As an Elseworlds story in the DC Universe, Joker: Folie à Deux continues the seeming tragedy of Arthur Fleck and presents its world as a more serious Warner Bros. Movie than that of a DC movie. Still, there are a few easter eggs to keep in mind when watching Joker: Folie à Deux that fans of the DC Comics might have missed on their first round.
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While Joker: Folie à Deux easter eggs might be scarce, there are a few to keep in mind that may even warrant a second viewing. Whether it’s further connections to the Waynes, callbacks to Joker (2019), or implications towards the future of the character and the mythos.
Heavy spoilers ahead for Joker: Folie à Deux
6 The Iconic Steps
Joker Stairs Represent the Birth and Death of Arthur Fleck’s Joker
One of the more striking visuals of the first Joker movie was the iconic Joker stairs seen as the agonizing walkway up to Arthur Fleck’s apartment. The real-life stairs found in the Bronx of New York hold heavy importance to Arthur’s poverty and his first embrace of the Joker moniker, where he dances to his new identity, birthing the very idea of madness and chaos onto Gotham City.
These steps return for the sequel but on a more poetic note. The iconic Joker stairs are used in the final confrontation between Arthur and Lee, to which the identity of Arthur as Joker truly dies. It’s a place of birth and death, and with Lee’s rejection of Arthur, the last draw to this world comes to a close on the very steps he fails to climb to the top.
5 The Night the Laughter Died
Gene Ufland’s Book, Murray Franklin’s Producer
Arthur Fleck has become quite the celebrity and mockery among the people and the justice system, to the point where Arthur is asked to sign a book. The book in question is quickly shown as The Night the Laughter Died, and the author’s name can be seen as Gene Ufland. While no DC Comics connotations can be seen, Gene Ufland was in the first Joker movie as Murray Franklin’s producer.
Gene’s book title heavily indicates a recounting of Murray’s on-air murder when Murray interviewed Joker, and it’s interesting to see just how important that murder was in stirring the pot for the sequel, with so many characters impacted by its events.
4 Joker’s White Suit
A Suit of Pure Rebirth and Untold Chaos
While the suit itself is most likely an unintentional reference to Joker’s white suits, due to the fact that the scene it features in is Joker’s imagination in which he gets married to Lee, it’s still great to see the pure colors pop on Arthur with a snazzy new suit. The white suit itself might just be for marriage, but in the DC Comics, it can go far deeper than that.
Joker’s white suit features heavily in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, in which a once comatose Joker returns to the scene with a striking murder on air. There’s a strong connection between Arthur’s return as Joker through his love for Lee in an imaginary white suit, and Joker’s return in the comics to terrorize Gotham in also a white suit.
3 Arthur and Joker’s First Love
Sophie and Lee Both Pretend to Blow Their Brains Out
When Arthur first meets Sophie, the down-on-her-luck single mother in his apartment building, she makes a strong first impression by using her fingers to pretend to blow her head off. This starts a whirlwind of Arthur’s bustling insanity in which he fabricates an entire hopeless romantic relationship with her.
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This same action is mimicked by Lee when she first lays eyes on Arthur in Arkham in Joker: Folie à Deux, to which Lee also puts her fingers to her temple and pretends to pull the trigger. It’s an interesting choice of a callback since Arthur falls in love with both. Is it due to the attention they give him or the solace of understanding that comes with suicidal tendencies?
2 Harvey Dent Becomes Two-Face
A Courtroom Explosion Leaves Harvey Dent Injured
Harvey Dent plays a rather important role in Joker: Folie à Deux. The assistant D.A. Attempts to try Arthur Fleck for the death penalty over the murders and riots committed in the first movie. However, devoted followers of Joker set off a bomb outside the courtroom, and it’s an explosion that Harvey Dent falls victim to.
With a bloodied left side of his face, it’s clear that director Todd Philips was hinting at the tragedy that turns Harvey Dent into Two-Face. Whether he’s left with permanent disfigurements that will forever change his attitude towards Gotham City and justice is unclear, but the origins of Two-Face have always come from a courtroom incident.
1 The Real Joker
A Psychopath and a Famous Clown Walk Into a Bar
The end of the movie has Arthur Fleck listening to an obscured inmate tell a joke, to which the punchline is a direct callback to the first movie’s murder of Murray Franklin when Arthur tells him “How about I get you what you ####### deserve.” The Arkham inmate repeats this exact line before shanks Arthur to death, a moment that mirrors the birth of Joker with his live murder of Murray, and births a new Joker with Arthur’s killer.
While fans were caught up in the whirlwind of emotion and tragedy of Arthur slowly bleeding out on the floors of Arkham, they might have missed the cackling inmate carving a smile into his face with the same blade that was used on Arthur. Could this be the real Joker, or yet another imitator to claim the moniker?
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