Made-Up Scenes from Joker 2: Folie à Deux (an Imaginary Fall Out Boy Jukebox Musical)

This post has been simmering in my brain since June 7, 2022. The trailer for the sequel is dropping April 9th but now, we got the first official poster today. In the spirit of chasing the algorithm, here’s ultimately what I hope I can bring to this little newsletter. So queue up Fall Out Boy’s Folie à Deux and enjoy the ride.

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When Joker co-writer and director Todd Phillips shared two pictures in an Instagram post on June 7, 2022, revealing the title of the sequel film, Folie à Deux, many Fall Out Boy fans (like myself) noticed that the sequel’s subtitle shares a name with the band’s 2008 album. For those who don’t speak French or have access to the DSM-5, “folie à deux” is a shared psychotic disorder that translates into “folly of two” or “madness shared by two”, where one person’s mental illness is transmitted to someone they are close to. Definitely sounds like how Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn.

Being my silly little self, I tweeted what I imagined a scene from the movie fully soundtracked by the 2008 album could be.

Then, Fall Out Boy got in on the fun and tweeted a reaction (or prediction?) the following day: “Folie a Deux the musical coming soon” with a Photoshopped image of the boy and bear characters from the album cover on the script page cover. Coincidentally, it was an easy edit to make since the original album also has a plain red background.

But then, guys(!!!), the impossible happened. This Internet joke became a reality when Lady Gaga joined the Joker sequel as Harley Quinn and it was confirmed that it was a musical. I feel Mr. Krabs in that meme. It feels like a fever dream. I feel like this classic Vine. The pieces are falling into place. So now I’m committing to this silly idea as a Fall Out Boy fan to outline my vision of this movie.

Firstly, you don’t have Lady Gaga as your leading lady without basically making the movie from her perspective. Lady Gaga is no stranger to playing women plucked out of obscurity by influential, yet difficult men and then shaped into a force of her own (see: A Star Is Born, House of Gucci). While I can admit that some of Fall Out Boy’s lyrics still allude me, select lyrics and the musicality make this album perfect for tracking the trajectory of this toxic couple, I think DC Black Label’s Harleen by Stjepan Šejić is a great jumping-off point for a dark Harley Quinn origin story. 

Filming for Joker: Folie à Deux recently wrapped (April 4, 2024 note: they wrapped a year ago next week!), so who knows if Todd Phillips even went in this direction, but if he did, please feel free to send me $10 million dollars for this, James Gunn.

Track 1 - “Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes”

“Put him in the back of a squad car, restrain that man / He needs his head put through a CAT scan”

Assuming that at the end of 2019’s Joker, Arthur Fleck fully escaped Arkham and went on a chaos spree, the sequel opens with GCPD returning him. It’s a classic opening number where you get a sense of time and place - it puts you right in the moment. The song itself is about the vicious cycle of heartbreak and repair, which is an apt song to set at Arkham Asylum with its revolving door of villains breaking out and wreaking havoc on Gotham.

“I’m a loose bolt of a complete machine / What a match, I’m half-doomed, and you’re semi-sweet”

Arthur laughs as orderlies and other staff members roll their eyes and tell him to shut up, with no sympathy for his condition. However, this is also Harleen’s first day at Arkham, and while this is the first time we see them “meet”, we later look back at their first traumatic meeting that lit the match for her to burn down her entire life for this man. She stands next to Arkham’s Chief of Psychiatry Dr. Hugo Strange, and her face twists her face into a Mona Lisa-level look of intrigue and fear. This look thrills Arthur:

“Perfect boys with their perfect lives / Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy”

As the number continues, the rest of the patients and orderlies sing the chorus, seemingly taking potshots at the newly orphaned Bruce Wayne, womp womp. Bad form, people.

Track 2 - “I Don’t Care”

“I don’t care what you think / As long as it’s about me / The best of us can find happiness in misery”

How can the sequel possibly top the Gary Glitter “Rock and Roll Part 2” staircase dance from the first one? By using Fall Out Boy’s lead single, “I Don’t Care”, of course. The title is reason enough to make this song appropriate, it’s about being the subject of a love-hate relationship, which is perfect for who Arthur has become- a murderer who is vexed by systemic failure. I’m picturing a scene after Arthur breaks out of Arkham at the end of the first movie, he gets a new dark purple suit (bye-bye bright red), pops his collars, maybe adds a hat, and makes his way down the stairs. 

Alternatively, this could be a flashback of Harleen quitting the Center for the Study of Criminal Psychology after getting her study into empathy disruption funded by the Wayne Foundation following the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne. After being the topic of gossip for years, Harleen can now give the finger to her former employer.

