How “Joker” Fans Are Feeling About “Folie à Deux”'s Controversial Ending

The musical sequel to Todd Phillips’ 2019 hit ‘Joker’ is inspiring some strong opinions — and theories — online

Warning: Joker: Folie à Deux spoilers ahead!

Fans of 2019’s Joker are having strong opinions about its new sequel.

Joker: Folie à Deux, the highly anticipated follow-up to the DC Comics-inspired origin story for the titular Batman villain, has earned mixed critical reviews and a notably low CinemaScore and box office turnout since its Oct. 4 release. Director Todd Phillips’ original, by comparison, grossed over $1 billion globally and earned lead actor Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar for playing Arthur Fleck a.k.a. Joker.

Folie à Deux, costarring Lady Gaga as Harleen "Lee" Quinzel a.k.a. Harley Quinn, is a movie musical and courtroom drama featuring less violence and significant thematic changes from Joker. But fans online are most taking issue with the sequel’s surprise ending, with some expressing praise and others disappointment — or even theorizing it's meta commentary on the original.

Related: Joker: Folie à Deux Review: Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga Sing a Duet That's Way Out of Tune

X (formerly Twitter) user @KurzedZuko summed up many audience members’ reactions by posting that they were “the real joker after taking time out of my day on a weekend to go watch joker 2 and seeing that ending.” Another, @captaincupkicks, called the film “a total waste of time.”

Contending with Folie à Deux’s surprising ending, viewers noted how it can be interpreted as meta commentary on the first film’s reception. PEOPLE’s review of the original Joker called it “a portrait of a psychotic Incel who finds release — grotesque validation — by becoming a happily murderous bad guy.”

Phillips, 53, has responded to questions about whether 2019's Joker could inspire real-world violence and expressed surprise at controversies surrounding its depiction of guns. In 2019, Phoenix, 49, walked out of an interview when asked to consider how the film's portrayal of Arthur’s might inspire similar-minded men.

Many Folie à Deux viewers have taken to social media to dissect its ending within that context. Spoiler alert: the final scene depicts Arthur’s murder at the hands of another unnamed inmate within Arkham State Hospital. His killer appears to carve his own face into a grotesque smile (much like Heath Ledger’s Joker in Christopher Nolan’s 2012 hit The Dark Knight), suggesting that he is the Joker who canonically becomes Batman’s archenemy.

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For X user @punkscavenger, Folie à Deux “completely destroys the fantasy that the first movie creates,” a goal that “is exactly what Todd & the cast wanted.” By revealing Arthur as only a “man struggling with Mental health issues,” they added, “he was never the joker, the public made him one.”

“The joke is on you and the whole bloodthirsty society, who expected murders, explosions, fire, passion,” wrote user @iamixmael, echoing the sentiment that Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver’s main priority was portraying mental health. Quoting one of the sequel’s musical numbers, they added, “That's Entertainment.”

Related: Lady Gaga Announces 'Joker 2' Companion Album Harlequin — and Confirms It's Only LG 6.5, Not 7

Reddit user AlanWakeUpNow took the interpretation further, calling the sequel “supreme incel ragebait” and writing, “If incels weren't mad enough before, now they will be enraged.” X user @TheDrStockdale agreed: “The film is designed to annoy fans of the first film… it's a work of metafiction.”

What did the Folie à Deux team intend by having a Joker-like character end Arthur’s story? “I hate to put too much of a definition on a movie before the movie comes out, because you never want to tell people what to think,” Phillips told PEOPLE exclusively. “But invariably, people are going to ask those questions. You want the movie to try and have a life of its own.”

Speaking to Variety in August about the possibility of a Joker 3, the filmmaker said, “It was fun to play in this sort of sandbox for two movies, but I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.”

Joker: Folie à Deux is in theaters now.

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