Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Joker: Folie à Deux
Joker: Folie à Deux has hit theaters. Judging by the box office, not many people rushed out to see the sequel to the 2019 smash hit. Moreover, based on the negative reactions from critics and audiences, the people who saw it were likely not happy. While some might have been frustrated to find out the movie was a musical because the film’s marketing and press tour downplayed that aspect, the most controversial element of the movie might be the ending.
After two films of building up Arthur Fleck’s rise to the legendary status of DC’s most famous villain, the Joker, director Todd Phillips decides to play a joke on the audience. This throws everything the audience has seen into a new light. After Joker already featured Arthur Fleck imagining an entire relationship with his next-door neighbor, the sequel seemed to feature its own reality-shattering twist, but one fans are not as happy with. In the final moments, the audience discovers this has never been about Arthur Fleck becoming the Joker. The Joker was bigger than one man. Here is what happens at the end of Joker: Folie à Deux and what exactly it means.
Release Date October 4, 2024
Cast Joaquin Phoenix , Lady Gaga , Brendan Gleeson , Catherine Keener , Zazie Beetz , Steve Coogan , Harry Lawtey , Leigh Gill , Jacob Lofland , Sharon Washington , Troy Fromin , Bill Smitrovich , John Lacy , Ken Leung
Runtime 138 Minutes
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Arthur Is Killed and the True Joker Is Born
Following his trial, Arthur Fleck is once again locked up in Arkham Asylum, likely awaiting his execution as he was found guilty on all charges during his trial. When one of the guards says Arthur has a visitor, he is stopped by an unnamed patient (Connor Storrie) who has been in the background of Arkham throughout the film. The patient asks Arthur if he can tell him a joke, which contrasts with the rest of the movie, where the guards mock Arthur and ask him to tell them jokes. Seemingly the first time anyone has asked him this question, Arthur asks to hear the joke.
The joke is about a sad clown (Arthur) and a psychopath (the young inmate), with the psychopath describing his disappointment in the clown. The punchline of the joke is the same as Arthur said to Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) before he shot him at the end of Joker: “You get what you f—ing deserve.”
The young inmate stabs Arthur Fleck in the stomach repeatedly with a shiv, and Arthur falls over and dies. Arthur falls to the floor and begins to bleed out; while out of focus, the young patient can be seen using the same shiv to carve a smile on his face and laughing. Arthur Fleck dies, but the Joker lives on as the movie implies that his killer will be the true Crown Prince of Crime fans know from the comics.
Joker: Folie à Deux Is Not a Prequel to The Dark Knight
The death of Arthur Fleck at the hands of another has an eyebrow-raising moment. After stabbing Arthur, the inmate carves a Glasgow smile onto himself, similar to the one Heath Ledger’s version of the character wore in The Dark Knight. Ledger’s Joker famously had no set origin within the film. When he would tell people “how he got these scars,” he would provide different origins. Did Joker: Folie a Deux explain the origin behind the scars, and is the film an origin story for The Dark Knight trilogy?
The answer is a definitive no. There are multiple reasons as to why The Dark Knight films and Joker: Folie à Deux could not exist within the same universe. The biggest is that the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne shown in Joker was not the same as the one scene in Batman Begins.Joker: Folie à Deux also introduces a version of Harvey Dent that seemingly gets his Two-Face scars in a courtroom when a car bomb goes off at the end of Arthur Fleck’s trial. This would be years before the character would get his scars in The Dark Knight. The ages of characters like Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, and the seemingly new Joker have significant gaps, while The Dark Knight establishes them all as the same age.
This inmate who stabs Arthur Fleck and gives himself a Glasgow smile is not Heath Ledger’s Joker but instead is implied to be this film’s true Joker. Arthur Fleck’s Joker persona was the inspiration for this individual who would later become the Joker, who was commonly known to fight Batman. Yet why would Todd Phillips invoke the most famous depiction of The Joker in the 21st century for his film?
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There is something to be said that this decision to have a Joker carve a smile on his face to evoke Heath Ledger’s Joker being made despite Christopher Nolan previously voting against it, likely out of respect for Heath Ledger, is in bad taste. Yet it is also illuminating, as the idea here is that the Glasgow smile is a visual signifier for the true “Joker.” That means that Arthur Fleck was intended to be The Joker until Joker: Folie a Deux. Now, it makes for a contradiction as to what Todd Phillips is now claiming, saying this was always the plan.
Is Harley Quinn Lying About Her Pregnancy?
Or Is She the Mother of the Real Joker?
One of the loose threads Joker: Folie a Deux leaves hanging is the fate and future of Harleen “Lee” Quinzeel,the movie’s version of Harley Quinn. The film decides to flip the traditional Joker and Harley Quinn dynamic. From Batman: The Animated Series to the comic books to the DCEU version, Joker is typically depicted as the manipulative abuser with Harley trapped in an abusive relationship until she decides to break away from him.
Joker: Folie à Deux decides to have Lee manipulate Arthur Fleck instead. First, she lies to him, saying she is from his same neighborhood and that she has a similar dysfunctional family unit to him when, in fact, she is a wealthy citizen of Gotham and both her parents are alive and well. It is also revealed that Harleen studies psychology, giving her the tools to manipulate a patient like Arthur. When Arthur starts to catch onto her, she drops the bombshell that she is pregnant following the two having a brief sexual encounter in Arkham.
Towards the end of the film, when Arthur finds Lee on the staircase of his old apartment, he tells her they can be together. Yet Lee no longer has any interest in him following him, saying that there is no Joker, only the lonely Arthur Fleck. She never loved him, just the idea of him. When Arthur asks her about the baby, she walks away. With Lee having lied about so much, many audience members are left questioning if she is pregnant and will go on to raise Arthur’s future child on her own or if the pregnancy itself was a lie and a way to manipulate Arthur Fleck further.
Related Why The Joker Doesn’t Need a ‘True Origin’ (and Never Will)
While the Joker has been given multiple origin stories in movies and comics, he is at his best without a true origin.
The idea of Harleen giving birth to Arthur’s son could play into Todd Phillips’s idea that Arthur was never the Joker. It might not even be the inmate who stabbed him that becomes the true Joker, but Arthur Fleck’s and Harleen Quinzel’s kid, one who will carry on his father’s legacy and be manipulated by his mother to become the Joker that she wanted Arthur to be. In that way, Todd Phillips could still claim Joker and Joker: Folie a Deux are origin stories for The Joker, as the events of these two films show how the idea of the character as a concept and his literary conception took place.
That is one way to read the ending and the two films, although we can’t say it’s an entirely good execution of that story if that is the intent.
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