Track 3 - “She’s My Winona” 

“Life’s just a pace-car on death / Only less diligent / And when the two collide, it’s no coincidence / The lights are on and everybody’s home”

She’s My Winona is about going for broke to achieve a goal, and Harleen does this in trying to break through to Arthur, even though she has an undisclosed reason to fear him beyond the general. As Harleen starts her research interviews, she really struggles to get him to tell her his story. She tries the gentle touch, but his laughter makes her nervous. As he talks, she sees the dark, tortured side that is hypnotizing. We see glimpses of their previous meeting as fuzzy flashbacks, and he’s singing these lyrics to her.

“Then came a baby boy with long eyelashes / And Daddy said you gotta show the world / The Thunder” 

Or, diverting from Šejić’s story, maybe this is a song about a young, newly orphaned Master Wayne. Maybe we’ll get a Jacob Kane appearance, talking with Alfred about custody, then the conversation floats to the news broadcasters covering it on the nightly news and city officials, including ADA Harvey Dent (still climbing those ranks) shaking their heads in disappointment, worrying about the deep well of trauma that Bruce will deal with for the rest of his life.

Track 4 - “America’s Suitehearts” 

“Let’s hear it for America’s suitehearts! / But I must confess / I’m in love with my own sins”

A song about our society’s attention to fame can be a good number about Thomas and Martha Wayne at their joint public funeral, which could be sung by any number of people: the priest at the pulpit, eulogizers, and broadcasters. The song can follow a young Bruce and Alfred in the pews from the church to the manor, while broadcasters cover the tragedy. Arthur and Harleen watch from Arkham, and dhe watches him closely for a reaction as he silently smokes a cigarette.

Track 5 - “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On a Bad Bet” 

“Mr. Sandman showing his beam / When he walks into the room the walls lean in to listen”

Okay, so Sandman is not in the book, but how can I not take advantage of using a DC character and throwing him in this? Harleen is a very lonely alcoholic who drinks her demons and nightmares away. After one particularly stressful and unsuccessful day, Harleen hits the bottle heavily and drifts off to sleep, where she meets Wesley Dodds (a.k.a. Sandman). He convinces her to follow her desire for anarchy and forsake the broken system she’s trying to uphold. The song is largely about infidelity, and in this sense, the song is about Harley is torn between crossing the line of that doctor-patient relationship.

“Tempest in a teacup, get unique / Peroxide princess shine like shark teeth” 

That lyric just perfectly describes the woman Harleen is and foreshadows what she’ll eventually become!

Track 6 - “The (Shipped) Gold Standard”

“I wanna scream ‘I love you’ from the top of my lungs / But I’m afraid that someone else will hear me”

After that visit from Sandman and a session where Arthur talks about his co-dependent relationship with his mother, Harleen pushes harder for him to dive deeper into what his motives are - where do his morals lie? Hugo then presses her on why she’s looking so hard for answers. She storms off and locks herself in her office, and while looking at Arthur’s files, she realizes that she’s fallen a little bit in love. Maybe she’s looking at a mirror or her reflection in the bottom of an empty rocks glass. The song is about reaching a breaking point and at this point in the story, Harleen can’t deny her love for Arthur anymore.

Maybe it can come back as a reprise where she actually confesses her feelings to Arthur and has to convince him that her affections aren’t a figment of his imagination as it was with Sophie (Zazie Beetz) in the first movie.

Track 7 - “(Coffee’s For Closers)”

“I, I'm a mascot for what you've become / And I, I, I love the mayhem more than the love // And oh baby, when they made me, they broke the mold / Girls used to follow me around, then I got cold”

DA Harvey Dent visits Arkham and threatens Harleen to stop her research, something that Arthur doesn’t know about but overhears. He feels betrayed and in a private session, he yells at her for lying to him. Extremely triggered and upset, he breaks out into a boisterous, destructive performance. However, she stands still and watches calmly and compassionately. She’s tense but knows she can outlast his tantrum.

Track 8 - “What A Catch, Donnie”

Fall Out Boy - What A Catch, Donnie

I got troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match / What a catch, what a catch

As one of the rare ballads from the band, it’s a song about any troubled partnership where one who is suffering depends on the other. It’s about making a promise to not give up on each other, while also recognizing that their friendship/relationship has saved them. My initial imaginary scene plays more on the fact that it’s a ballad than the context of the song, but it can still work as Arthur playing this song for his number-one gal.

See the above tweet.

