'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' spoilers! Let's unpack that wild ending, creative cameo
Spoiler alert! We're discussing important plot points and the ending of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (in theaters now) so beware if you haven’t seen it yet.
You know Baby Yoda. Now meet Baby Beetlejuice.
A maniacal infant version of Michael Keaton’s demented menace is unleashed in the new sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” director Tim Burton’s revisit of the macabre world he created in the iconic 1988 horror comedy. Beetlejuice is back, obviously – original recipe plus his pint-sized hellspawn – and so is Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), the teen goth girl Beetlejuice haunted back in the day.
Decades later, he’s still trying to marry her and she even signs on the dotted line for those nuptials, in exchange for his help: Her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is taken to the Afterlife and tricked into giving up her soul to murderous ghost boy Jeremy (Arthur Conti). Their plight intersects with Beetlejuice’s own troubles, as he’s being pursued by his vengeful ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci) and Afterlife top cop Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe).
Let’s dig into the movie’s wild climax, intriguing cameos and, yes, Baby Beetlejuice.
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What happens in the ending of ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’?
Alongside Beetlejuice, Lydia journeys through the Afterlife to find her daughter, and Astrid gets out of her jam thanks to the “ghost with the most” as well as her beloved dead dad (Santiago Cabrera), a piranha-covered civil servant in the hereafter. But a saved Astrid means Lydia needs to tie the knot with Beetlejuice in the real world, so she ends up at the church where she’s supposed to be marrying her annoying manager Rory (Justin Theroux). Rory exposes himself as a gold-digging jerk, Delores shows up and everybody dances in a bonkers scene set to “MacArthur Park.”
With the lands of the living and the dead colliding, a sandworm comes in for the rescue and eats Rory and Delores. Astrid finds a legal loophole to null and void her mom’s contract to wed Beetlejuice, which leads to Beetlejuice popping like a balloon and assumably going back to the Afterlife.
Are they are any fun cameos or returns in the ‘Beetlejuice’ sequel?
Danny DeVito is a frequent Burton collaborator over the years, with appearances in movies like “Dumbo,” “Big Fish” and “Batman Returns,” where he played the Penguin. He has a small role in the beginning of the “Beetlejuice” sequel as an undead janitor in the Afterlife who gets his soul sucked out by Delores.
The most intriguing side personality, though, is a familiar face without a head. Jeffrey Jones played Lydia’s bird-watching father Charles Deetz in the original “Beetlejuice,” but Burton gets creative in the sequel and brings back the character without including the actor who played him (and is now a convicted sex offender). Charles dies in a combination plane crash/shark-eating incident, and his passing is the plot point that brings Lydia, Astrid and Lydia’s stepmom Delia (Catherine O’Hara) together after some emotional distance between them.
While Delia grieves in her very artsy way, Charles – headless and with a gurgly voice that sounds sort of like Jones – ends up in the Afterlife. They cross paths but don’t notice each other after Delia dies courtesy of an accidental snake bite, but the odd couple ends up with a happy ending as they get on a soul train to heaven together.
Is there a post-credits scene in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’?
Nope! But the last scene sets the stage for where a third film could go. After Astrid is saved, there’s a time-jumping montage showing her and Lydia traveling, the daughter finding love abroad and getting married. In a hospital, Astrid is giving birth when out pops Baby Beetlejuice, an excitable scamp introduced earlier as one of Beetlejuice’s weird tricks when he’s playing faux therapist to Lydia and Rory.
Cut to Lydia waking up in bed and it seems like a nightmare. Then Beetlejuice sits up next to her and says, “I just had the weirdest dream.” Lydia panics and snaps out of that nightmare, hinting that Beetlejuice isn’t done messing with her and maybe Astrid is the next choice to be his unwitting bride.
