A Man on the Inside Season 2’s ending was centered around the revelation of the identity of the individual who had stolen Jack’s laptop in order to drive Brad away from Wheeler College. Why was that a big deal? Well, after showing up at Kovalenko Investigations, Jack and Holly revealed that the stolen laptop was worth $400 million. How could that be possible? Ever since Jack had taken up the position of president, he was courting the richest graduate of that institution, Brad, the CEO of Vinick Capital, to make a hefty donation to the college and keep it from going bankrupt. Now, Brad was a controversial individual, like every other billionaire, and apparently someone was not okay with Wheeler accepting his money. So, they had stolen Jack’s laptop, which had all his secrets and some confidential documents on it, and threatened to leak them bit by bit. That’d certainly lead to some kind of controversy, thereby freeing Wheeler from Brad’s clutches. To prevent that from happening, Jack and Holly hired Charlie and Julie to investigate every single faculty member as well as the students, find the perpetrator, and secure the laptop before the date on which Brad was supposed to make that hefty donation. Did Kovalenko Investigations succeed in this task? What was the underlying message of this whole journey? Can we expect a season 3?
Spoiler Alert
Holly Was The Thief
As per Charlie’s initial assessment, Jack was the thief. As in, he had stolen his own laptop to send Charlie and Julie on a wild-goose chase. Why would he do that, though? Charlie knew that Jack was about to leave Wheeler College and move to Rycliffe University. After hacking into Brad’s phone, Charlie also knew that the deal that Jack signed with Brad in exchange for that $400 million donation would be detrimental to the staff and the students. That deal was dubbed Project Aurora by Brad, and it involved completely turning the liberal arts college on its head and turning it into some kind of hub for tech-fluencers and finance bros. If that happened during Jack’s tenure, then that’d reflect poorly on his resume, and Rycliffe would probably reject his candidature, because they wouldn’t want a guy who attracted the ire of the staff and the students by shaking hands with someone as filthy as Brad. Hence, according to Charlie and Julie, he painted himself as the victim, so that even if word of Aurora got out, nobody would blame Jack, at least not instantly, and his transition from Wheeler to Rycliffe would be smooth. Charlie’s assessment was wrong because, while Jack was moving to Rycliffe and he knew about Aurora, he didn’t blackmail himself and steal his own laptop. Cole claimed that he was the one who was guilty of stealing the laptop and antagonizing Brad in order to force Jack to chase the billionaire away, because if the deal went through and Brad commenced Aurora, Cole’s job as the head of the English department would be axed. And after confessing to his crimes, Cole resigned so that he could seek retirement on his own terms instead of Brad’s terms. After that, Holly, along with Charlie and Julie, confronted Brad about how he was misleading the people who made Wheeler what it was, and she broke off their deal to save the college’s reputation. Charlie thought that the mystery had been solved, but that’s when he figured out that this whole plan to kick out Brad wasn’t just the work of Cole alone; actually the whole faculty was involved, and its ringleader was none other than Holly herself.
Was it worth it though? Technically, no, because Wheeler’s future was still uncertain; the only bittersweet thing was that the college’s destiny wasn’t going to be written by Brad anymore. Holly and her staff believed that there were many colleges that provided the same curriculum that Brad wanted to craft at Wheeler through his Project Aurora. However, for every kid out there who isn’t interested in business or tech, there should be an institution like Wheeler to nurture them. Because if the world ran out of avenues to learn about literature, history, philosophy, and art, then everything would become really depressing and homogenous. Holly and her staff felt that they couldn’t sacrifice the foundation on which Wheeler College had been built just so that the institution could go on existing, albeit in name only. Hence, they bid goodbye to Brad and his $400 million in the hopes that, one day, their good deed of preserving the ethics of Wheeler College would attract the attention of a good Samaritan whose ideals would align with that of the faculty and the students. Until and unless a potential Season 3 of A Man on the Inside addresses the events of the second season, we won’t know if Holly’s gamble paid off. That said, it was incredibly heartening to see all of these teachers and faculty members coming together to save a liberal arts college from the grasping tentacles of capitalism. Nowadays, in real life, those who enter this field with the aim of educating kids often sell their spine for a quick buck, and I don’t see that habit changing any time soon. But if somebody is inspired by this show to take a strong stance against donors ruining the values of an educational institution, that’ll be a win for this art form.
The Folly Of Brad
Brad was such a strange phenomenon. Despite attaining everything that he had in his life because of Wheeler College, he wanted to destroy all that it stood for. Why? Because money had corrupted his worldview, or maybe he was corrupted from the beginning and money only served as the catalyst for his corruption. He saw liberal arts as a blight on humanity. He probably thought that “being woke” and opposing capitalism was a bad thing. He kept throwing money at everyone who was in need of it just so they’d give him the attention and love he yearned for. But he would rather die than acknowledge that he wanted a genuine human connection. Brad represents every billionaire that you see before you in real life who is discovering new ways to make existence miserable. They benefited from capitalism, and that’s why they have made that concept their god. They don’t see their employees, their family, or their friends as human beings. They see them as investments. They see what they can reap from these people, and as long as they are profitable, they are happy. However, inevitably, there comes a time when people see through these billionaires’ ruse and start treating them as ladders to some form of luxury. Sure, it comes at the cost of their own dignity, but much like Kelseigh (Brad’s wife), I guess they rationalize it by telling themselves that this is one of the easiest ways to turn the tables on a capitalist. However, yes, this reversal does bring these billionaires to the realization that unethically extracting joy from the world is a two-way street, and instead of trying to strike some kind of balance between how much they take from this world and how much they give back, they double down on making human existence as joyless as possible. And the worst part in all of this is that people like Brad don’t create something from scratch. They demolish something that’s already great and use its foundation to construct their own abomination.
