It’s laughter they’re after! Monsters at Work is back with Season 2. Picking up 9 months after the events of the first season and Waternoose is still in prison. Best friends Tylor Tuskmon and Val Little have fallen into a new pattern on the laugh floor and they are still friends with MIFT. Meanwhile, Mike and Sulley are dealing with a crisis of their own as the city is still apprehensive about taking sides regarding laugh power.
The situation doesn’t get any easier when the media, mainly Jill of the sibling news duo Jack and Jill, is still on the side of scream power. The situation becomes worse when Mike and Sulley’s college rival, Johnny Worthington III re-enters the picture and attempts to hook Tylor to join him as a scarer over to Fear Co. Also, Cutter ends up facing off against her rival (and later revealed ex-girlfriend) Suzie “Sunny” Sunshine after she is accused of doing something to the laugh power canisters.
Re-Establishing Universal Ties
Throughout Monsters at Work Season 2, the audience is reintroduced to aspects of the films that were not included in Season 1. Monsters University is a massive part of the first couple of episodes. The Homecoming event for the Scream Kings and Queens reintroduces the aforementioned Johnny Worthington III, Claire Wheeler who is now his wife and Chet Alexander, his favourite minion.
The early episodes also hammer home the rivalry between Johnny and Sulley, which started years ago during their college days.
The show also brings in a genius way to bring back Monsters, Inc foe, Randall Boggs.
New Faces
Monsters at Work Season 2 brings in several new faces. These include Johnny and Claire’s children, Lorelei and JJ, Tylor’s grandmother, Virginia, and Roger Rogers, who replaces Tylor and Val. To add this, we also meet various other scarers from Monstropolis.
New Plot Devices
With Mike and Sulley having much bigger roles this season. We’re also introduced to new fun aspects that keep the plot rolling. For example, we learn in the second half of the season that Monsters, Inc has lost to Fear Co. for 40 straight years in their annual softball game.
It breaks Mike’s heart and puts a stinger in Tylor’s friendship with Val as he is forced to join Fear Co’s team after he accidentally knocks out one of their players.
Another big plot device that is brought up has to do with Waternoose. While his photo from his prison cell is shown a few times throughout the season, that’s not what we’re talking about. Roger is the one we’re discussing. Now, you might be wondering why.
Well, Roger is Waternoose’s son. Yep. His name is Henry J. Waternoose IV. He is the total opposite of his father. He’s not malicious or cruel. Sulley knew who Roger was upon hiring him.
No one else knew this and Tylor believes that Roger is up to something after seeing him slip away from a graffiti attack.
Tylor and Val overhear Roger yelling at someone on the phone. They learn later, that Rogers was yelling at his dad who had contacted him from prison. What this part of the story shows is that nepotism is not always what it seems. Sulley knows this from experience. When he was in college he tried to use his family name to get ahead without putting in the work.
When Minions Fight Back
We see in Monsters at Work Season 2 that Chet Alexander, Johnny’s lackey from Monsters University, is still following him around like a lost puppy. However, right towards the end of the season, we learn that Chet has been working with Roz to bring Johnny down. This is the same plan that Randall had in wanting to destroy Monsters, Inc and Mike and Sulley’s reputations.
The difference here is that Randall was always jealous of Mike and Sulley’s success, especially after he lost to Sulley during the final event of the Scare Games. He stopped being friends with Mike after Mike was forced to join Ozma Kappa.
Randall, much like Johnny, has an inflated sense of self. He sees himself as being better than everyone else. We know this from Monsters, Inc due to his reaction to being second to Sulley on the Scare Floor leaderboard.
Finally, Johnny is your average nepo baby who uses his family name and reputation to get ahead. As we know from Waternoose’s arrest that just because you have a well-established name, doesn’t mean you’re immune to prison time.
