The frog at the bottom of the well.

It is illegal in the United States (violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title I and V)) to require a photograph or other image in a job application outside of direct unavoidable relevance (modeling and acting work).

"In the instance an employer makes an illegal request for a photograph as part of a job application, you may submit a complaint to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission."

It is illegal in the United States (violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title I and V)) to require a photograph or other image in a job application outside of direct unavoidable relevance (modeling and acting work).

"In the instance an employer makes an illegal request for a photograph as part of a job application, you may submit a complaint to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission."

Or for comfort.

Or in desperation.

Or for strength.

But to hold someone's hand, for the purpose of simply enjoying their touch, that's something altogether different, and means so much more.

Despite all the jokes and mad scientist stuff it’s a very realistic look at the relationship between an abusive parent and their child. Reagan knows Rand is abusive but sometimes he’s nice so she tries to make it work because there’s still a deep need for his approval.

But then she realize just how profoundly abusive he actually is. Even the nice moments were nothing but manipulation and grooming to turn her into the tool he needed her to be for his own gains and finally her gloves come off and she tries to cut him off but it’s a lot harder than it should be because that’s the thing about abusive parents, they don’t respect a no and he never cared about her feelings to begin with.

And Rand’s abuse is evident in Tamiko too. It’s chilling to realise that a lot of her behaviour seems to be a response to the trauma he put her through. That’s why she keeps discarding her young lovers like they’re nothing and “marries” herself. Rand ruined her ability to have normal, healthy relationships and she’s desperately trying to build herself back up by over correcting.

And I’m very curious about Rand and J.R.’s past and Reagan’s place in all of that. The show has sprinkled a lot of clues that something more is going on.

The story we get: Rand and J.R. used to be best friends and created Cognito Inc. together with Rand as the scientist and J.R. as the businessman but Rand had a “meltdown” and tried to blow up the sun so J.R. fired him. Now Rand hates J.R.’s guts but J.R. actually seems to miss Rand. He keeps photos of him, including a framed photo on his work desk from Rand and Tamiko’s wedding where Rand has his arm around J.R. Apparently that is still a nice memory to him. When Rand tries to blackmail him by exposing a bunch of sexual stuff about J.R. he panics but doesn’t retaliate and eventually Rand has to contact J.R. and pretend to hand his shares of the company over to J.R. because he just couldn’t goat him into getting aggressive with him. Or more likely, he knows J.R. still loves him and had to get him mad and desperate enough to want to punish him in some way.

And J.R. hired Reagan, Rand’s daughter, to work for the company and even wants her to be J.R.’s own replacement. If that isn’t a huge show of good will and lingering love I don’t know what is. If J.R. hated Rand as much as Rand hates him he would never have hired her no matter how good of a scientist she is. And Rand must have known that J.R. still cared or his plan wouldn’t have worked.

The court room scene also has an interesting little moment. When Rand shows up J.R. can be seen smiling at him in the background but when it’s revealed how abusive Rand was to Reagan the smile disappear. Other people have noticed that even tough J.R. acts like a boss to Reagan he still seems to care more about her wellbeing than Rand. On a few occasions he asks her to go home and take care of her mental health. Not always in the nicest ways but it’s more than what can be said for her dad or even her mom. It’s kinda telling that Rand is super self righteous and refuse to acknowledge how evil he is while J.R. constantly refers to himself as a bad person.

I do wonder if they’re setting up that J.R. was/is in love with Rand and is trying to work out his feelings now that he knows what an actually terrible, child abusing person Rand is. That could be why he keeps a photo from the wedding where it kinda looks like he and Rand got married more so than Rand and Tamiko and why he’s shown to lust after Brett a few times just so it wouldn’t come out of nowhere that he loves Rand. (I’m kinda amazed by how well they handled his behaviour around Brett btw. Sure he may have hired Brett just because he’s attracted to him but he never tries to seduce him or touch him inappropriately. He just likes having some eye candy around)

I love when a show has a cast of younger characters and the older, more experienced generation that came before them. The older generation is always entertaining and Inside Job got the most entertaining oldies.

JR has come to be my absolute favourite. Between him moving his employees’ pensions to his own account to buy a Bond villain’s evil lair, buying a dating app to blackmail the users, always carrying a sword for human sacrifices, being a sub, getting gangbanged by Illuminati people, repeatedly throwing himself on his knees in front of everybody in desperate situations, having a very diverse group as his top people and appointing a part asian woman to be his successor, you get a picture of a fun loving, power hungry, bottom bisexual man who cheated, murdered and slept his way to the top with zero shame but also happens to be all for equality. He’s an absolute treasure.

The second bit:

The ending: