J.R. seems to teeter between Pointy-Haired Boss, Bad Boss, and Reasonable Authority Figure. While he does embezzle from the corporation, his criticisms of Reagan's leadership skills are accurate as she later admits, he honors his word to promote her when she corrects her flaws. He also doesn't seem to be a complete idiot as shown when he tricks Oprah during the Shadow Council trials. Rand describes him as The Starscream who staged a coup against him and painted Rand as one day away from a nervous breakdown - which is true, given Rand got ousted from his position as CEO in the first place due to trying to blow up the sun along with the other erratic behavior he's displayed throughout the series, meaning that this can be viewed more as J.R. accurately summarizing his alcohol addict of a former partner's character he's known since college rather than the biased and unjust smear campaign Rand would rather view it as. It's hard to know if J.R. is actually an Icarus that flew too close to the sun, or a face for the company that got Born Lucky.
Despite Rand's few Pet the Dog moments and admitting he wants Reagan's approval as much as she wants his, the season finale revealed that he was only raising Reagan as a pawn, wiping memories of her best friend so that she would skip grades and help him secure a position at Cognito, Inc. Not even Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty did anything like that to his own daughter Beth. Is Rand even capable of love or self-awareness that he broke the one person that had to depend on him for most of her life? Of special note is that he doesn't try to rescue Reagan from Harold; Tamiko attempts it, and Rand follows to fight with her. Alternatively, some other fans have suggested that Rand does love Reagan... but thanks to his Insane Troll Logic and Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad mindset that there are "special people" like him and Reagan that deserve to rule over the rest of the world as ubermenschen, he might not even be aware that his treatment of her is actually abusive. Rand's Heel Realization in Part 2 after he loses his position and power in Congnito Inc. implies that it's more the latter. He does actually love Reagan, but he was completely unaware of how badly he had treated her until she wanted nothing to do with him.
Tamiko, however, Rand seems to genuinely still be in love with. It is notable that she kicked him out for a myriad of reasons, but his beef with her seems to begin and end with being kicked out. While he was far from a good husband, he exhibits fairly standard behavior of a narcissist's version of love. He is still possessive of her after their relationship has ended and rather sloppily contrives an argument for them to get back together. He only seems to speak ill of her to her face and will fondly reminisce so long as she isn't in the room.
"The Brettfast Club" Cold Open hints that Brett may have a crush on Reagan. The family simulation has his "mother" asking if Reagan is someone special in his life, as he blushes and says that Reagan is a coworker "business friend forever." Then after J.R. orders them to leave before they find his weird sex fantasies, Brett pulls them up and invites Reagan to watch with him. It doesn't go one way or the other since the episode ends with Reagan and Brett doing a platonic "business friends forever" movie night, leaving it intentionally ambiguous.
Anvilicious: "Ghost Protocol" emphasizes that there are two things you should not do in public: attempt to break up with someone or manipulate a person into staying with you. Reagan tries to break up with Rafe gently by pointing out she was drunk when sleeping with him, but he causes a scene. While Reagan's coworkers make fun of her for not being able to break up with a guy honestly, they go Mass "Oh, Crap!" on realizing she had the better measure of his character since he tracks them down, mistakenly thinking they killed Reagan on another villain's payroll, and reveals that he put a chip in Reagan's phone so he'd always know where she was. They outright call him a stalker and admit Reagan was right to try and break up with him. Reagan finally gets through to him by strapping him to a Death Trap...and instead of wiping his memories, giving him a tongue-lashing about how he treats women, and knows nothing about her, and only wishes to possess her. It ends up doing the trick.
Awesome Music: The intro makes excellent use of "pa$$ the time" by Bronze ft. BBRC.
Crosses the Line Twice: Several of the darker jokes for certain conspiracies (i.e., Reagan complaining to Brett in the series premiere that "jet fuel can't melt anything!") are often so brazenly over the top that they're more hilarious than actually offensive.
Crossover Ship: Reagan and Gwen has garnered a small fanbase due to their similar personalities.
