be, so they founded Cognito to act as intermediaries.
    • And the season 2 premiere shows Cognito is one of six such cabals, the others being the Reptoids, the Atlanteans, the Catholic Church, the Juggalos ("for some reason") and Cognito's rivals, The Illuminati. All of them are just as stupid as the governments everyone knows about.
  • Bad Boss:
    • J.R. downplays this; he has never been known to murder his employees (at least not onscreen), but he does a lot of other things that make him detestable. For example, he gives Brett the job of making a ceremonial toast at a gala because he was the only one who did not physically or sexually assault anyone at the meeting where it is announced (JR was part of said meeting), pleads with the Reptoids not to cut their funding as he “has mistresses to feed”, tries to provoke a kraken into wrecking his yacht (while passengers are on it) so he can collect on insurance, and possibly worst of all, steals the entire employee pension fund, and then buys a Supervillain Lair to act as a tax haven. In an episode where Reagan is happy because of J.R. promotion (because that means he's leaving) and feels like celebrating, he offers to "erase" someone for "funsies" by sending him to the Shadow Prison. For a while, he gets what’s coming to him in the season 1 finale where the "cloak guys" send him there, although he somehow escapes later, turning into Rand's lickspittle.
    • In season 2, Rand is far worse, using Cognito's resources for petty (and often perverted) reasons, including greed and revenge. He does execute at least one employee for simply criticizing him. When "the cloaks" finally fire him, he goes truly insane, attempting to use Project Reboot to create a Cosmic Retcon and give himself godlike power, his actions (among other things) causing Andre to be erased from existence.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: The Juggalos are one of the six organizations that secretly rule the world; even they do not know why.
  • Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: The whole point of the plot. All conspiracies are real, and a select number of corporations manage them. The Illuminati is Cognito, Inc.'s biggest competitor.
  • Cruel Mercy: Season 2 has Rand keep Reagan as a Cognito Inc. employee, having security Taze her rather than fire her for her drunken insubordination. Note that in the pilot that J.R. fired Reagan for accusing Brent of being a mole, and Rand is sending Cognito Inc. dissenters to Shadow Prison. It's justified; he genuinely does want to reconcile with her, but because of his No Social Skills, Never My Fault and "smartest people in the room don't need friends" asshole attitude, Rand cannot accept that Reagan no longer wants him in his life. Firing her would be the kindest option, so that Reagan could get a clean break and a fresh start.
  • Deconstruction: Rand Ridley serves as this for Rick Sanchez of Rick and Morty fame, and actually manages to be worse than him. (Not en easy achievement, by the way.) Like Rick he believes that being the smartest guy in the room is an excuse to be an antisocial asshole and do whatever he wants. They both walk all over their daughters in their initial appearances after moving in with them. The difference, however, is that Rick had some lines he wouldn't cross, and he never used Beth as a pawn in his various schemes. Rand seems to have no lines, complete with wiping Reagan's memory and ruining her childhood purely so he'll always have job security at Cognito, Inc. Note that Rick has never done such a thing to his daughter.
  • Dramatic Irony: While they're both attending Anon-Anon, Ron accuses Reagan of being upset over a little bit of waiting that "Ms. Nepotism" had to do. Considering that her father stole her promotion of Cognito Inc. and expressly shaped Reagan's life so that she would be job security for him at the company he founded, that's a very cruel thing to say and Mothman, who knows the circumstances, tries to get Ron to shut up.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • When the Reptoids hear about how Rand caused Reagan to have a violent response to hugging-- he built a killer robot named Bear-O to give her hugs, whether or not she wanted them-- they all agree that Rand is a terrible father.
    • ROBOTUS snarkily says that Reagan shouldn't be avoiding her problems when she opts to make a robot duplicate of her supposed soulmate Bryan rather than actually go on a date with the guy. After she messes things up with Bryan once and for all thanks to said robot duplicate making a Robo-Reagan who proceeds to go on a date with Bryan, ROBOTUS shows that her dating algorithm changed because she decided to grow as a person by confronting her insecurities-- and herself-- head-on.
    • More like Well-Intentioned Extremist has standards, but Bear-O maintains the same belief. After he thinks he got rid of Reagan's team sans Brett, one source of her unhappiness, he goes after Rand. When the team comes back and attempts to stop him from ostensibly killing Reagan, he tells them that Reagan is not his target.
    • Used as an off joke in one episode where a realtor who claims to have been in the "evil real estate business" (meaning she sells Supervillain Lairs) for 15 years calls J.R. (her current customer, whom she just required to sign his name on the deed with his own blood) a "psycho".
