Joker: Folie à Deux 2024

In an animated sequence, the Joker is impersonated by his shadow, who takes his place to perform his singing number for a TV show and then abandons him on stage half-undressed, before policemen arrive and beat him.

Arthur Fleck is in custody at Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial for a series of murders he committed two years earlier.[b] His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart, plans to argue that Arthur has a split personality and that his Joker personality is responsible for the crimes. At a music therapy session, Arthur meets another patient, Harleen “Lee” Quinzel. She confides to Arthur that she grew up in the same neighborhood he did, had an abusive father who died in a plane crash, and was imprisoned after burning down an apartment building. Lee also expresses her admiration for the Joker’s crimes and personality.

During a film screening attended by Arthur, Lee, and abusive asylum guard Jackie Sullivan, Lee ignites a fire. Arthur and Lee are caught trying to escape, and Arthur is placed in solitary confinement. Lee visits him to say she is being released to avoid his influence but promises to attend his trial, and they have sex. During an interview with the television personality Paddy Meyers, Arthur sings to Lee through the television screen, deepening her love for him.

At the trial, Assistant District Attorney Harvey Dent calls witnesses who dismiss Arthur’s claims of insanity. During a break, Maryanne reveals that Lee was actually a psychiatry student who grew up in the Upper East Side, where her father, a doctor, is alive. Furthermore, she voluntarily committed herself at Arkham and never burned down an apartment. When Arthur confronts Lee, she confesses that she made partial lies but also reveals that she is pregnant.

At the trial the next day, Arthur dismisses Maryanne and represents himself. After bringing Arthur’s former co-worker Gary Puddles and neighbor Sophie Dumont to the stand, Dent rests his case. Arthur offers no defense, although during his speech, he mentions the guards of the Asylum in a derogative manner. Returning to Arkham, he is taken to the bathroom, beaten and sexually assaulted by Jackie and two other guards. When Arthur is returned unconscious to his cell, Ricky, an inmate and friend of Arthur, verbally assaults the guards and Jackie strangles him to death.

In court the following day, in his closing argument, a devastated Arthur renounces the Joker persona, taking full responsibility for his actions. Furious, Lee storms out, and the jury finds Arthur guilty of first-degree murder. As the jury forewoman reads the verdict, a bomb explodes outside the courthouse, killing numerous attendees and scalding half of Dent’s face. In the chaos, two followers help Arthur escape.

Arthur wanders through Gotham and encounters Lee outside his old apartment, but she rejects him for renouncing his Joker persona and admits that her pregnancy was another lie before she leaves. The police apprehend Arthur and return him to Arkham. The next day, a younger patient approaches Arthur and begins to tell him a joke. When he gets to the “punchline”, he repeatedly stabs Arthur in the stomach. As Arthur bleeds to death on the floor, the young patient carves a smile on his own face while laughing.