If you've ever read a review published by one of the Hollywood trades, you'll be all too aware that they don't exactly respect spoiler etiquette. In fairness, with the embargo lifting for Joker: Folie à Deux a month before the sequel arrives in theaters, spoilers leaking online may have been inevitable!
In The Wrap's review, we learn that the sequel takes place two years after the events of Joker, leaving Arthur Fleck "awaiting his competency hearing."
The piece adds, "If Arthur’s found sane his trial will commence, and the death penalty is on the table, so his lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) tries to prove it wasn’t Arthur who killed all those people - it was a separate personality who calls himself 'Joker.' But even Arthur doesn’t seem so sure."
"All he knows is that there’s another inmate, Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), who loves Joker very much. She even saw a TV movie they made about Arthur, a whole bunch of times."
So, nothing too major there but Variety takes it a step further by laying out what they call "the entire plot."
"Arthur is wasting away in Arkham State Hospital. He meets Lee, who devotes herself to him. He goes on trial, and the is-he-a-dual-personality-or-just-a-criminal debate unfolds. A verdict is reached. A fateful bomb explodes. The end."
Finally, The Hollywood Reporter elaborates on that latter point by revealing, "[It's] difficult to imagine hard-core Batman universe aficionados being thrilled by a movie that - OK, this is definitely a spoiler - would seem to wipe out an entire future for a key nemesis enshrined in comic-book mythology, rendering him a sad, broken man."
Reading between the lines, it appears Joker and Lee set off a bomb during Arthur's trial, resulting in the former dying before he can ever become the Clown Prince of Crime (that or ensuring he's somehow left to rot in Arkham Asylum, unable to leave or escape...perhaps he even gets the death penalty).
We believe Lee makes it out alive, though, as several other reviews talk about Lady Gaga potentially leading her own spin-off somewhere down the line. Ultimately, it seems Todd Phillips may have set out to make sure Joker was punished for his past actions, perhaps in a bid to shrug off claims the first movie was meant to glorify people like Arthur.
We're not sure how happy Warner Bros. will be with spoilers like this doing the rounds, though given how many people watched the movie in Venice today, brace yourselves for a full-blown plot leak soon enough.
Joker: Folie À Deux arrives in theaters on October 4.