Reagan Ridley

## [source]

**Dr. Reagan Ridley** is the main protagonist of *Inside Job*. She is an inventor, the head roboticist, former team leader, and current Chief Executive Officer at Cognito Inc. She is the best friend and boss of Brett Hand. She is the daughter of the company's former CEO, Rand Ridley.

She is voiced by Lizzy Caplan.

## Appearance

### Physical appearance

Reagan is a mixed-race woman (half-Japanese from her mother, half-Caucasian from her father), with a slim build. Her hair is short and brown, and she ties it into a ponytail leaving her remaining hair parted on both sides. Because she suffers from sleep deprivation, she often has deep eye bags and messy hair.

Since her left pinky finger was accidentally destroyed by J.R., she wears a robotic prosthetic, and her left hand is visibly scarred.

### Attire

She's most frequently seen at work in a lab coat with a grey shirt underneath, green pants with a small tear just above the right knee, white sneakers, and low-cut socks.

At home, she likes to get cozy by wearing a large orange hoodie and grey sweatpants. She tends to get her hoodie dirty with food, while lying on the couch watching TV.

## Personality

At first glance, Reagan comes off as insufferably brilliant, easily irritable, cynical, paranoid, and competitive to her core with evident social awkwardness, which usually makes her unable to establish a connection with those around her. She appears to be a callous misanthrope whose genius drives her headfirst into her work. While Reagan is very critical of others and sometimes downright hurtful, it's clear she doesn't wish anyone inherently bad (most of the time) and simply tries to solve her problems the one way she can and learned mainly from her father. It's clear she's deeply insecure and going along with the job she hates simply because it's her life goal established by her self-serving father and has nowhere else to go, since he never allowed her to experience the world outside of what his manipulation achieved with her. A lot of her character flaws can be traced back to her abusive childhood which crippled her emotionally and left her out of touch with her emotions.

Throughout the series, there are hints she's sometimes able to exhibit the more human and caring side of her, like establishing a genuine friendship with Brett, attempting to connect with her father or expressing affection to a found cat (only for it to scratch her and leave her with an eye wound). At the end of Part 1, she finally realizes the full scale of her father's deception and, seeing his true uncaring and cruel nature, rejects him in favor of her coworkers, whom she has learned to appreciate over a time despite their incompetence, only to then be informed she has been replaced as the CEO of Cognito, Inc. by him after the pandemonium during the mole hunt on her term of office, which only further disgraces him in her eyes.

## History

### Childhood

Reagan was born to Randall and Tamiko Ridley, both having neglectful tendencies. Growing up, she showed great enthusiasm for conducting science experiments and building her own inventions, thanks to her father's influence, but was not a very sociable child overall. Despite her advanced intelligence and ingenuity for her age, Reagan rarely, if ever, received any sort of genuine affection or emotional support from either of her parents, Randall even being cruel enough to ridicule and mock his daughter for any failed experiments she conducted. To "accommodate" for his and his wife's lack of presence in their daughter's life, he built Bear-O, a robot companion that would hug and accompany her whenever she sought the attention of her parents all throughout elementary and middle school. Bear-O's hypervigilance and her parents' neglect ended up traumatizing Reagan so much that she would end up repressing early memories for years until they finally resurfaced in her 30s.

Despite her social ineptitude, Reagan eventually met Orrin Carthwait in the 4th grade, and the two became fast friends. He was her only friend and the only person to ever take a genuine interest in her, and was even able to single-handedly make one of her birthdays a happy one. However, their friendship would unfortunately be short-lived. Randall, wanting to use Reagan as an "insurance policy" of sorts at Cognito Inc., should he be terminated for any reason in the future, used one of his inventions to wipe Reagan's memory clean of Orrin ever being her friend so Reagan would have no qualms with skipping the rest of elementary and middle school, having been recognized as a prodigy by her school principal. Randall's decision would destroy any chance of Reagan both developing important social skills at an early age and living a normal life.

### Teenage years

Once again, Reagan continues to struggle socializing with others, often being the victim of bullying and ridicule from most, if not all of her peers. On the homecoming night of her senior year in high school, Reagan remembers meeting a man named Brett for the first time (thanks to a paradox occuring in "Inside Reagan"), and he takes her to the homecoming dance. They are both ridiculed by the rest of the students there, but Reagan still appreciates Brett for just being there, and reveals she was going regardless of having a date or not, since she had actually rigged numerous buckets of fake blood to rain upon all the students present. Upon graduating high school, Reagan would shortly thereafter go to college, becoming the best of MIT and youngest graduate at the age of 13.

### Present day

   With her father now retired from Cognito and the organization now headed by J.R. Scheimpough, Reagan now works at the company with the pretense of being his successor as the company's head roboticist and team leader. Her coworkers include half-dolphin half-human supersoldier Glenn Dolphman, biochemist Andre Lee, head of PR and Media Manipulation Gigi Thompson, and psychic mushroom Myc.

As committed as Reagan is to her job, her difficulty parsing social situations has led to her being intense with coworkers. To help this, J.R. assigned the most normal-faced American man ever, Brett Hand, as her right-hand and co-leader. Reagan dismisses him at first, but after a tour of the Cognito premises she makes him the first to see her latest invention, Alpha-Beta (then named ROBOTUS), a robot copy of the president that she plans to use to replace the real one.

She catches on fairly quickly during their talk that Brett offers no legitimate skills that would make him an asset to the team or the company in general, and was merely hired on a whim to accommodate for her own lack of charisma and people skills. Brett meets the rest of the team during lunch, in which everyone takes an immediate liking to him. Reagan, sitting by her lonesome, is approached by Myc, who jokingly offers to slip rat poison into Brett's next cup of coffee, an idea Reagan genuinely entertains before Myc begins to mock her for taking him seriously. Later that night, Reagan confides in Rand about the current situation, inquiring about how unlikeable he thinks she is, and Brett's arrival.

Rand is quick to suggest that J.R. may be trying to force Reagan out of the company using Brett, but she counters claiming that once Alpha-Beta is finished and the president has been successfully swapped, J.R. will recognize that Reagan doesn't need any sort of co-leader. The next day, Reagan showcases Alpha-Beta to her team, J.R. and the Shadow Board, though concerns are expressed about the A.I. potentially going rogue, Reagan assures them the robot is "too patriotic" to rebel. The meeting is interrupted suddenly by Brett, who surprises everyone with a box of bagels. J,R, and the Shadow Board express their satisfaction with Brett, which quickly draws away any sort of attention or recognition from Reagan, deeply upsetting her. She visits Brett in his new office, and he commends her for her hard work. Reagan, unsure of how to respond, merely returns the thanks, telling him he did a good job bringing bagels for everyone, Brett reveals he's been tense since he's stepped foot into Cognito, hoping to make a good first impression. Reagan quickly begins to prey on Brett's anxiety, attempting to convince him it'd be best to leave the company while he still can. Brett dismisses the idea, preferring instead to remain positive, and stick with the job. Reagan begins to suspect that perhaps Brett is not entirely what he seems or claims to be, and decides to conduct a personal investigation on him.

The next day, Reagan arrives noticeably late to work, having stood-up all night gathering "evidence" on Brett. She interrupts a meeting in which Brett was showcasing his own ideas for the company, and nicknames for his co-workers. Reagan's "evidence" turns out to be nothing but technicalities and insignificant details on Brett's previous field of work and high-school years. J.R., not seeing any of this as a reason to distrust Brett, and being overall frustrated with Reagan's current mental state, takes her off the Alpha-Beta launch and essentially firing her, telling her to take as much time as she needs to clear her head, he then puts Brett in charge of the Alpha-Beta mission launch, feeling confident that he is well-suited for the task.

