Earlier this weekend, one of 2024’s most highly anticipated movies arrived in theaters – Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux. Once again, Joaquin Phoenix stars as the troubled Arthur Fleck, but this time, he’s got Lady Gaga as Harleen “Lee” Quinzel by his side at Arkham State Hospital. After committing murderous acts in 2019’s Joker, the musical sequel follows Fleck as he prepares to stand trial before a jury. When he meets Lee, a fellow patient at the institution, the infamous clown finds it easier to make it through his legal proceedings while fantasizing about the potential of a romantic future together.
At the core of the Joker franchise is Fleck’s deep-rooted loneliness, which initially seems to fade away thanks to Gaga’s character. However, the rose-colored haze wears off as he realizes her obsession with his killer persona could be more of a problem than a compliment. Fleck first sees this when some of Arkham’s guards murder a young inmate who had been defending himself in court, and again later when he confronts Gary (Leigh Gill), who saw his fellow clown violently stab one of their colleagues to death in the first film.
Breaking down the ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Ending
Throughout Joker: Folie à Deux, Fleck faces an internal identity crisis. Is he “a man who serves to fulfill others’ expectations of him as a counter-cultural, anti-institution revolutionary,” as Entertainment Weekly puts it? Or is Arthur Fleck actually a survivor of trauma who can make peace with his past and repent for his sins? In the end, the main character chooses the latter and admits to the jury there was no Joker – it was him all along wreaking havoc in Gotham City.
At the same time Fleck is found guilty, a bomb explodes outside the courthouse allowing him to flee and reconnect with Lee. Sadly, she crushes him and walks away for good as he parts ways with his alter ego. Police re-capture Fleck and take him back to Arkham, where another inmate approaches to tell him a joke – similar to the one he told Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) in the 2019 movie before shooting him. This time, Fleck gets a dose of karma in the form of a knife to the stomach, causing him to bleed to death.
In the last moments of Joker 2, Fleck laws in a pool of his own blood while the movie’s true villain is revealed, cutting a bloody grin into his cheeks after taking out Arthur. “This means [Fleck] was never really Joker in the first place, he merely served as the inspiration for the man who’d become Joker after her,” per EW. We’ve likely seen the last of the embattled character, and know now that he was neither a hero nor a villain. Instead, it’s obvious that “he’s nothing more than a lonely man, cast out by his family and the world” in life and death.
Director Todd Phillips Shares His Thoughts
Joker: Folie à Deux‘s ending isn’t easy to watch, as Phillips reminded EW. “The sad thing is, he’s Arthur and nobody cares about Arthur.” The director noted that even Lee fails to call him by his name “until she leaves him on the same steps he danced atop in the original movie.” Regarding Fleck’s decision to be honest with the jury, Phillips explained, “He realized that everything is so corrupt, it’s never going to change, and the only way to fix it is to burn it all down.”
“When those guards kill that kid in the [hospital] he realizes that dressing up in makeup, putting on this thing, it’s not changing anything. In some ways, he’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck; he’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him, this idea that Gotham people put on him, that he represents. He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on him, and he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore – he wants to be who he is.”