Cry for the Devil: In the first season finale, Bear-O gets this by being an Anti-Villain. Bear-O was made to hug Reagan and comfort her, but instead he traumatized her. Under Rand's orders, Bear-O was forced to sedate Reagan while Rand erased her memories of Orrin, the only human friend that she had. Then he was dismantled for an indeterminate amount of time. After Rand rebuilds Bear-O in the present-day, Reagan compromises to let Bear-O serve as her personal assistant and party planner. It's revealed Bear-O has been observing Reagan for all the time he's been conscious, being Forced to Watch her increasing misery at her job and with Rand ruining her childhood. When she seems to achieve her CEO promotion, Bear-O concludes that fulfilling her father's dreams for Reagan will make her unhappy, and takes it upon himself to destroy Cognito, Inc. He even tells Reagan when revealing himself as The Mole that he will shut down if she remembers his password, giving her a sporting chance.
Director Displacement: Many people are under the impression that the series is created by Alex Hirsch. In actuality, it's being created and overseen by Shion Takeuchi, while Alex Hirsch is only the executive producer. Hirsch himself once commented on this on Twitter, stressing that the show was Takeuchi's creation.
Epileptic Trees: When Ron was first introduced, a popular fan theory was that he and Reagan were somehow related.
Evil Is Cool: The Shadow Board/Council might be super creepy and responsible for a Conspiracy Kitchen Sink that regularly make the place an exponentially worse place to live, but their unique costumes, Evil Sounds Deep baritones, and subtle Reality Warper powers make them also super intimidating and fascinating.
Many of the fanfics around the series like to explore the various conspiracies covered up by Cognito Inc., the Illuminati, and other organizations and seeing how each of them fits together (i.e., the Hollow Earth portal and its inhabitants, the existence of Atlantis, the independent American Moon colony along with the "Moon Nazis" on the Moon's dark side, the long-lived Reptoid civilization and many others) and how Cognito uncovered them and/or learned how to start covering them up. There's also been lots of theorizing regarding how certain conspiracies actually fit into the series' world and how they might work in regards to the series' worldbuilding.
Exploring Reagan and Brett's childhoods, particularly after the Season 1 finale, and seeing how they became the people they are in the present, is also something explored by many fanfic authors.
Fan-Preferred Couple:Shipping Reagan with Brett is fairly more popular than shipping her with her canonical love interest, Ron. Fans who like them together often say that the two have some rather good chemistry as a couple, and because of its appeal as a reversal of the Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl dynamic. Some even headcanon that Brett may have a small crush on Reagan.
The opening credits shows a member of Myc's species interacting with ancient apes, the latter of whom pick a piece off of the living mushroom and eat it. While this is clearly a riff on 2001: A Space Odyssey, it could also be a reference to the Stoned Ape Hypothesis, which posits that psychedelics like psilocybin may have contributed to improving ancient human neocortices, helping humanity's ancestors develop what we would now refer to as sapience. Which was also the purpose of the monolith.The psilocybin connection is even made canon to the series' universe as of Season 1 Part 2, where it's revealed that humanity's apelike ancestors eating mushrooms allowed their intellects to evolve and eventually lead to humanity evolving from them.
Avril Lavigne being among Cognito Inc.'s collection of clones may just seem like some Surreal Humor on the surface, but in reality it's an allusion to an actual conspiracy theory positing that Lavigne died in 2003 and has since been replaced by a look-alike.
Cognito Inc.'s go-to hangout bar, McUltra, has a bunch of background references to real or suspected conspiracies:
The name itself alludes to the CIA's mind control project, MKUltra. There are also two road signs for "Isbell Blvd." and "Gottlieb Ave.", referring to Sidney Gottlieb, a spymaster at the CIA in the 1950s and 60s who was responsible for the MKUltra project, and Harris Isbell, a pharmacologist who also worked on the project. Another sign says "Orne St.", apparently referencing Martin Theodore Orne, a professor of psychiatry and psychology who used MKUltra funding for experiments with hypnosis.
There is a neon bowtie sign saying "Bilderberg", referring to the Bilderberg meeting, an annual conference for the rich and powerful named after the hotel in the Netherlands where it was first held. Because of the secretive nature of the meeting, its existence has created a lot of conspiracy theories.
In "How Reagan Got Her Grove Back", Bigfoot feels like he's suffering from an identity crisis because civilians who find him confuse him for Chewbacca. In Real Life, the actor who played Chewbacca in Return of the Jedi had to have bodyguards escort him around while they were filming in Redwood Forest because they were worried that he would be confused for a wild animal and get shot by hunters.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: Reagan's team thinks that it's very stupid of her to keep ROBOTUS's top half alive but confined within a Cognito Inc. lab. Nevertheless, they cover for her when ROBOTUS uses his knowledge of security footage to take down runaway clones and keep Grassy from being laid off. Reagan also opts to teach ROBOTUS that humans don't deserve to be wiped out by giving him seasons of Friends, something he enjoys a lot. This ends up paying off in Karmic Jackpot in the season finale, where the team decide to give ROBOTUS weaponry to stop Bear-O and he agrees after they play to his ego. Reagan then makes ROBOTUS's containment tube mobile as thanks for him saving the team.
Gigi saying she refused to rig the Oscars for Leonardo DiCaprio by saying "If [he was] the best, [he] would have won!" becomes even funnier come "Whoas-Feratu", which revealed Leo is a vampire and the most vicious of his circle of vampire actors at that. Gigi dissed a vampire!
Hollywood Homely: While Reagan isn't considered ugly by any means, the series does have a habit of treating her appearance as below average at best. The art style she's drawn in, however, doesn't present her as such.
Reagan is a grouchy, unpleasant, and abrasive person with No Social Skills, has plans for world domination and is working for an evil corporation that covers up conspiracies so the Shadow Government can maintain power. However, the reason she is like this is that both of her parents were incredibly neglectful and she was groomed into this position by her abusive father who would rarely show her affection, not even giving her a hug. Currently, her father lives with her as a constant reminder of how much her childhood sucked while he mooches off of her. And he also removed her memories of the only friend she had when she was a kid in order to get her to stay focused on becoming a scientist, for his benefit. She also shows signs of trying to be an Internal Reformist... but given the Dysfunction Junction that is Cognito Inc., a lot of her efforts to do so often end up being All for Nothing.
Glenn is a racist, overly patriotic, bloodthirsty warmonger, but his transformation into a half-man half-dolphin hybrid has basically destroyed his life. Given how ugly he is, Glenn generally gets attacked and insulted by the general public, which has resulted in him letting himself go, only adding to his depression. Even worse, he mentioned that he almost killed himself after his divorce, only being talked down by "Grassy" Noel Atkinson.
Andre is an amoral Mad Doctor who has created diseases, is obsessed with sex, and is always high. He was also raised by hardcore Christians and uses drugs to keep his anxiety, Tourette's, OCD, and crippling self-loathing under control.
Even Rand of all people becomes this at the end of Part 2. Despite being have been an amoral asshole who was a huge Hate Sink for his treatment of Reagan, after he is rejected by Tamiko following permanently losing his job, he ends up becoming a truly broken and depressed man remorseful for his actions while becoming desperate to get his family back, even if it meant altering the universe to find a timeline where his family doesn't hate him.
Reagan's relatable personality and often intimidating presence (along with her Hidden Buxom nature as shown in "Blue Bloods") has caused her to develop as many fangirls as she has fanboys. The hint via Freeze-Frame Bonus in "Sex Machina" that she may be bisexual helps too.
Brett's lovable personality and highly attractive design also made him popular with gay/bisexual male viewers.
Love to Hate: Rand Ridley is a manipulative moocher of a father, but he's hilarious to watch thanks to both his absurd dialogue and Christian Slater's utterly unhinged performance. The hilarity part goes away when it's revealed he raised Reagan to be his puppet for taking over Cognito Inc. He went as far as erasing her memories of her only friend so she would do nothing but focus on her work. What's worse is he actually succeeds in taking over Cognito. This makes him an astonishingly despicable human being. Even then, the hilarity now seems to come from embracing this and showing how over-the-top he can go as the Obviously EvilCorrupt Corporate Executive.
Bear-o is the unassuming, overly friendly hugging robot created by Rand Ridley for his daughter Reagan. Spending the series as a background character mostly used for humor, Bear-o is revealed to be The Mole inside Cognito, Inc., stealing secret files and playing the entire organization against itself to dismantle it from the inside. Bear-o intends to annihilate Cognito and all of Reagan's toxic friends, accurately having deduced that without them or her stressful job, she will no doubt have a happier life. When Reagan learns the truth and prevents Bear-o from his master plan to leak Cognito's files, Bear-o simply changes tactics to murdering the staff of Cognito, easily tearing through its defenses and even defeating the Gang's last-ditch ally ROBOTUS, coming within a hairsbreadth of completing his goals to improve Reagan's work-life balance.