Reagan, dejected, goes home and watches the news that night with her dad, where she finds out Alpha-Beta has gone rogue, and is planning on placing the entirety of America into the "Americube". Rand reveals that he had actually tampered with Alpha-Beta' code, and should for any reason Reagan be removed from the company's payroll, it's inhibitor chip would deactivate. She suddenly receives a call from Brett, who reveals Alpha-Beta going rogue has caused mass hysteria within Cognito, and begs for Reagan to come back and help set things straight. The two of them make their way to New York to stop Alpha-Beta' plan, when they reach him, Reagan quickly decides that the best way to convince him to stop, is to connect him to the internet, and show him how terrible America really is. After a few brief moments of analyzing, Alpha-Beta deduces that all of humanity is horribly flawed, and the most merciful thing to do is to destroy it. He calls the Pentagon to launch the nukes, though they wait for further confirmation. He then opens a safe, containing what appears to be a metal briefcase, that actually has the controls to arm the nukes. Reagan attempts to swipe it from him, and ends up burning the side of his face with the jet fuel Brett brought, but two Secret Service agents bust through the door to protect the "President". Reagan and Brett flee from the scene, jumping through a window to do so, while Alpha-Beta kills the two Secret Service agents after his cover is blown, thanks to the left side of his face now missing due to Reagan melting it with jet fuel and escapes to the roof of the building. Reagan and Brett reveal themselves, who were actually hiding beside the window after jumping through it. Reagan picks up one of the guns dropped by the Secret Service, and attaches an improvised laser-sight onto it, realizing they have no choice but to neutralize Alpha-Beta'. They begin to chase him up the stairs, though Reagan lags behind due to her lack of stamina. Brett then carries her on his back, full-on sprinting up the stairs, revealing he is still in excellent-shape. Reagan contacts her team via her tablet, though they aren't of much help, due to all being high on "super molly". Reagan berates them for their incompetence. Brett suggests he get a turn at talking to the team, and successfully motivates them, and to follow Reagan's orders, which include "un-kidnapping the President" and a media cover-up to calm the masses.

The two then catch up to Alpha-Beta, who hijacks a helicopter, taking control of it. They follow him inside, and there is a brief scuffle as the helicopter takes off. Reagan holds Alpha-Beta at gun-point, though he arrogantly believes Reagan doesn't have the heart to destroy him, her life's work, and suggests the two of them aren't so different, both deep-down being nothing but cold, heartless machines. Reagan proves him wrong but slicing him in two with her laser-sight pistol, and disarming the nukes.

Reagan accepts that J.R. may have actually been right to fire her, but Brett assures her the company is entirely unable to run without her. Reagan corrects him, stating that the company can't run without the both of them, and finally accepts him as a part of the team. Reagan and Brett make their way back to Cognito to see that mass panic has been averted, as the President refers to "Americube" as an "epic troll". J.R. expresses he never doubted Reagan at all, despite firing her. In celebration, Brett offers to take everyone out for margaritas, Reagan is hesitant at first, but after noticing Rand flooding her phone with numerous messages, she eagerly accepts. Brett expresses remorse that Alpha-Beta had to be destroyed, only for it to be revealed Reagan never actually destroyed him, and is hiding him in a secret compartment within Cognito.

### "Clone Gunman"

Reagan recaps earlier events to Alpha-Beta, still hidden away in her secret lab, as he tries to convince her to connect him to the internet so he can hack the payroll and give her a raise for the heroics she displayed on the helicopter. Reagan not fooled by Alpha-Beta's trick remarks that unlike him she wasn't born yesterday and she said she might get along with Brett after all. When she returns to the war room, she meets with Brett and they share a secret, elaborate handshake as new friends. She also finds her team messing around. At first she berated them, but was convinced to join in, as the company could afford a few abused privileges. But it was then, when JR immediately informed her and the team that Cognito Inc. was out of money, before she accidentally smashed the communication screen.

## Relationships

### Family

#### Rand Ridley

> You ever have those mornings where you start *pulling* at the mental thread that your ***entire life*** could be different if maybe you hadn't been raised by such an ***asshole?!***
>
> - Reagan thinking out-loud about how much her dad ended up shaping her life.