    • The only line that Rand will not cross is leave Reagan alone with a confirmed murderer. He's genuinely freaked out when realizing that Buzz Aldrin killed Neil Armstrong and realizes Reagan is alone with Buzz on the moon.
    • When Reagan attends an Anon-Anon, Mothman specifies that it is a safe space. Ron violates that by showing No Sympathy towards Reagan and challenging her to actually overthrow her father, rather than whinge about it. When she says that's a good idea and storms off to do that, everyone in the group glares at Ron, including Slenderman. The same guy that preys on children in canon. Mothman also looks pretty angry, as does a deposed dictator that comforted Reagan.
  • Foil: Ron to Reagan, while they're both sent to Anon-Anon. In Reagan's case, she decided to go after Brent suggested it, albeit after considering that repeated Tazing would be preferable to therapy. She at least to give it a go, respecting the established boundaries that Mothman sends. Ron reveals he was sent under protest, and believes there are no safe spaces, while outright insulting Reagan after she gets vulnerable and opening up about her current problems. He reveals that it's because he nearly overdosed on a vat of memory-erasing liquid and the Illuminati doesn't allow agents to forget what they've done. Ron also reveals that he chose this life after being a conspiracy theorist in college, which is why he resents Reagan for her alleged nepotism. Reagan was never given a choice about who she wanted to be, thanks to Rand grooming her and wiping her memories.
  • Genre Savvy: In "Clone Gunman," Brett admits to Reagan that he accidentally created an Akira situation to stop the runaway clones. He then checks that she knows the movie. "Of course, I've seen Akira! Anime is very mainstream right now!" It ends up being an apt summary of the situation.
  • Godzilla Threshold: ROBOTUS nearly destroyed the world in the pilot when Reagan shows him how things really are. Thus, it's a really big deal in the season finale when the team determines that, with Reagan AWOL, they should release him and give him the means to fight Bear-O.
  • Good All Along:
    • Both the pilot and season one finale have Reagan suspect that Brett is pretending to be a nice, easygoing people pleaser to hide his ulterior motives. In the first one, they work together to stop ROBOTUS, while in the season one finale he ends up accidentally finding the password to Bear-O's failsafe.
    • The episode "Project Reboot" shows that while Rand is a pervert, neglectful parent, and a complete jerk, his true goal all along was winning back his ex-wife so they and Reagan could be a proper and loving family. In the end, his one request to his daughter before turning himself in is to not make the same mistakes with Staedler that he did with her mother.
      • Evil All Along: JR, on the other hand, is truly evil, and while that was obvious from the start that JR, "Project Reboot" shows he is far more evil than Rand; he claims he wants to stop Rand from Rewriting Reality, when in truth, JR wants to do so for his own benefit. He may even be more petty than Rand, his most obsessive goal being to have his work published in the Harvard Review.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Glenn Dolphman, another member of the main cast. While in the army, he volunteered for a Super Soldier program, and ended up turned into a human-dolphin hybrid. Likely not what he expected, but he has absolutely no regrets.
  • Handicapped Badass: Andre is a druggie to repress really bad Tourette's and OCD, while performing surgery on his crew and serving as the team medic. As shown in "My Big Flat Earth Wedding" and "Inside Reagan", he can be dangerous if it means his team is in danger.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: The "cloak guys" who Cognito answers to; putting J.R. in charge was bad enough, making an idiot like Rand his replacement is even worse. Especially since Rand says the new goal of Cognito, Inc. will be to overthrow the cloak guys.
  • Ignored Epiphany: As Rand admits in the season two opener, he misses his ex-wife and Reagan despite hurting the latter so badly that she never wants to speak to him again. He proceeds to take it out on the Cognito, Inc. employees, including a sloshed Reagan. She lampshades that the world may end due to his mid-life crisis.
  • Irony: The season one finale had Reagan's team turn against Rand when they uncovered evidence that he was probably the Mole. He wasn't, but Yes-Man Brent told Reagan that her father wasn't trustworthy and the second part proved how right he was. Season two opens with a drunk Reagan trying to turn the team against her father, the new CEO of Cognito, Inc. and not even Brent is willing to stand up to him. Reagan is especially hurt by this and calls Brent a traitor for siding with his father over her.
  • Married to the Job: More than one episode shows that Reagan's attempt at a social life is marred by her work, with a little of The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life factoring in.
  • Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr. Andre Lee, one of Reagan's colleges. Whether he is a doctor at all is debatable, his job is to create diseases whenever Cognito needs a plague (which seems disturbingly often). He is also a neurotic mess who uses drugs to cope with his OCD, drugs which include chemtrails.
  • Mushroom Man: Myc, part of the main cast. He's a mushroom-like creature with psychic powers, a dry, sarcastic wit, and a foul mouth. Also something of a pervert.
  • Necessary Evil: In the first episode, Brent asks Reagan directly if Cognito Inc is evil - she doesn’t deny it, but claims they are no more evil than Facebook or Starbucks, stating, “At least here I develop tech to prevent war with Atlantis.” One seminar instructor, when asking recruits if there are any questions, discourages anyone from asking about ethical concerns.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Defied. Some examples:
  • Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Brett is not stupid by normal standards; J.R. mentions that he's a Yale graduate, which is not an easy thing to accomplish even as a personal trainer. He also has great people skills, as shown in the pilot. It's just that compared to Reagan's super-genius that he's an idiot who lacks the qualifications to co-lead a team that manages conspiracies.
  • Only Sane Man:
    • While Brett has his issues, like his compulsion to please everyone and ignore his own needs or other people's red flags, he's definitely the most normal person working at Cognito, Inc. He admits that Reagan is right to be suspicious of him because he is underqualified for the job as her co-leader, calls her for help when ROBOTUS goes haywire, and later tries to guide her gently when J.R. orders them to choose someone to fire.
    • Among the Reptoids, Judy seems to be this, being the only one who seems a rational and Reasonable Authority Figure. But then, she is The Judge.
  • OOC Is Serious Business:
    • If Rand is actually scared for Reagan's well-being rather than being a dick to her? Yeah, be afraid. Very afraid.
    • Druggie Andre becoming retrospective? That is a sign that things are going to go off-the-rails. During "The Brettfast Club," he waxes eloquent about the racism preserved in Still Valley due to everyone thinking they're still in the 80s.
    • If Brett stops smiling or actually stands up to people, things get serious for this people-pleaser. Case in point, during "The Brettfast Club", he's actually hurt that Reagan thinks 80s nostalgia is stupid and doesn't want to indulge him while they go undercover in Still Valley to locate a missing Myc.
  • A Party - Also Known as an Orgy: The Reptoids are infamous for their gatherings (not just parties) turning into this. They're perfectly okay with humans participating, but after Andre does so he winds up with no less than five Reptoid-originating STDs, plus another from Myc.
  • Pet the Dog
    • In her twisted way, Tamiko keeps trying to encourage Reagan to be happy and live for herself. She's a narcissist and emotionally abusive, but if Reagan is actually in danger? Tamiko will go Mama Bear and attempt to rescue her.
    • In "My Big Flat Earth Wedding," there are a few examples:
      • Myc normally pokes Reagan's buttons. He offers to do telepathy to ease her stress about planning her mom's wedding.
      • J.R. freaks out when a kidnapped Reagan is in mortal danger, thanks to Harold the Flat-Earther making her drive to the "edge of the Earth" aka the portal to inner Earth. He orders Glenn to get in the ocean, swim for it, and rescue her!
      • Harold thanks Reagan for "fulfilling" his dream of seeing the edge of the world. Excusing that he kidnapped her to do that, it was his only decent moment.
    • When it seems that Reagan has met her leadership goals, J.R. gives her the promotion as promised. It's not his fault that Rand manipulated the situation with the Mole to steal it from his daughter.
  • Power Perversion Potential: Cognito has a holodeck-like room that is specifically used for this purpose. J.R.'s sex-deck history (which Reagan and Brett can't resist looking at) includes something involving a "pay pig".
  • Revenge Before Reason: Reagan realizes in the season 2 premiere that while she could sabotage Rand, and actually manages to make him think that Illuminati head is doing the sabotaging, it's not making her happy after she drunkenly talks with Ron. Rand certainly deserves it for what he did to her, but it's not fulfilling and Reagan is pursuing revenge for selfish reasons. She can let Rand fail on his own while finding her own happiness.
  • Rewriting Reality: JR and Rand's attempt to create a Time Machine instead created a device that does this, changing small events in the past that change the time line and alter the present. Before they used it, Earth had two moons, Rand had a mustache and The Berenstain Bears were originally called The Berenstein Bears. Unfortunately, too much use of this device (as Rand foolishly does in season 2 after "the cloaks" fire him) could cause a Time Crash and The End of the World as We Know It .
