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Warner Bros.
- Warning: Major spoilers ahead for “Joker: Folie à Deux.”
- The shocking final scene adds one more twist to Arthur Fleck’s story.
- “Joker: Folie à Deux” is now in theaters.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” is the sequel to Todd Phillips’ gritty 2019 thriller “Joker,” which grossed over $1 billion and earned Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of the legendary DC Comics villain.
The film’s massive success led to Warner Bros. giving Phillips and Phoenix complete freedom to venture even farther outside typical superhero genre conventions for the sequel. They did so by making “Joker: Folie à Deux” a musical that cast Lady Gaga as Joker’s love interest, Harley Quinn.
But the most daring aspect of the movie is its shocking ending, which likely closes the book on this interpretation of the Clown Prince of Crime.
Here’s everything to know about the “Joker: Folie à Deux” ending. Be warned: Spoilers ahead!
The movie’s finale is set in a courtroom
Warner Bros.
Along with being a musical, the movie is also a courtroom drama, as Arthur Fleck (Phoenix), in prison at Arkham Asylum, stands trial for the five murders he committed in the first movie.
Up against district attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey), Fleck’s lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), has prepared a defense that Fleck is insane and that the Joker persona came out of Fleck due to mental trauma.
Inside Arkham, Fleck meets Lee Quinzel, a pyromaniac who is infatuated with Fleck after seeing a popular TV movie made about his acts portrayed in the first movie. Fleck falls hard for Lee. She influences him with her charms and sex appeal to get off his meds and return to being Joker, and even persuades him to fire Stewart and defend himself in his trial as Joker.
Warner Bros.
When the trial gets to the closing argument stage, Fleck, dressed as Joker, comes clean and admits there is no Joker persona. He did commit those murders, he says, and even admits to a sixth, the murder of his mother. Lee, sitting in the front row of the court dressed as Harley Quinn, is disgusted and walks out of the courtroom. As the guilty verdict is read by the jury, a huge explosion happens in the courtroom, leaving a massive hole to the outside. The explosion kills some and injures others, including Dent, who has burns on the side of his face. A disoriented Fleck escapes the courtroom through the giant hole in the wall. A fan of Fleck’s dressed as Joker comes across him and, with the help of another friend, throws Fleck in a car and drives off. As the friends spout hopes of chaos and anarchy going forward, a frightened Fleck jumps out of the car and runs away.
Fleck ends up at the steep staircase near his old apartment, immortalized in the first movie. There, he finds Lee. He tells her that now that he’s escaped, they can be together and raise their child. But Lee rejects his offer, still upset that he admitted he’s not the Joker. She walks away, and Fleck is arrested by the police and sent back to Arkham.
The shocking final scene shows who Arthur Fleck really is
Scott Garfield/Warner Bros.
The final scene of the movie shows Fleck watching TV with other inmates when he’s told that there’s a visitor for him. As he walks to the visitor area of the prison, a fellow inmate, who we’ve seen in the vicinity of Fleck around Arkham throughout the movie, follows him.
He stops Fleck in the hallway and says he has a joke for him. The inmate delivers the punchline by stabbing Fleck in the stomach numerous times. Fleck collapses to the ground and dies while in the background, we hear the inmate give a sinister laugh and seemingly give himself a permanent smile by slicing both sides of his mouth.
It’s now clear that Fleck never was the Joker, but his acts inspired this inmate, who presumably would go on to become the legendary villain who would face off against Batman. Fleck would just be a forgotten chapter in Gotham’s eventual disintegration into crime.
Phillips says he’s not making a ‘Joker 3’
Warner Bros.
By the end of the film, it’s clear that Phillips and Phoenix are done making “Joker” movies. But what about continuing the saga by shifting the perspective to Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn character?
The question was posed to Phillips on the red carpet.
“It’s not really where this movie is headed for me,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I feel like my time in the DC Universe was these two films.”
Only time (and how the movie performs at the box office) will tell if we’ll see a continuation of the DC Comics world set in this gritty setting.