Reagan's relationship with her father is complicated. During her childhood, Rand withheld almost all emotional affection from his daughter, which isolated her from any healthy connections. Instead of providing that healthy connection, Reagan's father would invent machines as an attempt to substitute it (unfortunately, imperfectly). Bear-O would be one of the most traumatic attempts at this, leading to Reagan's insecurities with keeping eye contact and giving hugs. This would allow Reagan to concentrate on science and engineering and to become a prodigy, which her father made sure of as well. As she grew up, Reagan disliked her father more and more.

In "Inside Reagan", it is revealed that Rand experimented on his own daughter by tampering with her memories as a way to get back at J.R. if he got fired from the company. As a result Reagan can’t remember when the last time she got affection such as a hug, struggles with making deep connection with others and worst of all had any memory of her first real friend Orin erased. Finding that out completely tarnishes their relationship and leads Reagan, who now sees though his manipulation, to ultimately reject and disown him. The next day, however, the Shadow Board reveals she was replaced by Rand as Cognito's CEO, much to her disbelief and fury.

Reagan’s resentment of her father stood strong all throughout part 2 of season 1, though she was aware the karma of his actions coupled with his demons will inevitably catch up with him and his craft will fall on itself. That prediction was sealed when Rand caused reality to fall apart with a machine called *Project Reboot.* Reagan later confronted him only to see Rand desperately trying to create a new timeline just to fix his broken family instead of trying to get revenge on the Shadow Board for firing him like she assumed. It was then Reagan saw how demoralized and anguished her father had become and her anger turned to pity. After the universe was returned to normal, Reagan realized that sending her father to Shadow Prison X was probably the best way to protect him from himself.

#### Tamiko Ridley

> She's still Mom, **undercutting my confidence** in ways I didn't know existed.
>
> Reagan expressing how callous her mother can be at times.

Reagan has a strained relationship with her mother as well, though not as much as her father. Tamiko constantly undermines Reagan's confidence in ways she didn't know existed. Her parents fighting with each other has more than once brought Reagan to the edge of insanity. Despite not being as bad as Rand, Tamiko can be considered neglectful and uncaring towards Reagan and her feelings: this can be seen when she marries herself just to anger Rand despite their fights being unnerving to Reagan or when she's seen in a flashback not caring about her daughter's disappointment in no one coming to her birthday party. It's worth noting in "My Big Flat Earth Wedding", when Reagan is taken hostage by Harold, she is the first to come to her aid.

### Coworkers

#### Brett Hand

> You are the **only** one who is **honest** with me, even without any truth serum. [...] I remember what you did for me at homecoming, we've been good for eighteen years.
>
> Reagan, reassuring Brett that they'll always be friends.

Brett is Reagan's adulthood best friend. Initially, Reagan hated that Brett, a guy with no experience, got the same promotion as her. Her hatred of Brett was so strong she actually considered Myc's joke of putting poison in his coffee. After the events of "Unpresidented" though, Reagan grew to trust and befriend Brett, to the point where she was comfortable with hugging him at the end of "The Brettfast Club". She relates to Brett as she also had a bad family. Although she has to correct him on things from time to time she still respects him. She believes Brett is the only one honest with her and her people skills have improved a lot thanks to him. She also wasn't mad when he accidentally tampered with her memory of her homecoming and affirms that they have been good for eighteen years. He was one of the few co-workers she trusted and confided in. And when Rand was causing a reality-storm, and the other members abandoned her, to live their ideal timelines, she was grateful Brett stayed behind. But rather than risk his life, she had him also fall into the new timeline, where she believed him to be happy. After becoming head of Cognito, she also realized her boyfriend, Ron, wanted to talk to her, and she felt comfortable confiding in Brett. She also developed a strong trust in Brett, handing over command to him, while she was busy trying to figure out her relationship with both Ron and her work in the Deep State.

