Top 10 Things You Missed in Joker Folie a Deux

WatchMojo

This supervillain sequel is jam-packed with epic and easy to miss details. That's where we come in. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at homages, Easter eggs, and other small details you might’ve overlooked in the sequel to “Joker.”

Transcript

00:00Come on, get happy, get ready for the judgment day.

00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at homages,

00:09easter eggs, and other small details you might have overlooked

00:11in the sequel to Joker, Folie à Deux.

00:14No joke, there will be spoilers, including that ending.

00:20I want to see the real you.

00:25Number 10. The title's double meaning.

00:27When the sequel's title was announced in June 2022,

00:31those who aren't fluent in French naturally asked how you pronounce Folie à Deux.

00:35For that matter, what does it even mean?

00:37Folie à Deux translates to Madness of Two.

00:40Coined by French psychiatrists Ernest-Charles Laszeg and Jules Falray,

00:44the term refers to a mental illness shared by two people.

00:47Folie à Deux is an actual term. It's this idea of a shared madness.

00:52One might assume that the title concerns Arthur Fleck's relationship

00:56with Harleen Lee Quinzel, as both find themselves under the same delusional spell.

01:00Give the people what they want.

01:02Yet the title could also pertain to the internal war between Arthur and the Joker.

01:07The film explores whether these two are separate entities or one and the same.

01:11Despite being the loneliest man in Gotham, Arthur can never escape his maddening shadow.

01:17When we are in love, sometimes we will do insane things.

01:22Number 9. The Umbrellas of a Clown.

01:24When you think about it,

01:25virtually every musical is about people coping with reality by escaping into fantasy.

01:30In that sense, the decision to make Joker Folie à Deux a jukebox musical

01:34isn't as out there as some might think.

01:36Beyond the soundtrack, the film channels classic musicals through striking visuals.

01:40In one shot, prison guards escort Arthur in the rain.

01:44Their umbrellas are all the same drab color.

01:47But from Arthur's perspective, everything's coming up rainbows.

01:50This is likely a nod to the 1964 French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,

01:55in which every color popped out at the audience.

02:05These particular colors, red, orange, blue, and yellow,

02:08also match Arthur's iconic look from the first film,

02:11suggesting that nothing can rain on Joker's parade.

02:15Number 8. Another Musical Power Couple.

02:18Most of the film's numbers pay tribute to golden age MGM musicals.

02:22Yet one shares more in common with a variety show in the spirit of Sonny and Cher.

02:26Joker and Lee serve as stand-ins for the I Got You Babe singers,

02:30making banter and music together.

02:32Beyond the 60s-70s aesthetic,

02:34Joker and Lee mirror Sonny and Cher's off-screen relationship to an extent.

02:38Okay, so Sonny and Cher were not homicidal clowns.

02:41Behind the scenes though,

02:42their relationship was not as chipper as their on-screen personas implied.

02:46Fool around with me, go ahead. You know what's gonna happen?

02:49Nothing.

02:50Cher recalls Bono being incredibly controlling of their act and her life,

02:54with their marriage ending in divorce.

02:56Likewise, Arthur tries to make the Joker and Harley show all about him,

03:00with Lee eventually pulling the trigger on their breakup.

03:07Number 7. Pepe Le Pew's Folly.

03:10Just when you thought Warner Brothers had kicked Pepe Le Pew to the curb for good,

03:13the Joker pulled the skunk back in.

03:15The Oscar-winning For Sentimental Reasons can be seen playing on TV at Arkham.

03:23Aside from being French,

03:25Pepe's presence parallels Arthur's inevitable downfall.

03:28Akin to Arthur's narcissistic tendencies,

03:31Pepe is in love with himself, blissfully unaware of how others feel about him.

03:35Pepe and Arthur are hopeless romantics,

03:37willing to put a gun to their heads for love.

03:40Romance rarely works out as Pepe envisions, however.

03:43The same goes for Arthur,

03:44whose relationship with Lee crumbles as he realizes life isn't a musical,

03:49or a cartoon for that matter.

03:50In the end, Arthur and Pepe are both losers destined to be alone.

04:00Gotham is among the most well-known cities in popular media.

04:03Like Springfield, though, it's often been left unclear which state Gotham is in.

04:07The DCEU was one of the first incarnations to give Gotham a precise location,

04:12revealing it's in New Jersey.

04:14Several comics have also leaned towards New Jersey being Batman's home state.

04:18With a throwaway line that's easy to miss,

04:20Todd Phillips sets his Gotham just beyond New Jersey's border.

