Film / The Inbetweeners 2

"As you know, I am on a mental gap year in Australia! Or outback, as they say over here. So I thought I'd email you, not because I miss you lot but because this place is a million out of ten and you'll be well jel. Life has never been better. It's much better than when I was going out with Jane, who I now no longer think about."

— Jay

The Inbetweeners 2 (2014) is a sequel to The Inbetweeners and The Inbetweeners Movie. It is intended to be the Grand Finale of the series.

Jay invites Will, Simon and Neil to visit him during his gap year in Australia, the "sex capital of the world". Hilarity Ensues.

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The Inbetweeners 2 contains examples of:

• Accidental Proposal: Simon attempts to break up with Lucy, but accidentally does pretty much the exact opposite.
• The Alleged Car: Not quite as bad as Simon's Cinquecento from the series, but Jay's car (which he bought from his cousin) is horrifically decorated in paintings of Peter Andre, complete with quotes from his songs. It only craps out because Jay didn't fill it up with enough petrol.
• Artistic License – Biology: Jay and Neil find the idea of feeding a dolphin nothing but raw fish cruel. Neil ends up killing it by feeding it a burger and fried chicken. He then attempts CPR on the submerged dolphin.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: When Neil says he wants to play with some dolphins, his choice of words makes the others wonder if he's planning on performing a sex act with one.
• Betty and Veronica: Gender-flipped. Katie is the Archie to Will's Betty and Ben's Veronica. Unlike the two examples from the first film (who both chose the Betty), she goes for the Veronica, despite not actually liking him.
• Big Damn Heroes: When the gang are stranded in the Outback and slowly dying of thirst, it's Jane and her colleagues from the stud farm that come to their rescue.
• Big "NO!": Will lets one rip just before Neil's shit hits him in the face.
• Big "YES!": Simon when Lucy finally breaks up with him.
• Bittersweet Ending: Unlike the first film, all of the lads (barring Neil) are still single at the end with Jay's Anguished Declaration of Love not winning Jane over, Simon finishing with Lucy and Will actually walking away from Katie in disgust after he realises that she's not the sweet Manic Pixie Dream Girl he believed her to be. Neil does wind up with someone, though this is down to his Likes Older Women attitude. The lads are ridiculed throughout Australia for their stupidity in getting lost in the desert, but go on to have a pretty good time in Vietnam. However, it doesn't look so good for Will, as Mr Gilbert will now be his stepfather.
• Blatant Lies: Par for the course with Jay, but taken up to eleven when the lads meet him working in the club toilet and he pretends to be someone called Bruce, despite the sign behind him with his name on it.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: Will identifies Ben as a trust fund baby who is probably traveling on his parents' dime but is an utter hypocrite in his views on wealth.
• Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Of the friendship variant; Will abandons the group to get closer to Katie. He quickly regrets his decision and decides to catch up with them, though.
• Brick Joke: During the series, Mr. Gilbert tells Will that he'd very much like to get with Will's mum. He does in this film.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Neil's Gasshole tendencies from the series are explained here as being the result of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The fact that he's eaten nothing but McDonald's since he arrived in Australia doesn't help and he ends up shitting himself while waiting for one of the pipe waterslides. Unfortunately, the turd falls out of his shorts and into the pipe Will is racing down and it hits him in the face.
• Call-Back:
  • Simon is seen smoking a joint at one point. In "The Gig and the Girlfriend", he was the one who suffered the least ill effects from marijuana.
  • Jay's dad and uncle fight (if you can call it that) in the same style that Jay fought Simon in the first film.
• The Cameo: Jane in Jay's fantasy sequence and a Big Damn Heroes moment near the end. Also Mr Gilbert at the end.
• Caught with Your Pants Down:
  • Jay's uncle reveals that when he and cousin Shane shine a torch onto Jay's tent, they can often see him masturbating—and having sex with a hole in the ground.
  • He also does this in the hostel when he is in the next bed over from Will and a very drunk Katie, when Will is fingering her and she is trying to take it further. Will notices this and is seriously grossed out.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Lucy acts pretty psychotic over the thought of Simon cheating on her and regularly deletes other girls from his Facebook account as well as destroying his possessions.
• Chekhov's Gag:
  • While Skyping his mum, Will notices that someone else is staying over, which his mother denies. Turns out it's Mr Gilbert!
  • The conversation about Dolphins only being fed raw fish which crops up later when Neil accidentally kills a dolphin by feeding it a burger and some fried chicken.
