Inside Out 2 saw Joy and the rest of Riley’s emotions meeting new emotions, but two of them were quite misleading, yet they still worked perfectly. Back in 2015, Pixar brought one of its most complex yet fascinating stories in Inside Out, directed by Pete Docter. Inside Out took the audience into the mind of Riley, an 11-year-old girl who struggled to adapt to a new city as she moved with her family from Minnesota to San Francisco. Leading her emotions was Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), accompanied by Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger.

After a long wait, Inside Out 2 has finally arrived, directed by Kelsey Mann in his feature directorial debut. Set two years after the events of the first movie, Inside Out 2 reunites viewers with Riley, now a 13-year-old girl, as she enters puberty and deals with the news of her two best friends attending a different high school after hockey camp. With puberty come changes to the emotions’ headquarters and new emotions: Anxiety, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Envy. These new emotions take over Riley after Anxiety expels Joy and the rest from the headquarters, but two of these new emotions aren’t as their names suggest.

Inside Out 2 Didn’t Get Envy & Ennui Right

Inside Out 2’s Envy & Ennui Were Different From What Their Names Suggest

Anxiety led the new emotions (and sent Nostalgia back to a room until it was her time), and her second in command was Envy (Ayo Edebiri). As such, she worked closely with Anxiety, and they led Riley through hockey camp, with an almost disastrous ending. However, Envy wasn’t exactly as her name suggests, and instead, she was more like “admiration” without the resentful and unhappy traits that come with the emotion of “envy”. Envy’s admiration of popular high school hockey player Val Ortiz led her and Anxiety to work hard to make her (and her friends) like Riley.

Often left aside throughout Inside Out 2 was Ennui, the representation of boredom. Ennui spent most of Inside Out 2 lying on the couch at the headquarters and operating the console through her phone as she couldn’t be bothered to stand up. While this fits her name, when she took over Riley, she presented herself more as sarcasm rather than boredom or disinterest. Ennui didn’t work as closely with Anxiety as Envy did, but the brief moments where she was seen at work showed she, like Envy, wasn’t identified correctly.

Envy & Ennui’s Complexity Is What Makes Them Work In Inside Out 2

Inside Out 2 Introduced More Complex Emotions

Despite not being what their names suggest, Envy and Ennui still work well in Inside Out 2. As Riley entered puberty, she experienced new and more complex emotions that often go hand in hand, as did Anxiety and Envy, and naming them would be hard as they can be many things. When working with Anxiety, Envy and Anxiety became an urge to fit in with others, while Ennui with Envy and Anxiety turned into sarcasm and rudeness. Envy and Ennui together would have led Riley to isolate herself, but Anxiety was what kept her going.

Inside Out 2 had the tough task of introducing new and more complex emotions, making them part of the world the first movie built and making them work with the “old” emotions, while also making it all easy for the audience to follow and understand. Envy and Ennui weren’t named accurately, but they worked perfectly despite the differences between their names and their actions.