The surprising ending of Joker: Folie à Deux defined

5 years after Joker took the world by storm, director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix are again with the sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux. To the admiration and frustration of many followers, although, the film doesn’t ship something like what individuals would have anticipated from a Joker sequel. Reasonably than watch the disturbed Arthur Fleck’s continued rise as Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime, the movie doubles down on its character examine, and introduces some attention-grabbing stylistic zags, together with bringing Girl Gaga aboard to play Arthur’s love curiosity and turning the movie right into a full-on musical. However whereas the musical facet would possibly shock some, it is the movie’s surprising ending that may go away audiences speaking and puzzling over the movie.

In reality, it is easy to see individuals being indignant in regards to the ending, and what it says about each the character of Arthur Fleck and the occasions of the primary movie, and plenty of on-line are already expressing their disappointment. However what precisely occurs on the finish of Joker: Folie à Deux, and what does all of it imply? Learn on to seek out out.

What’s Joker: Folie à Deux all about?

To know the ending, you must perceive the context

Joker: Folie à Deux follows after the occasions of 2019’s Joker, during which the character Arthur Fleck channels years of abuse by different individuals and the techniques of society into the violent persona of a clown he calls Joker, main as much as his homicide of a outstanding late-night host on stay tv. Now imprisoned at Gotham’s Arkham Asylum, Fleck is going through trial over his homicide of 5 individuals. His legal professional is trying to make a plea to the jury that Fleck will not be responsible by cause of madness, however Fleck himself struggles with sublimating his Joker persona and even determining whether or not it is a cut up persona in any respect. Throughout his keep at Arkham, Fleck meets Lee Quinzel, performed by Girl Gaga, a fellow inmate who’s taking a singing class. The 2 fall for one another, and as soon as Lee is let loose of Arkham, she reveals up each day at Fleck’s trial to assist him, alongside together with his different followers and supporters. By a collection of fantasy musical numbers, the 2 characters get to discover what it might be wish to stay out their interior Joker. The drama of the movie is in whether or not Arthur will totally let that facet of himself take over.

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What occurs on the finish of the film?

A twist that may go away audiences shocked

Warner Bros.

There are a number of twists in Joker: Folie à Deux. The primary huge one is that Lee was not really an inmate at Arkham, and the story she instructed Arthur about being a pyromaniac who tried to kill her mother and father was a lie. In reality, she is a rich younger psychiatrist who nonetheless lives along with her mother and father, and checked herself into Arkham voluntarily to get near Arthur due to her attraction to his Joker persona. This turns into key because the trial nears its finish, and Arthur fires his legal professional, selecting to symbolize himself whereas showing in court docket together with his full Joker costume. As that facet of himself seems to completely take over, he experiences an incident of extreme bodily, and presumably sexual, abuse by the guards on the asylum, after which hears one in all his admirers at Arkham choked to loss of life by a guard. This causes a break in him, and the subsequent day at trial, making his closing assertion, Arthur confesses that there isn’t any Joker, that the murders have been all simply his doing, expressing his remorse and disappointment for the ache and harm he’d triggered.

Then, within the movie’s subsequent huge twist, a bomb goes off exterior, destroying the courthouse, and leaving Arthur to stumble out into the world. He’s quickly picked up by a pair of masked Joker followers, who appear to suppose he’ll assist them lead some form of violent revolution, however he manages to flee from them. He then finds his approach to the well-known steps that he danced down within the first movie and sees Lee there ready for him. Upset by his retreat into simply being Arthur, she leaves him, and he’s quickly arrested as soon as once more.

And that is the place the ultimate, surprising twist happens. Now again in Arkham, Arthur is knowledgeable he has a customer. He follows a guard down a hallway, however is then interrupted by one other of the inmates, who tells a disturbing knock-knock joke after which stabs him repeatedly within the abdomen. As Arthur bleeds to loss of life on the bottom, we see the opposite inmate sit down on a bench behind him, out of focus, laughing maniacally and utilizing his knife to carve his personal mouth, harking back to Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Darkish Knight.

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What does is the ending of Joker: Folie à Deux making an attempt to say?

It definitely leaves loads to consider

Warner Bros.

Whereas the movie leaves features of the ending as much as interpretation, the implication is that Arthur Fleck was by no means the Joker we knew from the comics. As a substitute, it is prompt that the person who kills him would possibly become Batman’s arch nemesis, and that Arthur was solely ever the one who impressed him. What that each one means can also be left as much as interpretation, however the film appears to be exploring the distinction between somebody pushed previous the sting by a troubled society, and the individuals who experience that violence as a result of it appears good, or cool, or entertaining. In that method, the movie is sort of thumbing its nostril at many followers of the primary movie, who noticed one thing heroic in Arthur Fleck’s violent Joker killing spree, and needed to see extra of how his story would connect to the wider Batman and DC Universe mythology.

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How are followers reacting to the surprising ending?

Response to the film has been very polarizing

Warner Bros.

On social media, followers have been very blended on Joker: Folie à Deux, and whereas some praised the movie for its daring twists, most others appear to have been left indignant, feeling just like the film wasted their time.

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