#### Dr. Andre

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Andre, for the most part, irritates Reagan, but deep down she does appreciate him and comes to see him as a friend. In "Inside Reagan" she says that she loves his originality.

#### Glenn Dolphman

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Like her other coworkers, Glenn irritates Reagan constantly, but she trusts him greatly and admires his bravery and fearlessness.

#### Gigi Thompson

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Besides Brett, Gigi seems to annoy Reagan the least out of all of her coworkers. Reagan admires her confidence and fearlessness, and Reagan has a unique relationship dynamic with her due to the fact that they are the only women on the team.

#### Magic Myc

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Reagan is constantly annoyed by Myc and his various antics, but she actually cares about him like the rest of her coworkers. Out of all of them, she seems to be annoyed by him the most due to his innuendos and gross comments, and when she is complimenting her team (shown in "Inside Reagan") she says that she loves how his shittiness makes everyone else look better in comparison.

#### Alpha-Beta

> ...Because I'm her **life's work**. And she knows humanity's a pox, all you do is tweet hot takes and shout "World Star" during street fighting videos, **everyone disappoints you**, and that's why you've **buried** yourself in your work. I may be a cold, calculating machine, but **you. Are. Too.**
>
> Alpha-Beta, monologuing to Reagan, reasoning they aren't so different from one-another.

Alpha-Beta is Reagan's creation, and was initially her pride and joy, up until he went rogue, their relationship becomes hostile as he wishes to destroy all of humanity. Despite the danger he poses to herself and society, Reagan spared him and tucked him away somewhere secret, to study, likely for a future experiment. Reagan regularly visits and talks to him, though he frequently attempts to trick her into relinquishing her hold on him. Reagan is kind enough however, to reward him with seasons of Friends to watch, should he say her in her various escapades. For the brief time she is CEO of Cognito, she does bring him up to the surface of the building, a gesture he seems to genuinely appreciate. Alpha-Beta even became a strong ally towards her, helping her in a crisis, which she appreciated, though she still wouldn't give him too big of an advantage, in case he went back to trying to achieve global genocide.

### Enemies

#### J.R. Scheimpough

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Reagan is mostly professional with J.R., though she's comfortable enough to openly express her confusion or annoyance with his decisions to him.

#### Bear-O

Reagan's father Rand designed Bear-O to be her "best friend" in his absence, but the robotic teddy bear became a source of terror in her childhood and is partly responsible for her social anxiety. Years later, Rand put Bear-O back together and reactivated him were one of his hugs caused Reagan to relive her old traumas, but she ultimately decided to ride Bear-O home with Rand. Bear-O was taken back to Cognito, Inc. where he did odd jobs such as cleaning the office, catering Tamiko's weeding and assisting Reagan in any way possible. As time went on however Bear-O saw Reagan was frustrated at work, constantly annoyed by her Coworkers and had a very strained relationship with her father; all of which resulted in high cortisol levels, irregular sleep patterns, adverse blood alcohol index and excessive Adderall consumption. Because his primary directive was to make Reagan happy Bear-O came to the conclusion that he needed to eliminate everything that made Reagan unhappy.

### Other

#### Rafe Masters

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Reagan views Rafe as an obsessive, misogynistic, regressive, clingy tired old stereotype. After hooking up with him for one night, Rafe was convinced that they were in a serious relationship, to the point where he started looking up school districts for their future children, which they never had. This was the point that pushed Reagan to fake her own death to avoid breaking up with him so she doesn't become the bad guy.

#### Orrin Carthwait

> I had a **friend!** A **real** friend! And you **erased him!**
>
> -Reagan to Rand after rediscovering old memories of her former best friend, and why she "forgot" him.

Reagan met Orrin in the fourth grade after a teacher entered their science class and asked for his name. He would soon become Reagan's best and only friend, the two practically becoming inseparable and doing everything together. Orrin was there for (what was presumably) Reagan's tenth birthday party, riding Mr. Chompy together, a Velociraptor-Bot that she built for the occasion. Together, they had also won first place at the science fair in elementary school. After sometime however, Reagan's advanced intelligence and ingenuity would be recognized by the school principal and brought to her parent's attention, concluding she is more than capable of skipping grades straight to high school. However, the principal acknowledges for the first time in Reagan's life, she's actually made a friend, and staying at her grade level will actually in the long-term benefit her, socially and emotionally.