• Chekhov's Gun: Several including Will's guitar and rape alarm, and Neil's irritable bowel syndrome.
• Chekhov's Skill: When the lads enter Will's dorm room, one of the objects that's been duct taped to the ceiling is a guitar (and is the only thing that falls). When Katie mentions that she'd jump Will if he could play, he does.
• College Is "High School, Part 2": As a student at Bristol University, Will is subjected to the kind of bullying more usually found in schools than in British universities.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: After the trip to Splash Planet, the boys realize that they could have just asked Lucy where Jane was. Then again, they probably would have ended up at Splash Planet anyway as Will was following Katie.
• Country Matters: The film manages to slip two in while still keeping a 15 rating. When the gang go to sit by the fire outside the hostel, Jay sees Ben and wonders "Why is there is always some cunt with a guitar?" And when Jane and her stud farmer colleagues save the guys from dying of thirst in the Outback, one of the farmers calls them cunts both warmly and derisively at the same time.
• Dartboard of Hate: Variation. Despite being happy that Lucy finished with him, Simon clearly holds it against Pete that he's been sleeping with her. When the lads go to the gun range and hold up their targets after, Simon has been shooting at a blown-up photo of Pete.
• A Degree in Useless: When the lads are lost in the desert, Simon bemoans the fact the his dad suggested he do a degree in Sociology and not something that would be more useful in their present situation.
• Demoted to Extra: Jane, Jay's Satellite Love Interest from the first film, who returns as a Living Macguffin.
• Denser and Wackier:
  • The show was lauded as one of the most accurate depictions of teenage suburban life. The first movie too managed to capture the 'lad's holiday' vibe, as well as making the characters deconstruct a few movie tropes (i.e. Simon's attempted gesture of love for Lucy). The second movie however indulges in a lot more in the way of Comedic Sociopathy with literally everything going wrong for the characters, no matter how unlikely and implausible it would be. It also includes a lot more tropes typically seen in most mainstream comedy movies (Jay's over the top fantasy about Australia and Will scaring everyone off at Splash Planet), which are a far cry from the more relatable dialogue and actions done by the four in the series.
  • Perhaps the apex of the film's departure from realism is Jay's firing of an M60 with one hand during the film's ending.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Neither Will nor Jay end up winning over their love interests. This isn't surprising given that this is The Inbetweeners, but it's an obvious contrast to the first movie. In Will's case, it's actually by choice once he discovers that his Love Interest isn't all that nice a person. And in Jay's case, they do at least seem to part amicably enough.
• Domestic Abuse: Lucy to Simon. Big time. Among other things, she routinely deletes women from his friends list on Facebook, checks his e-mail, and sends him videos of her shredding his hoodies with scissors, burning his trainers, and microwaving his PlayStation despite him never doing anything to her. Oh and she cheats on him with the person he considers his best friend at uni.
• Dreadlock Rasta: Ben wears dreadlocks; Will later calls him out on white people usually looking terrible with dreadlocks.
• Establishing Character Moment: Ben is introduced to the audience having a verbal pissing contest with another backpacker about the dangerous things he has done while travelling.
• Everyone Has Standards: As big a jerk as Jay's dad is, even he is disgusted by how Jay's Uncle treats him.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: In a voiceover as the group arrive in Australia, Will mentions the surfeit of dangerous wildlife there:
  Will: All I knew about Australia was that if it could bite you, sting you or eat you alive, then it probably lived there.
• Excrement Statement: A rare heroic example. When the gang are stranded in the outback and slowly dying of thirst, Neil agrees to let Simon drink his piss. Though he ends up accidentally pissing on his face.
• Fanservice Extra: All the girls from Jay's fantasy narration are dressed very skimpily with one or two of them actually getting naked.
• Foreshadowing: Neil's tackle hanging out of his Hermione costume early on and their closing credit montage with Thai ladyboys.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Simon uses Bryan's computer and notices that the web browser is on a Facebook photo of Jane, we briefly see that her surname is "Hardon".
• Friendship Moment: A rather sweet and simultaneously depressing one comes when the gang decide to give up on any chance of rescue or survival and wait to die together in the Outback while holding hands. What makes it more poignant is that Will and Jay are the ones who holds hands first.
• Genki Girl: Katie is pretty excitable and seems to be always full of energy, especially when pissed.
• Grand Finale: This is the Inbetweeners' final outing.
