Inside Out 2 post-credits scene explained: Riley has a secret?

Nearly a decade after the release of Inside Out, its sequel is here to hit you right in the feels. The film featuring the voices of Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Phyllis Smith and more, takes us back into Riley’s mind. Along with familiar emotions of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, the film introduces a set of complex new emotions including Anxiety, Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment.

The film follows Riley who is gearing up for big life changes. She is set to attend high school all by herself while her best friends enrol in another school. Moreover, she is inching closer to puberty. During her summer away at ice hockey camp, she must contend with new emotions and learn to hold on to her sense of self. However, that isn’t all. Towards the end of the film, the makers dropped a post-credits scene that opened up fresh possibilities.

Inside Out 2

What happens in the post-credits scene of Inside Out 2?

The post-credits scene is linked to an earlier scene in the film where the emotions stumble upon a vault where they uncover a new character – Deep Dark Secret, a big guy in a hood. While we initially don’t get details, the scene shows Joy going back to the vault to learn more.

When asked, Deep Dark Secret reveals that Riley’s big secret is that she burnt a hole in a rug. This leaves Joy in splits as she says she thought the time Riley peed in the pool was the hidden secret. The scene ends with the character retreating into the vault.

The film’s director Kelsey Mann revealed that they wanted to maintain the intrigue around the character and have audiences debate about what the truth could be. However, since people really wanted to know what it was, they decided to set it up as the payoff for a joke from earlier in the film’s run-time.

That being said, fans aren’t wrong to read into it. Deep Dark Secret opens up a bunch of possibilities for what we might learn about Riley in any upcoming instalment of Inside Out. Besides, not much is known about the other vault-dwellers. That’s for Inside Out 3 to uncover.

Inside Out 2 is currently in theatres.