The Beanie Bubble follows the three women in and around Ty Warner’s orbit who had their own contributions to the plushie craze of the 90s. The film is streaming on Apple TV+.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot Summary:
Ty Warner and Robbie Jones meet soon after Ty’s father passes away in 1983. She lives in the same building as him and they hit it off immediately.
After a long night of drinking, Ty suggests they start a business together selling understaffed posable Himalayan cat plushies and he sells off his father’s antiques to get the money.
Ty already had an interest in stuffed animals. Still, Robbie catches up with her knowledge of the business and teaches Ty a few things as they build their business from scratch into one of the highest-earning toy companies in the country.
During their rise, Robbie and Ty have an on-and-off relationship as they are constantly breaking up and getting back together. Ty cares deeply for Robbie but he is also very promiscuous.
When Robbie begins to try and expand their business by moving distribution to Europe, Ty becomes jealous and paranoid and cuts her out of their partnership agreement, making her no longer a co-founder.
Maya is a medical student who joins Ty’s company as an intern in 1993. She has great insights into plushies and is also great at selling them during toy conventions.
Sheila is responsible for installing lights in Ty’s new mansion around the same time, and when Ty is late for a meeting with her, he tries to chat her up as an apology.
Ty is persistent and Sheila begins dating him, even though she had promised herself that she wouldn’t date until her two daughters were grown up and out of the house.
Her daughters, Ava and Maren, love Ty and give him a lot of constructive feedback on the toys that his company makes. Sheila gradually falls in love with Ty, while Maya continues to work at his company and is gradually given more responsibility.
Ty creates smaller plushies called Beanie Babies after Ava and Maren requested something smaller that they could put into their backpacks. These plushies were given unique names and there were all kinds of other stuff added to make them different.
Soon, the popularity of the internet began picking up in America and Maya suggested that they make a dedicated webpage for their toys after seeing how much engagement they were getting online.
Ava and Maren helped come up with new Beanie Babies and Maya helped with their sales. With limited stocks and retiring some designs, they added a layer of exclusivity to certain lines of Beanie Babies, pushing up their values like crazy.
All of a sudden, Beanie Babies became an investment that was getting resold on eBay for several times the retail rate. Collectors went crazy about them and some places even saw riots as everyone rushed to get in on the craze.
Ty certainly enjoyed making all of that money, but pretty soon his insecurities popped up again and he made some questionable decisions that Sheila and Maya did not appreciate.
The Beanie Bubble ending explained in detail:
What happens between Robbie and Ty?
After getting screwed over by Ty, Robbie realizes that he has been spying on her with a listening device hidden in her office. She uses this to hear advantage to mess with Ty and push him to make a stupid decision.
She is also tired of being strung along by him in her personal life, so she leaves for Mexico with another man. Ty follows her out there and begs for her to come back but she refuses.
When Ty’s initial distribution plan for the UK goes bust, he has no choice but to call Robbie and ask her for help. She says that she won’t work for him, but he can work for her company which will be handling the UK distribution.
Robbie occasionally visits Ty and fools around with him as a weird powerplay to remind both of them that she is the boss.
Does Maya get what she asks for?
Maya essentially orchestrates the Beanie Babies craze with her knowledge of online trends and insistence on capitalizing on this rare moment of flux. Ty’s company went from millions in profit to billions over a year.
She tells Ty that he needs to restructure and appoint a CEO to handle the day-to-day responsibilities and let him remain the creative genius that he is. Since she’s been there for nearly five years and knows the company inside-out, she assumed she would get it.
However, Ty brings in a man from some consultant company and brushes off Maya’s credentials. He sticks with the outsider and Maya decides that she’s had enough so she eventually quits.
She does this because she foresees that the Beanie Baby bubble is about the burst and she would rather get out before things come crashing down.
She is approached by Ty’s Japanese distributors who are impressed with her knowledge and show her the first instances of Pokemon cards for her to try and sell.
Do Ty and Sheila end up together?
Ty asks Sheila to marry her and she says yes, but as they draw closer to the wedding Ty has a breakdown. He says that he doesn’t know how to be in a family and needs people to take care of him.
He convinces Sheila that he’s alright the next day but then removes Ava’s name as the creator from one of the most popular Beanie Babies that his company produced because of his own insecurities and narcissism.
She goes to confront him about it and runs into Robbie during one of their “trysts”. Ty runs after Sheila to beg for forgiveness but she ends up punching him in the face.
Sheila sells off multiple boxes of the Beanie Baby with Ava’s name for a fortune as they have become a collector’s item just moments before the crash and that fortune sets her up for the rest of her happy life.
Ty ends up unmarried and in 2014, he plead guilty to the charge of tax evasion.
Also Read: The Beanie Bubble review: Scrambled storytelling with the occasional positive burst