WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Joker: Folie À Deux!Joker: Folie à Deuxfeatured many choices that put the original Joker in a brand-new light, but one of theDCmovie’s most subtle reveals is what completely changes the ending to the 2019 film. Instead of the massive success that was the originalJoker, whichheld the title of highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time for around five years,Joker: Folie à Deuxhas bombed. The movie had an abysmal opening weekend, which will make it hard for it to even turn in a profit, let alone get anywhere near the numbers of the originalJoker.
There aremany factors that affectedJoker: Folie à Deux’s performance, with the movie not landing well with critics and audiences. TheJokersequel now holds the worstCinemaScorerating among all superhero movie adaptations with a D, showing how moviegoers are responding negatively to the film.Joker: Folie à Deuxdecided to go on a different path in comparison to the first movie,making crucial changes to Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck. WhileJoker: Folie à Deux’s endingfeatured the movie’s biggest surprise, an earlier reveal is what settles the debate about the ending of the originalJoker.
Joker (2019) Hinted At Arthur’s 7th Victim
The DC Movie Never Confirmed Joker’s Possible Final Kill
Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck killed a lot of people in 2019’sJoker. While Arthur did not initially set out to do so, as the character slowly transformed into the Joker in the first film in the franchise, his violent impulses became increasingly harder to control.The Joker used different methods to kill, going from shooting Wall Street men after they had thrown him on the ground and kicked him to smothering his mother with a pillow to shooting Murray Franklin in the head on live TV and more. After killing six people,Joker’s endingteased a final victim.
Shot in the head
Shot in the chest
Shot in the back multiple times
Suffocated with a pillow
Randall
Stabbed in the throat and eye, head bashed against the wall repeatedly
Murray Franklin
Shot in the head on live TV
While the Joker directly killed six people throughout the 2019 movie, with his actions serving as inspiration for other deaths, like Bruce Wayne’s parents getting shot, Arthur Fleck was never shown killing what could have been his final victim.Joker’s ending focuses on Arthur back in Arkham State Hospital, talking to a psychiatrist after he was imprisoned for the murders he committed.The movie never showed the psychiatrist’s fate after talking to Arthur, but as Phoenix’s character left the meeting with the soles of his shoes bloody and trying to run away, it seemed like he had killed the psychiatrist.
Joker: Folie à Deux Confirms Arthur Didn’t Kill The Psychiatrist
The Joker Also Does Not Kill Anyone In The Sequel
Joker’s ending, with Arthur possibly having killed the psychiatrist or not, was intentionally left ambiguous to preserve the debate over whether the murder had happened, much like many of the events during the film. However, with a sequel having finally come out five years later, the answer to the psychiatrist’s fate has finally been revealed. WhileJoker: Folie à Deuxnever went back to that moment from the original movie’s ending,the film mainly focuses on the trial of Arthur Fleck. That setup allowed the sequel to subtly reveal that Arthur did not kill the psychiatrist.
Joker’s Director Told You Exactly How Folie à Deux Would End 5 Years Ago
Joker: Folie à Deux’s ending has proven itself controversial, and the DC movie’s major finale reveal was shared by its director five years ago.
The trial makes it very clear that the Joker killed six people in the 2019 movie. As the Arkham psychiatrist would have been Fleck’s seventh victim, the DC movie confirmed that the Joker never killed the character. Instead, the scene with Arthur’s shoes leaving bloody footprints as he runs around Arkham might have simply been a fantasy in the character’s mind. Both 2019’sJokerandJoker: Folie à Deuxspend a lot of time establishing that Arthur often loses himself in his imagination, pretending that certain events happened when they never did. In the end, Joker never killed the psychiatrist.
So Was Joker’s Final Scene A Fantasy All Along?
Arthur Fleck’s Mind Cannot Be Trusted
The only plausible explanation forJoker’s ending, now that it has been revealed that Arthur Fleck did not kill the psychiatrist, is that the scene took place in the character’s imagination. There would be no other way for the Joker to have gone from talking to the psychiatrist to getting his shoes bloody without having taken her life. Adding to that,Arthur’s final words to the Arkham psychiatrist are, “You wouldn’t get it,“which could also have been director Todd Phillips' way of subtly addressing the audience’s doubts about what went down at the end.
That could have been his way of pretending to himself that he was still the same Joker that had attracted thousands with his actions, not poor old Arthur Fleck.
BothJokerandJoker: Folie à Deuxfeatured several scenes where Arthur Fleck imagined that he did something that he actually had not done. Well, killing the psychiatrist and then dancing around Arkham were seemingly part of the Joker’s imagination. AsJoker: Folie à Deuxshowed how disillusioned Arthur has become after being arrested, that could have been his way of pretending to himself that he was still the same Joker that had attracted thousands with his actions, not poor old Arthur Fleck.
Joker
Cast
Directed by Todd Phillips, Joker is an origin story for Batman’s most iconic villain. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a down-on-his-luck clown who is trying to become a successful stand-up comedian. When things don’t go according to plan, and Arthur feels Gotham is oppressing him and others with mental illness, Arthur sparks a violent revolution within the city.
Joker: Folie a Deux
Joker: Folie à Deux is the sequel to Todd Phillips' critically acclaimed comic book thriller Joker. Reprising his Academy Award-winning performance as the failed comedian Arthur Fleck, Joaquin Phoenix revisits the iconic DC character alongside Lady Gaga, who makes her debut as Joker’s lover Harley Quinn in this standalone continuity of the DC Universe.
