WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Joker: Folie A Deux!
Five years after introducing Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck, DC Universe's real Joker. When Joker was released in 2019, it was clear from the jump that director Todd Phillips was putting his own spin on the Clown Prince of Crime. There were quite a few changes made to the character from the comics, including giving him a different name. Arthur Fleck also didn't have any facial scars like many iterations of Joker.
However, Joker's differences from DC Comics canon didn't stop the movie from becoming a critical and financial success. In fact, up until this summer, Joker was the highest-grossing R-rated movie in the world, holding that title until Marvel's Deadpool & Wolverine usurped it. That success paved way for a sequel, and now Phoenix and Phillips have reunited to continue the story of this version of Joker. Surprisingly, the Joker: Folie A Deux ending sets up a second Joker - one that will be more familiar to audiences.
The Young Inmate Kills Arthur Fleck & Mutilates Himself
The Mysterious Character Gives Himself A Very Specific Type Of Wound
In the final scene of Joker: Folie A Deux, Arthur Fleck is walking down a hallway in Arkham State Hospital when he's approached by a character who's credited simply as Young Inmate (played by Connor Storrie). The inmate asks Arthur if he can tell a joke. It starts off with a typical joke setup, talking about a man walking into a bar, but it ends with the inmate stabbing Arthur multiple times in the stomach, leaving Phoenix's character to bleed out in the hallway.
Joker: Folie à Deux Cast & DC Character Guide
Joaquin Phoenix returns Arthur Fleck in Todd Phillips's Joker: Folie à Deux - we rundown the cast of the Joker sequel and their roles in the film.
Storrie's inmate then begins to cackle ghoulishly, stumbling into the background while the camera stays focused on Arthur. Arthur slowly dies on the floor of Arkham, and in the background, the young inmate uses the knife he stabbed Arthur with to give himself a Glasgow smile - which means he cuts into the corners of his mouth to create scars that resemble a permanent smile. If he survives, he will have scars much like Heath Ledger's Joker character, but the character's fate is not revealed because the movie ends with him still laughing and bleeding in the background.
Joker: Folie A Deux doesn't explicitly state the young inmate's reason for killing Arthur, but it doesn't come out of nowhere either. Glimpses of Storrie's character are shown throughout the movie, and he's often depicted staring at Arthur. The inmate's feelings toward Arthur are left up to interpretation, but one way to read it is that he sees through Arthur's Joker facade from the jump and doesn't believe Arthur deserves the attention he gets. Another interpretation is that the inmate idolizes Arthur to the point that he wants to kill him to become Joker. Thankfully, the inmate's joke offers further insight.
The Young Inmate’s Joke Explained
It Mirrors The Climactic Scene From The First Movie
Although the young inmate's joke starts off innocently enough, it ends with Storrie's character stabbing Arthur while yelling, "You get what you deserve!" This is a mirror of the joke that Arthur makes in the first movie right before he kills Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). Like the young inmate's, Arthur's joke starts off with a classic setup, but then gets much more specific to his life as it goes along. Arthur's anger increases as he delivers the "joke" until he finally shoots and kills Murray Franklin.
What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I'll tell you what you get - you get what you f-cking deserve!
The final joke of Joker: Folie A Deux plays out a little differently than its predecessor. The young inmate's joke is much longer and more involved than Arthur's; it's less about his own life and the way he's been treated by society and more about his feelings toward Arthur. The young inmate is arguably a stand-in for Joker's more fanatical followers, who likely feel betrayed by Arthur's denouncement of his alter-ego and the chaos it inspires. However, unlike Lady Gaga's Harley Quinn, who abandons Arthur, the young inmate's reaction is violence - he gives Arthur what he thinks the man deserves, which is death.
The joke told by Storrie's character is an evolution of Arthur's own attempt at humor from the first movie, seemingly as a way to emphasize that he himself is willing to do what Arthur could not: become the Joker, permanently. Not just for the cameras and not just for attention, but in every way possible, which includes killing those he believes have wronged him and scarring himself so that he can't wash off the Joker persona the way Arthur did. It's a full-circle moment from both movies, driving home the central theme that violence begets violence.
Is The Young Inmate The Real Joker Of This Batman Universe?
There's A Lot Of Evidence In Joker: Folie A Deux
Between the laughter, the senseless violence and the Glasgow smile, the character already has more hallmarks of the classic Batman villain than Phoenix's Arthur Fleck. Further, Arthur typically resorted to violence when he was very emotional, but the young inmate murdering Arthur feels more like the chaotic violence associated with Joker from DC canon. All this is to say, it does certainly seem like Joker: Folie A Deux establishes Storrie's young inmate as the real Joker of this DC universe, and it would make sense to read the movie's ending in that way.
If that's the case, then it gives this particular Batman universe a much more comics-accurate version of Joker, one who could theoretically exist until Bruce Wayne becomes the Dark Knight and becomes his nemesis. Further, Storrie's character gives this universe's Batman a Joker that's closer in age to him, which would make the villain a more formidable foe for the Caped Crusader than Phoenix's Arthur Fleck. Plus, by the time Batman makes his debut in Gotham, the inmate's scars will have healed, further establishing him as the version of Joker that most know.
All the evidence in Joker: Folie A Deux seems to point to the young inmate being the real Joker.
The young inmate being the real Joker also ties into the larger themes of the movie and this franchise as a whole. Much of Joker: Folie A Deux is wrestling with the sensationalist rhetoric the original movie inspired, and the fact that Phillips and Phoenix had little to no control over the conversations surrounding the first film once it premiered. Similarly, Arthur has no control over the Joker persona - the "shadow" he sets loose upon the world - and it ends up leading to his death, all so that someone else can become the real Joker. So, all the evidence in Joker: Folie A Deux seems to point to the young inmate being the real Joker.
Joker: Folie a Deux
- Release Date
- October 4, 2024
- Runtime
- 138 Minutes
- Director
- Todd Phillips
Cast
Arthur Fleck
Lee Quinzel
WHERE TO WATCH
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.
- Writers
- Todd Phillips, Scott Silver, Bob Kane, Paul Dini, Bill Finger, Bruce Timm, Jerry Robinson
- Franchise(s)
- Joker
- Studio(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Distributor(s)
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Main Genre
- Drama
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