04:24Joker, Follies et Deux revolves around a trial named

04:26The State of New York vs. Arthur Fleck.

04:31Speaking with IGN,

04:32Phillips said the filmmakers contemplated setting this universe in New Jersey.

04:36One reason they went with New York instead is simply because

04:39The State of New Jersey vs. Arthur Fleck, quote, sounded weird.

04:492019's Joker drew heavily from the works of Martin Scorsese,

04:53especially Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy.

04:56Shifting gears to a musical may seem as far away from Scorsese as one can get.

05:00While best known for gritty crime dramas,

05:02Scorsese did direct one musical feature.

05:051977's New York, New York aimed to be Scorsese's love letter

05:09to classic Hollywood musicals.

05:14Like those musicals, Scorsese wanted his film to have an artificial feel,

05:18being shot on sound stages with exaggerated visuals.

05:21The story revolves around a complicated romance

05:24between an aspiring singer and a saxophone player who's a bit of a joker.

05:30Despite the romanticized tone,

05:32reality inevitably sinks in as the souring couple go their separate ways,

05:36just like Arthur and Lee.

05:43Joker Folie a deux marks this continuity's introduction of Harvey Dent,

05:47played by Harry Lottie.

05:51Leading the prosecution against Arthur Fleck,

05:53Gotham's DA isn't surprised by the guilty verdict.

05:56Yet Dent and the rest of the courtroom are caught off guard by an explosion.

06:03With the camera focused on Arthur,

06:05it's hard to make out what happened to everyone else in the aftermath.

06:08In a fleeting moment,

06:09Dent can be briefly spotted on the floor

06:11with one half of his face looking better than the other.

06:14Compared to some past versions,

06:16Dent's wounds honestly don't look that bad.

06:18It's implied though that this will lead to a personality split.

06:22If so, it wouldn't be the first time the Joker inadvertently created Two-Face.

06:33That's all, folks!

06:35The previous film is recapped in an animated opening

06:38helmed by French director Sylvain Chaumet.

06:40In addition to Looney Tunes,

06:42Chaumet references his own The Triplets of Belleville

06:44as Arthur arrives at the Franklin Theater.

06:46Inside, the halls are adorned with posters for classic musicals,

06:50including Sweet Charity, Shall We Dance, and The Bandwagon.

06:53The latter is screened at Arkham later in the film,

06:56with the song That's Entertainment serving as a bleak allegory

06:59for how society turns figures like Arthur into idols.

07:05There's also a poster for Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times,

07:08but it inspired Todd Phillips while developing 2019's Joker.

07:12Throughout the animated sequence,

07:13Arthur finds himself at war with his shadow,

07:16a possible nod to Peter Pan.

07:181993's Mad Love was the first comic to flesh out Harley Quinn's origins,

07:23explaining that she was the Joker's psychologist in Arkham.

07:26Joker manipulates Harley,

07:28who later learns he might have lied about everything he told her during their sessions.

07:32Follie à deux maintains several elements while rearranging a few others.

07:36Namely, Lee may be the one manipulating Arthur this time.

07:40We know that Lee is the one manipulating Arthur,

07:43but we don't know if he's the one manipulating Harley.

07:46When they part ways,

07:47we're left to wonder if Lee ever truly cared for Arthur,

07:50or just the Joker.

07:52For that matter, was she ever pregnant with his child?

07:55Although a different approach to their relationship,

07:57Lee and Arthur still make for a bad romance.

08:05In the film, Lee is the one manipulating Arthur,

08:07but he's also the one manipulating Harley.

08:10Lee is the one manipulating Arthur,

08:11but he's also the one manipulating Harley.

08:15Before we continue,

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08:35In the final scene, Arthur is told he has a visitor.

08:38We never learn who, as another inmate stops to tell him a joke.

08:42Disappointed that Arthur denounced his clown persona,

08:44the inmate delivers a potentially fatal punchline.

08:47As Arthur succumbs to his stab wounds,

08:49the inmate carves a smile across his face like Heath Ledger's Joker.

08:55It's left ambiguous whether or not Arthur survives.

08:58Even if Arthur bleeds to death,

09:00the Joker can never die.

09:02The symbol he created is destined to live on.

09:05Maybe it'll be through this inmate.

09:07Maybe it'll be someone else who later clashes with Batman.

09:10In any case, what Arthur started is bound to outlive him.

09:14The joke's on Arthur, but as the saying in song go, that's life.

09:24Is there anything we missed?

09:25What are your thoughts on the film and how it wrapped up?

09:27Let us know in the comments.

09:32Did you enjoy this video?

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09:44Thanks for watching.

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