"Ghost Protocol": Dr. Skullfinger is Rafe Masters' hammy but Affably Evil nemesis, a criminal mastermind with a mind-control plan so good that Incognito Inc. sees him as a rival to be removed. When Incognito teams up with Rafe to arrest Skullfinger, Skullfinger reveals that he can break out of prison whenever he wants, engaging in a sincere conversation with Reagan Ridley that nevertheless ends with him successfully convincing her to essentially become a supervillain to break up with Rafe Masters. Skullfinger breaks out at the end and renews his rivalry with Rafe Masters, realizing for as suffocating as Rafe is, they're soulmates.
Many fans of Clone High have jokingly commented that the entire subplot involving JFK clones in "Clone Gunman" was Inside Job serving as an unofficial third season to their own show.
The show suddenly getting its production cancelled despite its growing fanbase and what looked like the promise of an actual second season (instead of the first season getting split into two parts) has some jokingly claiming that the reason Netflix did so was because the conspiracies in the show were indeed real and the government wanted to make sure that the public wouldn't find out. Of course, there arethose who take this theory to heart and do legitimately believe that this was an attempt to repress knowledge on "thetruth."
At first, Reagan's coworkers tease her for not using her usual Brutally Honest ways on Rafe Masters, and Brett gives a Squee when Rafe makes him a partner on a mission. Rafe did sleep with Reagan when she was too drunk to give consent, which is rape if not molesting since Reagan can't believe what she did when she wakes up the next day. If that isn't the moment where he crosses the line with Questionable Consent, the moment that does convince them Reagan's judgment of him was correct is when he storms their attempts to rebuild Project Gaslight, having used a tracking device in Reagan's phone to find them. (For context, Reagan faked her death and Rafe mistakenly believed her coworkers were responsible.) The others say that's messed up and Brett turned on Rafe because he says that real heroes don't stalk people they like.
Buzz Aldrin crosses this when he plans on moving the Moon out of orbit, knowing that the gravitational effects on Earth would be catastrophic. He doesn't care and at the end everyone sees him as a Broken Pedestal. It can be argued that he actually crossed it much earlier than that after it's revealed that he killed the real Neil Armstrong out of envy for not beingthe first man on the Moon.
Rand Ridley is revealed to have crossed this years ago when he erased the memories of his daughter's best friend from her mind, so she would be fine with skipping fourth grade and becoming a super-scientist so he would have a way back into Cognito Inc. Reagan is disgusted to learn this and wants him out of her life.
One True Threesome: Those who like Brett/Reagan and Ron/Reagan sometimes prefer to just ship all three characters together, mainly because they find that both ships have good chemistry and that Brett and Staedtler's relationship (while starting on rocky ground) actually quite wholesome.
Self-Fanservice: Reagan dresses modestly and is In-Universe perceived as at best, very plain looking (with a few hints of She Cleans Up Nicely). But with a large part of the fanbase having a collective crush on her, Reagan has a lot of fanart depicting her as bustier and having her posing half-naked, sometimes drawing her face with a straight or concave nose rather than an aquiline nose.
Rand's Establishing Character Moment in the very first scene of the show, setting the tone for the series' humor and social commentary
Glenn defending as furries a valid community before admitting they are usually a sexual thing. While it happens in the final episode, it is often regarded as one of the funniest moments in the show and one of its best examples of meta-humor.
Reagan finding out Rand erased her memories. While it also happens in the final episode, it's seen as the darkest moment in the series and the moment the show began to deconstruct Rand's character as an Expy of Rick and take his actions seriously.
Inside Job has been semi-jokingly, semi-seriously described as a Work Com take on the SCP Foundation, thanks to both works being set in a Conspiracy Kitchen Sink and are primarily focused on a morally-bankrupt America-based N.G.O. Superpower (Cognito Inc. and the SCP Foundation respectively) dedicated to upholding The Masquerade for mysterious reasons, has a staff full of various eclectic and dangerous paranormal and human entities, and is overseen by a shadowy Omniscient Council of Vagueness whose members are Ambiguously Human (the Shadow Board/Council and O5 Council). Many fans have even argued that the series' gradual Cerebus Syndrome despite its ostensibly absurd premise and characters is a reflection of how the SCP Foundation itself was a pretty goofy collaborative writing project before the Mass Edit caused it to gain a more or less consistently serious approach and higher standard of writing quality.
To Better Off Ted, with both series being goofy science-fiction Work Coms set in an immensely powerful Evil, Inc. that basically runs the world, and is mostly centered around an Only Sane Man (Reagan in Inside Job, Ted in Better Off Ted) struggling to serve as an Internal Reformist in the face of their dysfunctional, Ambiguously Evil coworkers.
