Joker: Folie à Deux ending explained – full spoilers for sequel

But the sequel has suffered a lower-than-expected box office debut, bringing in a not-so-funny $37.8 million in its first weekend of release. In comparison, the original film earned $39 million on Friday alone in 2019.

Joker: Folie à Deux has been criticised by some fans and reviewers, with many taking issue with its musical elements and an underwhelming plot.

Another controversial aspect of the film has proved to be the rather shocking ending, which comes after the incarcerated Arthur Fleck has been put on trial for the series of murders he committed during the events of the original.

Wondering how it all ends, who dies, and what happens to Arthur and Lee? Read on for everything you need to know about the ending of Joker: Folie à Deux, including what director Todd Phillips and Phoenix have had to say about the controversial ending.

Joker: Folie à Deux ending explained: What happens to Lee?

For much of its runtime, Joker: Folie à Deux is an altogether more subdued proposition than the original film – with imagined musical numbers replacing the brooding violence of the earlier effort.

But things come to a head during the final day of Arthur's trial. When he stands up to make his final statement, he renounces his Joker persona – which does not go down well with Lee, who storms out – and more or less appears ready to accept a guilty verdict.

Unsurprisingly, a guilty verdict is exactly what is returned – but it's at this point that things take a more dramatic turn. As the verdict is being read out by the jury foreperson, Arthur begins to adopt his maniacal cackle once again, and in a matter of moments, a car bomb suddenly detonates outside the court, causing significant damage.

A couple of things happen as a result of this. One of them – which will come as no surprise to DC fans – is that Assistant District Attorney Harvey Dent has one side of his face significantly damaged, a nod to the comic books in which he becomes Two Face.

But more relevant to the story at hand, Arthur also uses the explosion to make an escape and flees from the scene. He's soon aided by two of his loyal fans and admirers, but he doesn't appear to pay them much heed and sets off on his own to find Lee on the same staircase that became iconic thanks to his infamous dance in the original film.

But this is not the romantic reunion that Arthur had been hoping for. Instead, Lee rejects him, telling him that she is no longer interested after he backed down in the trial and revealed that the Joker persona was not really part of who he is. She tells him this was a betrayal, and leaves him dejected on the stairs.

Shortly afterwards he is arrested again and sent back to Arkham, now completely without hope. But there is one more twist in store that takes things from bad to worse for Arthur...

Does Arthur die in Joker: Folie à Deux?

Back at Arkham, Arthur is told by a guard that there is a visitor there to greet him and follows him into a long corridor. There, another prisoner – credited as Young Inmate and played by Connor Storrie – approaches him and says he wants to tell a joke.

He begins to do just that, but when he gets to the punchline he takes out a knife and brutally stabs him repeatedly in the gut, leaving him to bleed to death. So yes, Joker dies. Or at least, Arthur Fleck and his version of the Joker dies.

At the very end of the film, with Arthur bleeding out, we can see the young inmate in the background carving a smile into his face with his knife (in the style of Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight) as he begins to cackle. So one Joker had been killed – but it looks like another has just been born. And so the cycle of violence continues...

What have Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix said about the controversial ending?

In an interview with IGN, Phoenix said of the ending: “There’s a warmth in that scene, which is nice.

“That’s all that I was thinking about, is here’s this young man who’s telling me a joke, and he’s nervous to tell me the joke, I can tell that he’s nervous, and I’m going to hear him out. And it’s a pretty good setup.”

Phillips, meanwhile, said: “I think Arthur has found peace with the idea, with the struggle that it’s OK to be yourself. And that’s really what he’s always struggled with, you know what I mean?

“I like to think he died at peace in a way being himself. The kid says to him, ‘You want to hear a joke?’ And even though he thinks maybe it’s (Lee) downstairs. We don’t even know what’s downstairs, but that sort of optimism that Arthur has, that’s still in him."

He continued: “He's like, 'Well, yeah, okay, of course', because he knows that feeling of wanting to make somebody laugh. So he gives the kid that moment, right?

Arguing the ending is optimistic, he continued: “Obviously it goes bad because, again, everything goes bad for Arthur, but I always think that's such a beautiful moment where it's like Arthur still has hope. I think Joaquin is so beautiful in that scene. It's such a small nothing. I mean, beyond the death thing.

“That moment where he's looking at the kid and he's kind of giving the kid a polite laugh in the setup. He's showing appreciation for the comedy and appreciation for putting yourself out there. You know what I mean? Something nobody ever did for him in the first movie in some ways.”

Joker: Folie à Deux is now showing in cinemas.

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