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‘Joker 2’ Ending: Was That a ‘Dark Knight’ Connection? Explaining What’s Next for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker

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‘Joker 2’ Ending: Was That a ‘Dark Knight’ Connection? Explaining What’s Next for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for the ending of “Joker: Folie à Deux” now playing in theaters.

Joaquin Phoenix dons his clown makeup once again in “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the follow-up to his Oscar-winning performance from 2019. This time, he’s joined by fellow Oscar winner Lady Gaga, who plays another iconic DC Comics villain, Harley Quinn.

The comic book sequel takes place after the events of “Joker,” with Phoenix’s killer clown Arthur Fleck on trial for the murders he committed in the first movie. His lawyer, played by Catherine Keener, argues that Arthur and Joker are two different people. She claims that after years of childhood abuse, Arthur developed an alter-ego that’s separate from his own mind. The prosecution is led by assistant district attorney Harvey Dent, played by “Industry” star Harry Lawtey, who’s later known as the disfigured villain Two Face in the Batman comics.

The jury sides with Dent and convicts Arthur of murder. However, before the trial can continue, a bomb explodes outside of the courtroom, sending the city into chaos. Arthur briefly escapes with the help of two Joker devotees, but he’s soon captured by police and brought back to Arkham Asylum. Also, it appears that Harvey’s face was injured in the courtroom explosion, potentially setting him up to become Two Face in the future.

The movie ends on a bloody note, as Arthur is ambushed the next day by a laughing, clearly insane Arkham patient. The inmate, played by Connor Storrie, tells Arthur a joke and then repeatedly stabs him in the stomach. Arthur falls over, bleeding profusely, and appears to die. Behind him, the unnamed psycho laughs uncontrollably and carves a Glasgow smile into his face with a knife.

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Many DC fans have theorized that Arthur’s killer could be an homage to Heath Ledger’s Joker in “The Dark Knight,” since both of them sport the same gnarly scars around their mouths. Todd Phillips’ “Joker” and Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” trilogy take place in different time periods and universes, so it’s unlikely that Storrie’s character is related at all to Ledger’s.

In “The Dark Knight,” Ledger’s Joker backstory is largely unknown, and he offers differing accounts of how he got his facial scars. Early in the movie, he says his father drunkenly cut him as a child, but later he says the scars were self-inflicted after his wife was given a Glasgow smile over her gambling debt. “The Dark Knight” also took place in the modern 2000s era, while the “Joker” movies are in the ’80s, giving little evidence that the “Folie a Deux” character is anything more than a wink to Ledger’s Oscar-winning role.

It appears that Phoenix is hanging up his red suit and clown makeup with “Folie à Deux.” The “Joker” movies have existed in their own world, with no connections to Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” or James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooted DC Universe, so it’s unlikely Phoenix’s character will be resurrected or revisited. The next time we could see a live-action Joker may be when Barry Keoghan eventually reprises his role from the final scene of “The Batman,” perhaps in Reeves’ sequel in 2026.

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

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Video: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

new video loaded: Owner of Swiss Bar Detained in Fire Investigation

Prosecutors in Switzerland ordered Jacques Moretti to be detained after investigators questioned him and his wife, Jessica Moretti. Officials are looking into whether negligence played a role in last week’s deadly fire at their bar, Le Constellation.

By Meg Felling

January 9, 2026

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’

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Greenland’s leadership is pushing back on President Donald Trump as he and his administration call for the U.S. to take control of the island. Several Trump administration officials have backed the president’s calls for a takeover of Greenland, with many citing national security reasons.

“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and a longtime U.S. ally, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s statements about U.S. acquiring the island.

Greenland’s party leaders reiterated that the island’s “future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.”

“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” the statement said.

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TRUMP SAYS US IS MAKING MOVES TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND ‘WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT’

Greenland has rejected the Trump administration’s push to take over the Danish territory. (Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump was asked about the push to acquire Greenland on Friday during a roundtable with oil executives. The president, who has maintained that Greenland is vital to U.S. security, said it was important for the country to make the move so it could beat its adversaries to the punch.

“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday. “Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”

Trump hosted nearly two dozen oil executives at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela after the historic capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.

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“We don’t want to have Russia there,” Trump said of Venezuela on Friday when asked if the nation appears to be an ally to the U.S. “We don’t want to have China there. And, by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which, if we don’t take Greenland, you can have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.” 

Trump said the U.S. is in control of Venezuela after the capture and extradition of Maduro. 

Nielsen has previously rejected comparisons between Greenland and Venezuela, saying that his island was looking to improve its relations with the U.S., according to Reuters.

A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

FROM CARACAS TO NUUK: MADURO RAID SPARKS FRESH TRUMP PUSH ON GREENLAND

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Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday that Trump’s threats to annex Greenland could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.

That same day, Nielsen said in a statement posted on Facebook that Greenland was “not an object of superpower rhetoric.”

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stands next to Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a visit to the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen on April 28, 2025. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland “should be part of the United States.”

CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.

“The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe

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Euronews spoke to Patrick de Bellefeuille, a prominent Canadian weather presenter and climate specialist, on how Europe could benefit from Canada’s long experience with snowstorms. He has been forecasting for MétéoMédia, Canada’s top French-language weather network, since 1988.

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