Here is what I was told happened by a friend who did his research. Let me say at the top that I didn't watch either movie.
But according to my boy, the director of the movie wasn't happy how his Joker was turned into some sort of icon by the right wing white supremacists. It seems like in the first movie, they depicted Joker as this loser who kept blaming life and the system for his short comings. The audience was supposed to understand his perspective but not really relate. Especially when he goes full murderer and starts killing folk.
But ofcourse, this spoke to young white supremacists who think the system is to blame for their shitty ass existences. The director was like wtf, Joker shouldn't have talking to y'all and got y'all to relate like that.
So he approached the second movie by completely destroying the character he built in the first movie. Apart from being a musical, he had this mfer be a whiny ass loser who got raped in jail, begged to be released, couldnt last more than a few pumps when fucking, and eventually got mercy killed.
The directors purpose was to completely strip away anything that made Arthur a hero to the white angst crowd in the first movie and portray him as an absolute loser.
Now again, I bailed out on watching the first movie soon as I heard white supremacists loved it cause they related to Arthur. And no way was I ever gonna watch the second movie after skipping the first.
But if the above is true, then props to the director cause he did capture the shit perfectly. These white angst mfers really are some losers that constantly fail at life and blame the "system" or others when the system is set up specifically for them to succeed.
To all y'all who thoroughly disappointed and feel like y'all lost money on this bullshit, good.