Track 9 - 27

“If ‘home is where the heart is’ / Then we’re all just fucked / I can't remember, I can't remember / And I want it so bad I'd shoot the sunshine into my veins / I can't remember the good old days”

There’s a storyline in Šejić’s Harleen about Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face and while maybe that can be saved for Joker 3: Man in the Mirror, this could be his solo/supporting ensemble number where his time as the ADA has gotten too much for him. Arthur/Joker is now a symbol of society’s overlooked and forgotten and GCPD is on high alert after the riots. The scene starts with Dent leaving Arkham in a huff after failing to convince Harleen to drop her research and the song continues through a series of ensemble singers such as hot dog vendors, wheat pasters, sex workers, and police officers showing how deep the unrest in the city goes.

Track 10 - Tiffany Blews

Oh baby, you're a classic / Like a little black dress / You're a faded moon / Stuck on a little hot mess / (Little hot mess) Whoa, whoa

Tiffany Blews is a song about a plain, unspecial type of woman who is attracted to a mess of a person. This is who Harleen is before she meets Joker. It’s a good song to set their meeting flashback to.

We finally see the night that Harleen crossed paths with Joker that first night. It’s the night the riots broke out and it was shortly after Harleen gave her research presentation that led her to Arkham a few weeks later. She’s sitting with her friend in a bar, drinking her sorrows away when they watch the Murray Franklin murder live with a bar full of shocked people. Everyone around Harleen is in shock and panicking, and then the sounds of the riot start to pick up but she’s mesmerized by this perfect specimen for her study. She jots a few notes but her friend begs her to leave immediately. They part ways, but Harleen finds herself drawn to the ruckus building on the main streets. People push past her with stolen goods and she wills herself to keep going through her fear. She eventually turns around and sees Arthur finally being re-apprehended after his car hood dance and they lock eyes. He has a crazed smile and bloody teeth but comments on her black dress, shaking her to her core.

Track 11 - w.a.m.s.

Hurry, hurry / You put my head in such a flurry, flurry / Oh freckle, freckle, what makes you so special? / Oh, what makes you so special? / I'm gonna leave you / Oh, I'm gonna teach you / How we're all alone / How we're all alone, oh, oh

This song is a jaded look at a relationship, one that’s toxic and co-dependent, making this a perfect track for this part of the story, where Arthur turns their (now) private sessions to question Harleen on her research and out of insecurity and a little bit of spite, goads her into delving deep into her history. Triggered by this turn of events, Harleen breaks down and confesses the strange attraction that has built up since their first meeting. Arthur softens a bit, but still hazes her with her truest fears of abandonment and not being needed.

Track 12 - 20 Dollar Nosebleed

Give me a pen, call me Mr. Benzedrine / But don't let the doctor in, I wanna blow off steam

The band has said this song is about the Iraq War and focuses on the effects of Benzedrine, a drug used to treat PTSD. In Šejić’s story, Dent teams up with a sect of the GCPD who are playing judge, jury, and Executioner. These officers are sick of Gotham’s criminals constantly breaking out and wreaking havoc on the city, only to be returned to Arkham for “rehab”, rather than face punishment in Blackgate. Post-acid attack that gave Dent brain damage, he sends the Executioners to break into Arkham and set the villains loose, wanting to start a war on crime that would finally “solve” the city’s violent issues.

Track 13 - West Coast Smoker

Oh hell yes, I'm a nervous wreck / Oh hell yes, the drugs just make me reset / Knock once for the father, twice for the son / Three times for the holy ghost

Appropriately a duet with another iconic blonde, Courtney Love, this is a song about admitting to your own brokenness and instability but owning it rather than feeling shame for it. Harley - yes, finally just Harley - finally accepts that everyone has madness bubbling underneath and there is nothing to cure it. So with that, she prescribes to Arthur’s point-of-view and agrees to be his way out of Arkham. Also… I just want to watch Lady Gaga give another bastardized delivery of the Sign of the Cross (see: 1:51 of the House of Gucci trailer)

Then, of course, pulling from all of Lady Gaga’s discography, there are so many ripe moments for “Bad Romance”, “Monster”, “Teeth”, “Poker Face” (reframed as Joker Face obviously), “Judas”, “Yoü and I”, “The Edge of Glory” and others. I am not a Little Monster, so I cannot speak to that, but I’m open to hearing interpretive scenes of Mother’s songs for the movie as well below!

Whatever this movie ends up becoming, we can expect no other comic book movie like it. It’s funny when one piece of art works seamlessly with another piece of art, like playing Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in reverse with The Wizard of Oz.

Actually, when I think about it, I would’ve just remade Joker with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn being his social worker AND the person he imagines he’s in a relationship with. There you go, you’re welcome! I would like $1 billion dollars, thank you.

xx Francesca

Excited, scared, or neutrally invested in Joker 2, let’s chat below!