Contrary to stereotype the Arkham guards are occasionally humane and one (Brendan Gleeson) gets Arthur, who's been a compliant inmate, into a music therapy group. There he meets pyromaniac Lee (Lady Gaga), the two spark and suddenly Arthur has something to live for.
No good will come of this.
CW: some violence
The weight of expectation can be crushing and after "Joker" became a behemoth Todd Phillips seems to have decided to shrug this off and simply tell everybody else to "get te fuck".
That first film wasn't supposed to be the hit it was: a weird DC side project by a director known for gross out comedies and an actor known mostly for serious/art house dramatic cinema. A Batman villain with no Batman and frankly no villainy. Yet lightning ended up unexpectedly in the bottle and everybody made a fuckton of money.
You really do have to hand it to Phillips for not phoning in a more conventional sequel where "Joker" does cool crime shit: everybody would have been screaming at him for it. Especially when you throw in Gaga as fan favourite villain Harley Quinn, or at least a version of her.
Instead you get a fucked up romance with magical reality musical numbers happening in parallel with a courtroom drama and fuck all fanservice beyond some costume. I salute them for it. Many hated it and it's an obvious box office disaster but taken as a pair with the first still some of the best superhero adjacent cinema in existence 9/10.
The only thing I'm not sure about is if the last scene was something the studio made Phillips include on pain of bankruptcy/death or he put in as commentary on the absurd weight of fan expectation for the character. I should search to find out if he's ever said.