• Granola Girl: Katie, Ben, and a number of the other travellers that the gang encounters. Will enters a sort of New Age spirituality tent with a number of these people and is visibly put off by their behavior. They completely miss the point of Aboriginal song lines: the lines actually trace the journeys of Aboriginal peoples as documented in traditional tribal songs, but Katie and her friends instead think they are places where people discover their spiritual "inner song", a concept which is not part of Aboriginal culture.
• Guess Who I'm Marrying?: Will's mum and Mr Gilbert get engaged at the and of the film, which was actually foreshadowed in the TV series.
• Guns Akimbo: Neil fires a pair of Uzis during the film's ending with a rather happy look on his face.
• Happy Ending Override:
  • Three of the four boys are single again, after finally finding partners in the first movie. Overlaps with Status Quo Is God. The creators state that this was intentional, since the writers wanted to emphasize them being friends as being far more important than them getting significant others.
  • Its even implied in one passing joke that Will might still be a virgin, despite him getting together with Alison at the end of the last film.
• Hate Sink: Lucy, that sweet, lovable girl Simon ended up dating at the end of the first movie has now become a domestic abuser. Any time she appears onscreen, she's chewing out Simon over the most innocent of mistakes, destroys his belongings and hugs Simon while holding a pair of scissors to his neck in an obvious attempt at intimidation. Simon also mentions that Lucy assaults any girl that talks to him. When Simon is broken down enough to resign himself to being with Lucy, she tells him she'd been sleeping with his roommate. On the off-chance this isn't enough to make you utterly despise Lucy, keep in mind that Simon nearly killed himself in the previous film in order to romance her.
• Holding Hands: The whole gang does this when they think they're about to die in the outback. Best friends Will and Simon do it with Intertwined Fingers.
• Hypocrite:
  • Lucy freaks out at the possibility of Simon cheating on her, but is later revealed to be cheating on him.
  • Katie claims to be spiritual, but in reality, she's a slave to her base emotions. For example, she continually sleeps with Ben, despite being repulsed by his personality.
  • Ben and his friends act condescending when Splash Planet is mentioned, deriding it as a "touristy" location, yet they show up anyway.
  • Will calls Jay a stalker because he went to Australia in the hopes of finding her there. Will spends most of the film tailing Katie.
• I Banged Your Mom:
  • Mr Gilbert gets a real kick out of telling Will this at the end of the film.
  Mr Gilbert: When a man and a lady love each other very much, they become aroused and blood flow increases to the genital areas. Enlarging specifically the penis. In this case, my penis.
  • A variant of this is used as a throwaway gag when Neil casually tells Jay that he fingered his cousin.
• Imagine Spot: As per usual, Jay gloats about how great/sexy life is in Australia is, only this time we actually get to see what it looks like in his head.
• Innocently Insensitive: Apparently, the reason Jane dumped Jay was because he bought her a Wii-fit after she told him that she was trying to lose weight.
• It's a Costume Party, I Swear!: Will, Simon and Neil are hit with this in the opening scene. They turn up dressed as Harry Potter characters to a student party. The other partygoers mock Will for falling for it and turn the lads away.
• Jerkass: Ben, Lucy, Pete...Hell, even a case could be made for Katie, given that she thought killing a dolphin was edgy.
• Living Macguffin: Jane. The reason for the road trip is so that Jay can see her, but the actual part is little more than a walk-on.
• Meaningful Name: Ben's surname (Thornton-Wilde) doesn't mean anything in and of itself but it being double-barrelled is a further indicator of his Bourgeois Bohemian status.
• More Dakka: Probably the last trope you'd expect from The Inbetweeners, but Neil, Jay and Simon indulge in this at a gun range in Vietnam with dual Uzis, an M-60 and an AK respectively. Will declines to participate.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: In an extended version of Will's final scene with Ben and Katie; after Will chews them out, he goes back, smashes Ben's guitar over the fire, and hands it back to him snarking that "it might need retuning" before leaving again. Ben then casually mentions to Katie that it wasn't even his guitar.
• Noodle Incident: In the final scene when Jay's dad and Uncle Bryan end up having a fight while Will's Mum and Mr Gilbert are getting off with each other on the sofa, Jay notes that they should probably leave since it's getting a lot like his cousin's wedding.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • When Katie passes out on the bunk while Will is fingering her, Will's rape alarm is on the floor next to her outstretched hand, leading to one of the other hosteleers to assume that Will was attempting to rape Katie.
  • Jay pushes Simon over near the children's ride at a water park and his face lands in a young boy's lap. The boy's dad is far from happy.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • A literal one when Will realizes that Neil's shit is racing down the water slide with him.
