The shocking ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ ending adds a unique twist to the Joker character

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.

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’

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.