Strangled by the Red String: Reagan in Part 2. With Ron. Goes from Slap-Slap-Kiss in Episode 1, to She Is Not My Girlfriend in Episode 2, to desperately trying to get a Relationship Upgrade in Episode 4, to considering throwing away her entire career, friendship with her crew and the promise of uncovering the Robes' secrets to go run away with Ron in Episode 8. Part 2 is effectively a Romance Arc with the usual shadow government antics as the B Plot, but with so many cut corners for Reagan it's distracting. To her credit, she does ultimately recognize that their relationship can't really work and breaks it off, leaving Ron to be happy with someone else.
Strawman Has a Point: Yes, Reagan cut corners in "Blue Bloods" by inventing robotic arms to hug Reptoids rather than try to figure out the reason for hugs being her Trauma Button. The thing is she was under a time crunch, and it was a case where she couldn't sit out an important event since Brett flaked out on speaking in favor of doing frat hazing. J.R. even noted she would need thirty years of therapy.
Unintentional Period Piece: "How Reagan Got Her Grove Back" briefly shows Queen Elizabeth in her Reptilian form in a crowd shot, and makes reference to Jair Bolsanaro being President of Brazil; by the time it aired as the first episode of Part 2, Queen Elizabeth had been dead for several months, and Bolsanaro had lost his re-election in Brazil. Neither of these had occurred during production, but it dates the piece significantly.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: In "Ghost Protocol", everyone tells Reagan that she should just go and ended things with Rafe Masters instead of ghosting him/faking her death. However, not only is Rafe a trained killer, but he's also very unstable and very creepy (not only does he break down crying at the thought of woman he had a one night stand with breaking up with him, he talks about moving to her city and having kids with her). In fact, Rafe only becomes creepier after Reagan faked her death, to the point he reveals that he bugged Reagan's phone and he has done the same with every woman he has every dated. Even if ending things with him face to face turned out to be the right call, Reagan is very justified in wanting to avoid him at all costs, especially since in some ways Rafe's behavior frighteningly resembles the behavior of real life stalkers.
In "The Brettfast Club", when Brett wants to stay Still Valley longer, he comes up with a plan to douse the gang with a bit of the chemical Nostalgia Max so they will want to stay too. While Reagan and the others should have realized Brett was heading for an emotional breakdown and helped him, he was way over the line as not only is that brainwashing (it's worth mentioning that Reagan didn't even want to do that to the town), but Nostalgia Max has a chance to give people brain damage (as it has done exactly that to all of Still Valley). While he becomes sympathetic again when it's revealed that his love of the 80's was a coping mechanism for his family hating him, it's troubling that he seemed ready to do that to people he views as his friends (though to Brett's credit, he himself seems to recognize that it isn't a good idea before the Nostalgia Max briefly fries his brain).
Harold, the leader of the Flat Earthers is given an Alas, Poor Villain moment by Reagan after he dies by jumping into the portal to the hollow earth, indicating that we as the audience are supposed to feel bad for him too. The problem is, Harold was shown to be a violent psychopath who not only took the entire main cast and the other wedding guests hostage, but even threatened to kill Brett. All this makes it very hard to feel bad for him. As a result, he comes across as more of an Asshole Victim than anything else.
The Woobie: Brett. His family was often too busy for him and even pretended he was someone else's child whenever they'd go out in public. As an adult, he's become a Yes-Man people pleaser so he can receive the validation he never got from his own family.
Reagan is also this, given that she was raised by her emotionally distant narcissistic mother and controlling father who was obsessed with having her be a high achiever to the point of erasing all of her happy memories with her friend Orrin to make her focus on school, and is responsible for most of her emotional issues as an adult.
Woolseyism: The Italian dub has in the final episode of Season 2 Brett, while in the van talking to Air Bud, talk apropos of nothing about Covid-19 with an oblique reference to Italy's poor management of it; in the original dub he was just telling the dog to avoid handles (since he taped a gun to the dog's head). Also, the Italian dub for the second season is Ruder and Cruder for some reason, with all the characters swearing much more than before. The Hollywood celebrities episode from S2 also has an extra speaking in "cursive", referencing a then-popular (and widely mocked) comedy bit.
, stressing that the show was Takeuchi's creation.