Story Pile: Inside Job
I guess it’s hard to recommend Inside Job. I mean not in the broadest way, where I can just say ‘it’s a funny adult comedy that doesn’t seem to venerate being a selfish asshole, and it looks like a lot of them these days, with the same general level of competence.’ It’s you know, the way that Rick and Morty pissed on its aesthetic to mark its territory and now any animation that puts in too much effort or has lines that are too clean winds up being seen as ‘like that.’
I don’t know if Inside Job is like that, because I haven’t seen Rick and Morty past the opening of the first episode. Didn’t jam with it, and instead watched other stuff I found more engaging instead. Like Inside Job!
No, what makes it hard to recommend is, and, like, reader – can I call you reader? – sure, okay, reader, the thing is, this is a shortish TV series that draws on modern mythologies of the conspiracy theory griftscape in which I grew up. It uses the ongoing behaviour of an overachieving conspiracy theorist father who doesn’t respect his kid as a plot point. One character idolises toys and franchises from the 80s because it lets him pretend he has an idealised family life that was fun. Oh, and the main character, Reagan, feels like an export of one of my friend’s OCs so closely that she uses Reagan gifs for reactions.
The series doesn’t feature a long form sequence of a character beating a priest to death or a thesis about how game play lets us choose our identities, but like, it’s otherwise hits pretty close to me individually.
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