Rand, deciding Orrin will simply "weaken Reagan with his mediocrity", takes matters into his own hands, completely disregarding how Reagan feels about the situation. Rand would later erase any at all memory of Orrin ever being her friend, fabricating false memories within Reagan's mind, so she would have no issue focusing on her studies and finishing school early. Upon learning the truth and resurfacing her memories, Reagan is distraught by Orrin's erasure from her life.

#### Ron Staedtler

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Ron met Reagan in an Anonymous Anonymous meeting, where they had a fight. And after the fight they both tried to sabotage their bosses and accidentally made them kiss while controlling their minds. They dated and moved in. When Ron wanted to start a new life with Reagan and move to a small town called Appleton, Reagan splat between her job and her partner. She tried to find a reality where she could be happy with Ron but she couldn't find one and erased Ron's memory and sent him to Appleton alone, where Ron will start a family with somebody else.

#### Shadow Board

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Reagan has been loyal to the Shadow Board for years despite knowing next to nothing about them. When they offered her a partnership and access to all of the world's greatest secrets, she was shocked and eventually accepted the offer. The Shadow Board are genuinely impressed with her skills, but at the same time they have no qualms with using her for Project X37 and presumably see her as nothing but a pawn.

## Trivia

* Due to the trauma of Bear-O, Reagan struggles with hugging people, to the point where she violently attacks people who try to hug her; however, she gradually gets of this trauma over the course of season 1 and gave Brett a heartfelt hug in "Project Reboot".
* Reagan is strongly implied to be autistic (specifically Asperger's Syndrome); due to the following factors:
	+ In "Blue Bloods", Tamiko describes Reagan in her book as her "Daughter with Asperger's". When Reagan asks about this, Tamiko denies it which Reagan accepts, where Tamiko points out that Reagan couldn't tell that she was lying.
	+ Reagan struggles with some forms of physical contact, particularly hugging. Whilst this is mainly a result of trauma associated with Bear-O, many people with Autism are often reluctant to make physical contact with others.
	+ Reagan often struggles with social situations, where she is reluctant to make eye contact with others and respond to text messages.
	+ In general, Reagan is depicted to be very bright but awkward in social situations, a common stereotype for people with Asperger's Syndrome.
	+ Reagan has a strained relationship with her seemingly neurotypical parents, a common feature with neurodivergent people with neurotypical parents.
* Reagan’s M.I.T. diploma has coffee stains over her first name and has male pronouns. This could mean that this is actually Rand’s diploma, as it still says “Ridley” as the last name and was presented to Reagan as hers - possibly a part of his long-term plan to get her into Cognito Inc. as soon as possible and use her to preserve his influence.
* While the DNA tester in part 1 episode 8 'Buzzkill' did indicate that Rand was the father once the design was corrected, Brett didn't just screw up the chip he pulled to put in the machine, he also grabbed the wrong drink packs to take Reagan and Buzz's DNA from, this means that Rand has at least one child on the moon, and we still don't know whether Reagan's blood relation to Rand goes beyond the DNA he edited into her in the womb, and similarly we don't have confirmation of who Reagan's biological father is.
* She is terrible at singing, to the point the company has used her karaoke of "Purple Rain" to torture ISIS captives.
* It's implied in "Sex Machine" that she's bisexual, as when Alpha-Beta shows her her improved dating matches, a few women can be seen.
* It was stated in the first to last episode of part one, "Mole Hunt" that Reagan has a Carl Sagan fetish.

## Gallery

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## References

1. ↑ Mitchell, Chase. *Clone Gunman*. Directed by Pete Michels and Mike Hollingsworth, season 1, episode 2, Jam Filled Entertainment, 2021.