Netflix's Answer To Rick & Morty Deserves More Than Just One Season

When Rick & Morty arrived on Adult Swim in 2013, it did more than launch a meme-spawning pop culture phenomenon. The adventures of the multiverse’s smartest man and his anxiety-riddled grandson demonstrated just how hungry audiences were for adult-oriented animated sci-fi with a strong satirical streak. Its combination of ambitious science fiction, crude humor, and surprisingly dark character drama wasn’t just successful: it became definitive of modern animated comedy shows.

Rick & Morty’s impact on the wider entertainment landscape was apparent almost immediately, with similarly irreverent animated sci-fi shows appearing across broadcast and streaming. However, among the legions of imitators like Final Space and Star Trek: Lower Decks was a Netflix show that stood out as a truly worthy successor. Released in 2021, Inside Job took the sci-fi absurdity and satirical cynicism of Rick & Morty and applied them to the endlessly strange world of conspiracy theories.

Created by Gravity Falls writer Shion Takeuchi, Inside Job trades Rick Sanchez for Reagan Ridley (Lizzy Caplan), a brilliant but socially awkward scientist working for Cognito Inc., the shadow-government organization responsible for managing conspiracies that are all secretly real. Alongside the relentlessly optimistic Brett (Clark Duke) and Reagan’s paranoid father Rand (Christian Slater), Inside Job turned everything from fake celebrity deaths to the moon landing into an animated workplace comedy with teeth. Sadly, despite attracting a devoted following, Inside Job was canceled after season 1, but that shouldn’t stop Rick & Morty fans from diving in.

Inside Job Deserved To Have Another Season

It’s always frustrating when Netflix prematurely cancels a TV show, but few early axes sting quite like Inside Job. What’s more, to add insult to injury, Netflix initially had decided to move ahead with season 2, The series received an initial 20-episode order, ultimately releasing 18 episodes across two parts in 2021 and 2022. Netflix then announced a renewal for 20 more episodes June 2022, only to reverse that decision in January 2023.

The fans Inside Job had amassed by 2023 were heartbroken at the news, as was creator Shion Takeuchi. She explained via a post on X (then Twitter) that the characters had become “real people” to her, and that Reagan and Brett specifically “deserved to get their ending and finally find happiness.” Takeuchi also revealed that she would have loved to share what the writers had planned next, making it clear there was considerably more story left to tell.

That unfinished business is especially obvious after the Inside Job season 1 finale, “Appleton.” Reagan sacrifices her relationship with Illuminati agent Ron Staedtler (Adam Scott) after realizing that staying with Cognito could create a better future for both of them. However, her apparent victory comes with another ominous revelation involving the mysterious Robes and their plans for Project X37, setting up a much larger storyline that never received a resolution.

At least one additional season could have explored that threat while giving Reagan, Brett, and the rest of Cognito’s dysfunctional employees proper conclusions. Instead, Inside Job ended just as its overarching plot started to get into full swing. Netflix didn’t merely cancel a promising comedy; it reversed an already-announced renewal and doomed the mysteries of Inside Job would remain unsolved forever.

Rick & Morty Fans Should Still Watch Inside Job

The show’s unresolved ending is frustrating, but Inside Job isn’t a show whose value exists solely in its serialized arcs. Like Rick & Morty, Inside Job is largely self-contained episodic adventures, with longer-term developments drip fed between hilarious standalone stories. The individual episodes remain extremely funny even knowing that the overarching story doesn’t have a solid conclusion.

The central concept of Inside Job means that the sci-fi comedy of its episodes will directly appeal to Rick & Morty fans. The show isn’t simply referencing conspiracy theories either. It builds an entire functioning world around the premise that almost every ridiculous claim is true and somebody has the exhausting administrative job of keeping it secret. Both shows use increasingly ridiculous science-fiction concepts as vehicles for cynical satire, while balancing extreme comedy with characters carrying substantial emotional baggage.

For example, Reagan’s difficult relationship with her father, Rand, has a lot of thematic overlap with Rick and Beth. Like Rick & Morty, Inside Job understands that dysfunctional family dynamics can be explored through absurd sci-fi ideas, and that the results can be utterly hilarious.

Inside Job never received enough time to become Netflix’s long-running equivalent to Rick & Morty, but its 18 episodes demonstrate that it had the potential. The lack of a definitive ending will always sting, yet the individual adventures, characters, and conspiracy-driven sci-fi humor make what exists worth watching anyway, especially for Rick & Morty fans. Inside Job deserved more, but what exists of it remains one of Netflix’s strongest adult animated comedies.