  • Will's reaction at the end of the film when he realizes his mother is dating Mr. Gilbert.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Stranded in the Australian desert he says that wanking is the last thing that Jay feels like doing. Will dryly remarks that this means things are even more serious than he thought.
• Overly Long Gag: Will singing to Katie in falsetto whilst playing the guitar, and Neil trudging off into the distance to get to a mirage.
• Parent with New Paramour: Will realises this during a Skype call with his mum thanks to some visual clues and her terrible lying but it's not until the end of the film that he finds out it's Mr Gilbert.
• Precision F-Strike: During the end credits, the boys all come back from holidays with their hair grown out. When Jay's dad sees he's got cornrows, the otherwise voiceless scene is permeated by him shouting "What the FUCK?!".
• Present-Day Past: Supposedly takes place a few months after the first movie (released in 2011), although a good chunk of the music is from when the movie launched, the phones used by all the characters are contemporary models, and a lot more of the jokes wouldn't have made too much sense if it was actually at that time (such as Neil using Grindr, Jimmy Saville jokes, constant use of 'banter' and related puns, Jay's claims about selling selfies, etc.)
• Racist Grandpa: Uncle Bryan mentions that it's shame that Jay's dad doesn't want to move to Australia because "We could do with some white immigration for a change".
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Will gives an outstanding one to Ben before he leaves Byron Bay to rejoin his real friends, calling him out for being the walking stereotype of the pretentious backpacker — deluding himself to believe that he's friends with foreign civilians who probably hate and resent him for obviously being upper-class and privileged enough to travel, yet looking down on people who enjoy regular tourist activities. And white people look terrible with dreadlocks.
  Katie: Will, I like you. I kissed you. But I kiss a lot of people, especially when I'm drunk. What Ben and I have, it's a deep lust for each other.
  Ben: It's spiritual.
  Will: Right, that's the last time. Even the dictionary definition of spiritual, which I looked up, suggests it's about the soul, another vague and probably non-existent concept.
  Katie: I don't think you get it. But that's cool.
  Will: No, no, I get it all right, you patronising cow. It's you twats that don't get it. That's right, I called you twats.
  Ben: Chill, Will.
  Will: Playing the guitar badly, wearing beads, talking about "one love" and pretending you are friends with Central American villagers — who, by the way, despise you — before heading back to your parents' five-bedroomed house in Surrey, doesn't make you a spiritual person, it makes you a bell-end.
  Ben: I think you're right about his song, Katie.
  Will: Oh, fuck off, Ben! You don't believe in 'song lines' any more than I do. It's just a way for you to seem interesting to girls because deep down you know you're boring and pretentious like your stupid fucking dreadlocks. Which, by the way, always look embarrassing on white people. They're not countercultural, they actually scream "Oh, I've got a trust fund!" so get a normal haircut, you unbearable prick. Goodbye.
• Reckless Gun Usage: When the lads continue travelling, they visit a gun range. Simon fires an AK from the hip, Neil goes Guns Akimbo with Uzis, while Jay takes the Rambo option by Firing One-Handed with an M-60. Will, being Will, declines to participate.
• Remember the New Guy?: Katie was at school with Will long before he ever got transferred to Rudge Park.
• Romantic False Lead: Subverted with Ben. Will competes with him for Katie's affections with Will being the underdog protagonist and Ben being the Jerkass buff type. Even though Katie seems to like Will, she confesses to him that while she knows Ben is a Jerkass who drives her crazy, she can't help but be attracted to him. Will gives them both a great "The Reason You Suck" Speech before departing to catch up with the lads, but not before spending one last night in the hostel where Ben and Katie loudly have sex. Ben even shouts "I don't lose!" while he's doing it as a dig at Will.
• Running Gag:
  • Jay's bottom lip often starts to quiver when he's talking about Jane. People tend to ask him if his lip is okay.
  • Nudgies! *Shoves to the ground*. Lampshaded when Will notes in an inner monologue at the start of the water park scene that: "Nudgies was fast becoming nobody's favourite game."
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: On learning that his mother has gotten engaged to Mr. Gilbert, Will decides to flee back through the international terminal arrivals gate and try to board a plane out of the country. The customs officers, naturally, have something to say about this.
• Sequel Escalation: Several as well as the escalation from partying in Malia in the first film to travelling across Australia in the second...
  • Carli was horrible to Simon, but she's nothing compared to Lucy.