  • The Rival: The Illuminati is this to Cognito. According to Rand, they're rather petty for an evil organization, pulling pranks like TPing Cognito's office. Every year they had a Power Struggle competition where the leader of the losing team has to literally kiss the winner's ring - JR always lost, and Rand's first order of business is making this rivalry personal.
  • Sassy Black Woman: Gigi Thompson (Cognito Inc's Head of Media Manipulation and Subliminal Messages) another member of the main cast; sassy and snarky.
  • Ship Tease: It's not confirmed, but "The Brettfast Club" hints that Brett has a crush on Reagan, and that's why he gets really hurt when she refuses to play along with his 80's fantasies in Still Valley. Reagan's tech skills and ability to solve a crisis definitely impress him, as he praises Reagan for ROBOTUS being tough enough to kick his ass in the pilot. The Cold Open features him running a simulation of his fake family where his mother asks him if Reagan is more than a friend at work.
  • Skewed Priorities: Happens a lot. The episode "Project Reboot" even has a short montage that shows most of the cast slacking and/or goofing off while Reagan is screaming, "The fate of the world is at stake!" because it is. Of course, Reagan is no better; to give one example, in "We Found Love in a Popeless Place", she is more concerned with her plans for a romantic holiday in Rome with Staedler than she is with the Pope going insane and turning the city into an animatronic facsimile of Hell on Earth. (It Makes Sense In Context, really, it does.)
  • The Starscream: Given the season 2 previews, it seems this is Rand's intent, at least.
  • Tin Foil Hat: In this reality, this is recommended safety gear when using a Time Machine; according to Rand, it preserves the freshness of the space time contingency (as in, prevents a Butterfly of Doom) in much the same way it preserves the freshness of food. In the episode where this is stated, the main cast uses them to give themselves Ripple Proof Memory while they try to halt Rand's attempts at Rewriting Reality
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Brett reveals in the pilot that he did 38 weeks of hazing at Yale to get into all the fraternities. As a result, he can handle large amounts of physical pain, and even seems to welcome it.
  • Tyrant Takes the Helm: The season two opener shows that Rand is undoing all the positive changes that Reagan promised to her employees, and he's even worse than J.R.. He's put spy cameras in the women's bathrooms and sends those who protest to Shadow Prison. Then he announces that they're going to set the world on fire, and prepare to take back the world's ex-wife and daughter. Reagan snarkily says that this mid-life crisis may cause the apocalypse.
  • Unperson: J.R. claims that anyone sent to the Shadow Prison is "erased from history". It is implied he has done this to employees simply For the Evulz.
  • Villain Protagonist: Reagan and most of the supporting cast could be considered Anti-Villain types, as they are more than willing to commit such atrocities as murder, kidnapping, and brainwashing for the greater good. Except for Brent, who could be considered the Token Good Teammate, even if he isn't very bright.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: JR and Rand were this when they were roommates in college (Harvard, something JR will never let anyone forget), due to a Slobs Versus Snobs situation (Rand was the slob, JR was the snob). As JR relates, they hated each other from the start, but each saw potential in the other, leading to them becoming business partners, and the Start of Darkness for both of them. In the present, they simply hate each other.
  • Who Shot JFK?: In this reality, the true killer was "Grassy Noel" Atkinson, the longest serving member of Cognito Inc, and by his own account, the best assassin alive, claiming JFK was not the only Head of State he has killed. Ironically, this revelation was far less interesting than the reason why JFK was killed - JFK had been seduced by a Roswell alien and had gotten a Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong, requiring Atkison to kill him before the eggs hatched and released a Horde of Alien Locusts upon the world, something that sounds bizarre even when compared to other JFK-related conspiracy theories
  • You Get Me Coffee: While Brett is Reagan's co-leader, she notes that J.R. had hired him as an unpaid intern. It means that J.R. will occasionally use Brett for demeaning, deceptive, or dangerous tasks, like serving as the sample Reptoid that the staff has to hug in the H.R. meeting, or asking him to pose as a billionaire to convince Jeff Bezos to buy J.R.'s yacht. (It Makes Sense in Context) Brett doesn't mind the former task because he loves hugging people, and for the latter he eagerly breaks out his method acting, honorably offering himself as a hostage when the Flat Earthers take over the ship.
  • You Shall Not Pass: Attempted. In the season one finale when Bear-O prepares to kill Reagan's team to make her happier, Reagan shouts at them to run while she brings out some big guns. She then fires on her trauma bot to give everyone a chance to escape.


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