I mean, Brad explicitly stated that he hated everything about the liberal arts college, and he wanted to make podcast booths there. Real-life billionaires are promoting AI to “democratize cinema and liberate art from the clutches of gatekeeping artists.” What they are actually doing is stealing copyrighted content or looting people who don’t have the means to copyright claim their work. And they are doing this because they can’t tolerate happiness. The fact that people can be creative for the love of the game and make their art accessible to millions of people and put a smile on their faces is irritating to billionaires. They want everyone to be as miserable as them, and that’s why they’re muddying the waters to such an extent that we won’t be able to repair these avenues of joy for the next few generations. What’s weird is that billionaires like Brad could be doing the exact opposite of that and getting the attention and adoration that they want because they weren’t held properly when they were children. They have so much disposable income that they can bankroll thousands of movies, TV shows, museums, painters, singers, historians, philosophers, and all kinds of artists. While producers greenlight projects based on profitability, they could just greenlight passion projects that won’t get funded and be thanked for it. Almost every year, you see eminent directors like Park Chan-wook, Gurinder Chadha, and Aparna Sen speaking on this issue about how cinema is becoming all about blockbusters, sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, and IP-based franchises, thereby leaving no space for independent cinema. The billionaires’ answer to that issue is “AI films,” as if those “films” would have been able to exist if artists didn’t build the bedrock of entertainment in the first place. Hence, when you see billionaires like Brad spiraling out because they couldn’t atone for their sins by using their blood money for something good, don’t feel bad for them.
No Such Plans For Season 3
The first season brought its affairs to an end in a satisfying way while teasing the characters’ return for a second season. They didn’t give any hints as to what the next case would be, but it was apparent that the showrunners were optimistic about coming back for a second season. Surprisingly, since the ending of A Man on the Inside Season 2 had such an air of finality to it that it felt like creator Michael Schur isn’t that confident about the greenlighting of a third season. Hence, the writers crammed the conclusions of every single character arc into the last 20-or-so minutes of the finale, which made it feel like the episode was both rushing and dragging its feet to the finish line. So, allow me to go through them. Firstly, Vanessa broke up with her boyfriend, Apollo, because he wanted her to give birth to babies at the age of 67. Since Julie was already on the path to reconciling with Vanessa over the course of solving the Wheeler College case, Apollo’s exit allowed the mother-daughter duo to finally bury the hatchet and be there for one another. Due to Julie’s fraught relationship with Vanessa, I suppose she was unable to invest emotionally in a romantic relationship. She saw Didi’s advances, which came in the form of background checks at Pacific View Retirement Community, but kept ignoring them. Once her bond with Vanessa was repaired, she found the courage to at least date Didi (yay for both of them). Secondly, Charlie broke up with Mona because he came to the realization that she was too chaotic for him. Maybe if both of them were younger, he could have entertained her uninhibited whimsical nature. But Charlie was in his 70s, and he didn’t have the energy to fly off to Croatia just like that. Mona was heartbroken when Charlie made that particular revelation, but she understood what he was saying and chose to part ways with him as amicably as possible.
With Mona gone, Charlie was able to focus on Calbert and motivate him to go ahead with the hip-replacement surgery and get himself checked for other bodily issues so that he could start his romantic affair with Joy without any worries. Charlie was able to support Emily, who had retired from her old job and joined Wheeler College as a social worker who’d raise funds for the institution, which was much more ethical than depending on people like Brad. Yes, Mona was partially responsible for this move, but since a major chunk of Emily’s life was centered around taking care of Joel and their three severely incompetent kids—Wyatt, Jace, and Nico—she needed to be motivated to follow through on that decision, and Charlie gave her the encouragement she needed. This was not only great for Emily but also for her husband and kids, because they’d learn to be self-sufficient. In addition to all that, since Charlie had officially become a private investigator, he could spend the twilight years of his life doing what he loved: solving cases, making new friends, and taking care of the people he cherished. Thirdly, even though there was a lot of friction between Charlie and Cole, Charlie didn’t want Cole to spend his retired life on his own, especially after learning that he had taken the fall for his whole faculty regarding the whole Brad-Aurora affair. Hence, with Didi’s permission, Charlie got Cole “recruited” into Pacific View as the librarian. In the mid-credits scene, we saw the old-timers reading The Hunt for Red October and deciding to watch all the Jack Ryan movies and shows. So, yeah, like I said, there are no hints for a third season. Sure, you can see Charlie becoming an official PI as a big sign that he’ll be solving cases for quite some time now. However, if this season doesn’t end up becoming a hit for some reason, I think this is a decent way to wrap up Charlie and his friends’ journeys. Are you interested in more seasons of A Man on the Inside, though? What were your thoughts on this season of the show? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
