- We meet Joy. With her spiky blue pixie cut and green dress, she looks like Tinkerbell after a shopping spree at Hot Topic. Joy tells us that she knows what's going on in Riley's head.
- We also meet a baby. That must be Riley.
- Joy has the 411 on what's going in Riley's head because she lives in there. Literally. She sees what Riley sees.
- Riley's memories are saved in glowing orbs—okay, they're balls, but doesn't orb sound fancier?—that are shuttled into storage along a giant track that kind of looks like a pinball machine. Each one's about the size of a basketball. Very cool.
- Joy tells us that she was stoked about it just being her and Riley, forever. Then Sadness shows up. She's squat, blue, wears a turtleneck, and perpetually sounds like her beloved goldfish just went to that giant aquarium in the sky.
- Cut to Riley running around as a rambunctious toddler. Insider Riley's head, Joy introduces us to Fear. He's thin, purple, and really nervous. About everything.
- Riley's parents give her broccoli. Insider her head, we meet Disgust, who's a fashionable green girl.
- We also meet Anger, a hotheaded little square-shaped red guy with a permanently furrowed brow.
- Inside Riley's head, a.k.a. Headquarters, Joy shows us Riley's memories. She's accumulated a bunch at this point, and they're color-coded according to the emotion associated with them. Joyful memories are gold. Sad memories are blue. Angry memories are red, and so on.
- Joy also shows us Riley's Core Memories, which are stored separately from the rest. They're the super-important memories in Riley's life, like when she first scored a goal in hockey.
- Each Core Memory powers a different part of Riley's personality, each which takes the shape of an island stationed in the distance, visible from HQ. There's Hockey Island, Goofball Island, Friendship Island, Honesty Island, and Family Island. As Joy tells us, "They're what make Riley, Riley."
- And now we're up to speed: Everything's great in Riley's world. She's 11, she's got awesome friends, loving parents, a nice house, and—oh snap!—she and her parents are moving to San Francisco.