Aside from the musical numbers, Joker: Folie à Deux is a relatively calm, meditative affair. That is until the final few scenes of the movie that not only literally blow everything up, but also introduces a wild, last-second twist tying both Joker movies to another DC franchise. Wondering about the Joker: Folie à Deux ending explained? We’ve got you covered.
Before we get to the ending, though, let’s break down a brief recap of the movie. Brief, because overall not a ton happens in the film. Then we’ll break down the ending, and discuss that bonkers final scene.
Joker: Folie à Deux Plot Recap:
Joker 2 picks up months after the events of the first movie, with Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) in Arkham. He’s basically skin and bones at this point and is awaiting trial for the murder of five people, including Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) on live TV. However, he’s been regularly exhibiting good behavior. And the guards treat him like a figurative clown, asking him to tell jokes in exchange for cigarettes.
Enter another inmate, Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga), who is clearly obsessed with Arthur. She’s in minimum security, but thanks to his good behavior, Arthur gets to join her music group. There he discovers they grew up in the same neighborhood, have similar parental backgrounds, and she’s watched the TV movie made of his life 20 times. They immediately fall in love.
This has the added side effect of making Arthur begin to reembrace his Joker side… Which is something his lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) wants to avoid. Her defense is that Joker is a totally separate person from Arthur, so he can’t be held accountable for his crimes.
Arthur, meanwhile, becomes obsessed with singing thanks to Lee (that’s what they call Harley in this movie). And through both real singing, and imagined flights of fancy, he’s able to escape his literal prison and fantasize about their life together. And in fact, his singing inspires a lot of the other prisoners as well… Particularly the meek Ricky Meline (Jacob Lofland), and an unnamed inmate played by Connor Storrie.
This transitions into the trial of the century: The State of New York vs. Arthur Fleck. And yes, that places Gotham City in New York, versus New Jersey on The Penguin. Just a fun little detail there. On the side of the state is a young DA, Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey). As the trial continues and Lee pushes Arthur further, he decides to throw on the ol’ Joker makeup and defend himself. This crests in a scene where Arthur’s friend from the first movie, Gary Puddles (Leigh Gill) returns, and tries to appeal to Arthur/explain why he’s not really like this.
The prosecution rests. The defense rests. And then Arthur, knowing that Lee, his fellow inmates, and the whole city are behind him, returns to Arkham.
Joker: Folie à Deux Ending Explained:
So, what happens next is not abundantly clear. But one of the guards, Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), has spent most of the movie treating Arthur like a pet. However, after Arthur calls the guards at Arkham fat on live TV, that pushes him too far.
When Arthur returns to Arkham that night, led by Jackie the guards strip him, wash his makeup off, and throw him to the floor of the bathroom. When we see Arthur next, he’s nearly catatonic, his makeup faded, nearly gone. They clearly didn’t beat him in any visible way. Did they harm him somewhere we can’t see? Did they rape him? The movie doesn’t clarify, but the next day at the trial, when asked to present closing statements, Arthur gives it all up.
He says there’s no Joker, it was him who murdered five people – six, actually, including his mother. And he ends with the world’s most embarrassing knock-knock joke. “Knock, knock. Who’s there? Arthur Fleck. Arthur Fleck who?” Get it? Because he’s a nobody?
During this speech, Lee storms out of the courtroom, as do several of Joker’s followers. The verdict is rendered, and we get to hear two counts of guilty of murder before a car bomb blows open the wall of the courtroom. It kills a ton of people, and leaves Harvey Dent on the floor with half his face scarred (you get it). Meanwhile, Arthur stumbles out through the hole in the wall to discover a man dressed like him and another man in a clown mask. They’re big fans, and they set off the car bomb to free him so he can keep on Joker-ing.
That’s not what he wants, though. Arthur escapes, and runs back to the second most important character in this movie series: those stairs he danced on. There he finds the third most important character, Lee, who wants nothing to do with him. Despite everything she did, she explains that it was the fantasy that worked, and when he said “There is no Joker” that fantasy was gone. She leaves, and Arthur is arrested again.
After that, he’s back in Arkham, watching a Pepe Le Pew cartoon (the movie started with a fake Warner Bros. cartoon, so parallels), when the guards say he has a visitor. He follows along and then is stopped by Connor Storrie’s inmate, who wants to tell him a joke.
The “joke” is about a psychopath who encounters a clown in a bar, and asks him what happened to him, because he used to be funny. Then Storrie’s character stabs Arthur multiple times and leaves him to bleed out on the floor.
While Arthur dies, Storrie’s inmate sits down in the background, and as the camera pans away, you can see him cutting his cheeks open while laughing like a certain killer clown from a certain movie. Fin.
Who Is Connor Storrie Playing In Joker: Folie à Deux, And Is It Heath Ledger’s Joker From The Dark Knight?
Hey, wanna know how he got these scars? That’s Heath Ledger’s famous catchphrase from The Dark Knight, right before he tells one of any number of stories about the origin of his scars. The point here is there is no definitive origin for The Joker. And it doesn’t matter, either… He’s an agent of chaos, he says, and that’s what he brings to Gotham City.
…Except when he’s a nameless inmate at Gotham who was inspired by Arthur Fleck’s lack of backbone in the ’80s to cut his face open and take on the identity of Joker, years later. So yes, giving Storrie a character who is credited as Unnamed Inmate ties into the idea of how we never really know who The Joker is. It also positions both Joker and Joker: Folie à Deux as prequels to the Christopher Nolan trilogy that kicked off with Batman Begins. And also, it’s very similar to what Gotham did by necessity, bringing in a character named Jerome (Cameron Monaghan), who was supposed to be a proto-Joker who later inspired the Clown Prince of Crime. In that case, the excuse was they weren’t allowed to use The Joker. I’m not sure what the excuse is here.
So while I would venture a guess Todd Phillips will say something like “It’s up to interpretation,” the implication is very clear, down to Storrie looking like a younger Heath Ledger… This is the real Joker at the end. Excited to see him match wits with Dante Pereira-Olson’s Bruce Wayne from the first film in, like, thirty years.
Listen to Sons Of A Gunn:
Discover more from Comic Book Club
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It can’t be the Nolanveres… it’s more likely it was just a nod to Heath. The clear indicator is Harvey Dent. IF this is the same as Heath, then they just completely retcons Two Face’s origin story.
FWIW, if they really want to nod in that direction I think it still works? Harvey only has half his face scratched up, not totally destroyed. Unless you’re referring to something else with Harvey I’m missing!
Batman Begins doesn’t match. Thomas and Martha die in a completely separate way. None of the actors match. None of it makes sense because they are not connected.
I mean Joker Dos is trying to intimate a connection, but I agree with you, it doesn’t make sense.