let's talk about that WILD Joker 2 ending (SPOILERS)

Spoilers ahead! What's the deal with the ending of Joker: Folie à Deux? Is it genius? Is it dumb? Yes.

MOSTLY NITPICKING PODCAST

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Music by Epidemic Sound

[CarlosHernandez-xojs]

My favorite part is when Arthur says, "I'm the joker, " and the random prisoner says, "I'm the joker 2" and kills him....epic

[zachryder]

Perhaps the real Jokers were the audience along the way?

[COCO-tmgp]

The fact that the director immediately announced he was done with DC projects after this movie says more than enough 💀

[poe_more_please]

To add:

There wasn’t going to be a joker 2. It wasn't planned. WB had no idea it would make a billion at the box office, no one did. And it clearly shows with this film.

[bazzfromthebackground]

Big Picture Bob said it best.
"This was not a movie for fans of Joker 1."

[SatchitBhogle]

Joker 2 is a meta commentary on the people who took the wrong message from Joker and thought the Joker was cool or dangerous or innocent, whereas he was just mentally disturbed and needed help. Harley and Paddy and the guy at the end are just feeding his delusion for their own Joker fantasy (the folie a deux).

[blackermarket]

Neither Joker movie has anything to do with The Joker. The end.

[BluBoyscout]

Love how people are jumping to blame the edit or the studio for this, as if the guy who made Hangover 3 is above making a bad movie

[TonyB]

Joker could be taken to portray a mentally ill, broken man finding acceptance and happiness by committing violence. I think that's a simplistic reading -- at the very least, I thnk it's simplistic to assume the creators are ENDORSING that outcome simply by depicting it -- but you could view it that way.

This film, through Harley, more explicitly codes that happiness and acceptance as "love." A man who was rejected and reviled by the world finds love by (inadvertently) becoming the figurehead for a violent revolution. In the hospital he's just Arthur, but Harley is encouraging him to go back to being the Joker, as if the Joker is his true self and Arthur is just a mask he wears. When the REAL mask slips, however -- when Arthur shows remorse for his actions, escapes the courtroom and then tries to flee from his followers -- that love is taken away.

No one -- even Harley -- ever loved Arthur; they loved the Joker (or rather, what the Joker symbolized to them).

[benholman]

They didn’t hide that it was a musical. The musical numbers were shown in the trailers. Did people think in world Arthur and Harley were just rehearsing dance numbers and renting stages?

[PedroHenrique-mzwe]

The movie is just Todd Phillips answer to everyone who romantisized the character in the first movie, by showing that Arthur, while worthy of compassion as human being, is not the Joker, and he should not be seeing as an icon, that's why he ends up alone and dead no glorified ending.

[FilthyGringo]

The plot of this film should have been that Harleen was a nurse in the Asylum and all the musical bits were him fantasising about being with her as Harley, because all they were allowed to watch on the psych ward were musicals. That's all they had to do.

Hell even have it that to signify the differences in these universes, he falls so far into his fantasies that by the end he tries to make her his and she kills him as a result.

[crownclowncreations]

I originally HATED the concept of a Joker origin movie. I walked into theaters for the first Joker film SUPER skeptical- walked out with my jaw on the floor, and it is one of my all time favorite movies of all time. Watched it in theaters 3 times.

What sold the first movie, to me, was the cinematography, the music and the acting.
And we did get all that in the sequel.. the problem is that the story goes nowhere, and it’s a complete character assassination of Joker. Arthur Fleck became Joker at the end of the first film. Then regresses back into Arthur the entire second film… The singing was also completely unnecessary.

And all we wanted was to see Phoenix’s Joker and Gaga’s Harley as fully fledged villains. And we never got that..

[RBNG]

I love the turn. My DC fanboy friend thought Joker was a masterpiece and a great grounded version of how someone like Joker could end up in charge of a bunch of clown mask thugs in a crime ridden city. And DC makes the best comic book movies because they don't try to do universes and needless sequels, they just get talented people and let them be creative. And that Todd Philips was a genius.

Now after Joker 2 he thinks both movies are bad and not comic accurate enough. And Todd Phils is an idiot who just went off and did his own thing and he retroactively downplays any connection to DC for both movies. He just literally did a 180 on all his opinions instantly. Its fascinating to watch.

[willstrickland]

The director CLEARLY hated what the fans liked from the 1st movie. He hated the people that loved it

[koylar]

i liked the part where the inmate cuts his face, it leans into the idea of the joker being above arthur and how it will live on without him . There’s a joke in the movie where he just says “arthur. arthur who ? “ and i think it sums up the idea of the movie well

[shotgunchris]

The Dark Knight was entirely filmed in Chicago.

[RoleCrow]

Todd Phillips when he has to do a original movie without copying everything Scorsese did at the 70´s..

[alexclarksimple]

I think the guy cutting his face at the end actually works pretty well. While immediately you may think of Heath Ledger, Barry Keoghan also has scars on his face so it’s not only referencing one other joker. Along with that what would smearing Arthur’s blood on his face do? That’s the same thing that Arthur did and obviously it didn’t stick. This guy has fully subscribed to the Joker ideology and truly believes in the insanity of it all. He cuts his face because it is permanent just like his belief. The scars will mimic the blood smear, but it’s something that won’t just wash off.

[blurryperson]

Are we going to talk about how some guards found a creative shower solution to "curing" the joker out of Arthur