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Let’s Fan-Cast Folie à Deux’s Fictional Joker TV Movie

Folie à Deux never shows us this TV movie, perhaps because that would be funny and interesting, two qualities the film abhors. But it got me thinking.

So, with the help of my illustrious colleagues Josef Adalian and Christopher Bonanos, I fan-cast the early-’80s TV version of Joker that the residents of Gotham City might have watched on a Sunday night in November. As shown by his Emmy-winning turn as Gary Gilmore in 1983’s The Executioner’s Song, Jones was not above playing real-life murderers, and he had the right combination of star power and darkness to convincingly inhabit Arthur Fleck. We can be sure that the TV movie depicts Arthur’s troubled relationship with his neighbor, as Zazie Beetz’s character pops up briefly in Folie à Deux to reveal that the telefilm made her life miserable.

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