  • In Series 3, Neil wets the bed and pisses on Will. In the sequel, he shits himself at the top of a water slide and Will is hit in the face by the high velocity turd after desperately trying to outrun it.
  • In Series 2, Neil punches a fish to death. In the sequel, he accidentally kills a dolphin by feeding it junk food.
  • The first film climaxes with Simon almost drowning. The sequel climaxes with all four guys stranded in the Outback waiting to die of thirst.
• Sequel Nonentity:
  • Alison and Lisa. Alison is mentioned once in passing as having dumped Will, but Lisa's whereabouts are not mentioned, even by Lucy.
  • Deleted scenes reveal that Neil broke up with Lisa for being too stupid for him, although he still receives nude pictures from her. Alison, meanwhile, dumped Will after finding a new lover and blocked him on Facebook, much to his chagrin.
  • Barring a few of the episodes from the third series (most notably the ones with Tara), this is one of the only times in the history of The Inbetweeners that Carli goes completely unmentioned.
  • Minor example; Jay's mum. Never seen nor mentioned apart from some lewd paraphrasing from Jay.
• Sex in a Shared Room:
  • The first instance is when Will is fingering Katie, and Jay is both watching and masturbating.
  • A worse experience of this comes later after Will gives Katie and Ben a blistering "The Reason You Suck" Speech and they get back together. Before he can follow his friends to Birdsville, he is forced to endure a night of them having incredibly loud sex just a few beds away.
• Shooting Gallery: During the ending, the lads go to a gun range and fire off a few rounds. Simon uses an AK, Neil fires off a pair of Uzis, Jay goes full Rambo with an M-60, and Will declines to participate.
• Shout-Out:
  • In the opening scene; Will, Simon, and Neil turn up to a party they had been led to believe was fancy dress as Harry, Ron and Hermione.
  • In Jay's fantasy sequence; he mentions sleeping with Dame Edna Everage, and having a threesome with Kylie and Danni Minogue; we also see Mel Gibson (dressed as William Wallace), Hugh Jackman (dressed as Wolverine, and Steve Irwin as guests in his mansion.
  • Jay's car is covered in Peter Andre lyrics and pictures of him.
  • Uncle Bryan compares Jay to "one of them X-Men freaks".
  • In the film's ending, Jay fires an M-60 with one hand while wearing a bandana.
• Sorry That I'm Dying: When they think they are marooned in the outback:
  Will: There's something I need to say.
  Simon: What?
  Will: Sorry. Mate. I am. I'm sorry.
  Jay: Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Jane.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
  • Katie looks awfully similar to Alison from the first movie to the point that a lot of people mistook them for the same actress. In appearance maybe — evidence that blondes are Will's 'type' — but in character traits they are very different, Alison being mature and initially not going for Will, Katie being pretty much the opposite.
  • Jay's Uncle Bryan is one for his dad, belittling him in pretty much the exact same way. Though arguably he's worse since, even though Jay is staying with him, he makes him sleep in a tent on the front lawn.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • Jay no longer thinks about Jane.
  • Neil has not killed any dolphins!
• Talk to the Fist: Subverted. When Jay's Jerkass uncle is berating him, it cuts into slow motion while Jay winds his fist back. All he manages is a girly slap, which doesn't even stop the rant, but refocuses the argument onto Jay's father.
• Toilet Humour: Quite a lot, even by Inbetweeners standards of gross-out humor.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Will's mother has always had her clueless side but in this film she's drifted into outright Brainless Beauty territory. She's completely unable to figure out Skype (despite having used it several times before according to Will) and manages to unintentionally and unwittingly flash the camera a glimpse of her cleavage before accidentally revealing she's dating someone all in the one conversation.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Lucy is a downright epic example. In the first film she was a funny, likeable Nice Girl who though understandably annoyed at Simon being Innocently Insensitive was still willing to hand him the means to reunite with Carli. In this film she's basically an abusive, hyper-jealous girlfriend from Hell, and unfaithful to boot. Except for still being played by Tamla Kari and having the same name, she might as well be a completely different character.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Each of the girls from the end montage has a penis, as shown when the camera pans under the table.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
  • Will, after being hit in the face with Neil's shit.
  • Jay after drinking windscreen wash.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: When their car breaks down in the middle of the outback and the lads have no water, Neil suggests survival tips from a Bear Grylls episode. This seems like a good idea at first, until he mentions that they need to find a salmon for the one technique he remembers to work.
• Yandere: Lucy gets seriously psychotic, destroying Simon's possessions and deleting friends from his Facebook account.

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