Jester, the masked villain, is back, and this time with a very clear motive. In The Jester 2 you have double the trouble as two magicians clash in a battle of wit and trick. Unlike The Jester, where no one was smart enough to challenge the trickster, in the sequel you have a fifteen-year-old enthusiastic magician, Max, who didn’t hesitate to teach the Jester a trick she’d learned. Will Max join hands with Jester and together embark on a bloody quest, or will she stand up to him and protect the world from the killer? Also, can she even outsmart the villain? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
What was the Jester’s motive?
After brutally murdering a college kid, the Jester took an interest in Max when he spotted her at a diner. She was alone, and her classmates seated across the table from her mocked her because she was different. Max was in her magician costume; she thought she would go trick-or-treating with her mother and younger sister. But her mother didn’t think it was appropriate for a fifteen-year-old to go trick-or-treating, so she suggested Max stay home and watch films. She wasn’t in the mood to do so, but clearly stepping out alone turned out to be quite nerve-wracking for her. When the Jester took a seat at her table and tried to show her a card trick, she cheered up. His ritual involved showing a target a trick and killing them, but in Max’s case, she interrupted his flow. She excitedly stated that she knew the trick and complimented the Jester for pulling it off. Max also showed him a trick she’d recently learned, but the Jester simply walked away, out of frustration.
After meeting Max, the Jester struggled with pulling off his tricks. He was embarrassed after he repeatedly made mistakes, and his targets scoffed at him, assuming he was just a rookie magician. Agitated, the Jester ended up killing his targets even though he failed to surprise them with a trick. He figured out that Max had messed up his pattern, and she was the only one who could help him fix it. Max never felt threatened by the Jester, and when he gifted her his hat, she cheered up. She watched him in awe when she saw him perform tricks on her bullies. She assumed the Jester was just a lonely magician looking for company, and she didn’t mind when he suggested they go trick-or-treating together. But she soon figured out that he had a sinister motive. He used Max to perform the trick, and as soon as she was done, with one swift move, the Jester completely sealed the face of his target, resulting in her instant death. Max fled from the scene, but the Jester caught up with her.
Max finally got hold of a Ouija board and asked him to use it to communicate with her. The Jester told her that he didn’t plan to kill her because he needed her help. He thought she was the perfect candidate since she was just like him. Max didn’t think that was true, but the Jester insisted he had always been just an entertainer. Like her, he had been misunderstood and ostracized. Then, one day, everything changed for him. When Death came to his doorstep to collect his soul, the Jester decided to deceive Death and offered him a deal. He’d offered Death a choice between his soul and a trick, and if his trick was successful, he must be allowed to keep his soul. The Jester managed to cheat Death, but after his defeat, Death imposed a condition: every Halloween, he had to deceive four souls and then kill them—all before his candle burned out. Only then would Death honor his bargain, allowing the Jester to continue living. The Jester admitted that not every person he killed was for offering; some he did just for fun. But now that Max had corrected/tricked the Jester (the one who’d tricked Death), she needed to perform the tricks for the offerings to be accepted. The Jester encouraged her to see the power she possessed; she could now get rid of all the people who’d wronged her. But Max was not like the Jester; she was an empathetic young girl who didn’t believe in revenge. Max didn’t know how to react when the Jester explained that he would be turned to dust if he failed to complete the task. Not only that, but Max too now inherited the curse, and she would meet the same fate if she didn’t help him.
Did Max help the Jester achieve his goal?
When Max discovered that her fate was now tied to the Jester, she felt compelled to help him. She had to choose their next target, and she decided to try a trick on one of her bullies. She thought watching someone who detested her die would be easier than targeting a complete stranger, but she was soon proved wrong. The bully apologized to her when she approached him. He explained that he made fun of her simply to impress one of the girls he had a crush on. Max tried to stop the trick midway, but he ended up picking a card anyway. As soon as the trick was complete, the Jester approached him. Max tried to stop him, but it was impossible, and he butchered the target.
She’d stolen the cellphone of the Jester’s first victim (when the Jester used his body to explain his motive) and dialed 911, hoping that the cops could help her escape from the madman. While the cops arrived at the scene, they didn’t have any power over the trickster. During the commotion, Max managed to flee the scene. She asked a random stranger for help, and he offered to drive her to a safe location. But as luck would have it, the man turned out to be a predator. She tried to escape, but he’d locked the car. Now, guess who came to save Max? The Jester! Well, he needed her, so he had to make sure that she was alive. He killed the predator and stuffed his body in the trunk. Meanwhile, Max, who suffered from asthma, had trouble breathing, so the Jester carried her to the fire station and gestured for them to help her. They treated Max, and her breathing stabilized. The Jester needed Max to focus on this plan, and he knew that she wouldn’t agree to leave the station if he asked her to. So, what was the next best alternative? According to the Jester, killing the firefighters was the only way to ensure that he’d have Max all to himself. A gory bloodbath followed, and the Jester finally got ahold of Max. He gestured for her to focus on their plan and pointed at the melting candle. Max confidently told the Jester she had no interest in helping him. She knew that it would mean that both she and the Jester would be burned to ash, but she realized that she would rather die than take part in a murder spree. The Jester attempted to handcuff Max, but he didn’t take into consideration that she was a magician and she had a few handcuff tricks up her sleeves. She managed to escape from the station and found her way to her house.
Max was happy and relieved to see her mother at home. Her mother didn’t reciprocate her affection and instead scolded her for coming home late. Max went upstairs to her room, though she thought her conversation with her mother was a little strange. Before going to her room, she went to her sister, Zoe’s room. After everything she’d been through, she felt the need to check on her loved ones. As she was about to leave, she noticed the Jester’s red candle burning on the shelf. She realized that the Jester had entered her house, and she and her family were not safe anymore. The Jester stepped out of a cupboard; his mask had turned almost black, hinting that he’d turned even more ruthless, and it also indicated that he had very little time in hand before he’d be burned to death.
Is the Jester destroyed?
Max called her mother, and she immediately realized that the Jester had already killed her (before she even returned home) and had been using her body to communicate with her. The Jester threatened to kill Zoe if Max didn’t agree to perform the trick. Max didn’t really have a choice; she couldn’t afford to lose her sister. He needed only one more soul, and Max stated that she knew someone they could trick. He was a student at her school who also worked at the diner. When Max and the Jester approached him, he was taken by surprise. He wasn’t interested in taking part in the trick, but after Max told him she liked him, she managed to convince him to give them a chance. The Jester stood behind the guy while Max performed the trick. She asked him to pick a card, but instead of asking him to pick again after shuffling, she walked up to the Jester, stating that according to his condition, she must perform the trick on the Observer, and in this case, the Jester had been observing and was therefore a potential target. She pulled out the ace of diamonds card from his pocket (the same one the guy had picked). So, how did the card end up in his pocket? Turns out, when the Jester blackmailed her to help him at her house, she instantly decided to trick him, so she planted the card in his pocket. Max outsmarted the Jester once again, and she tricked him smoothly.
The Jester was furious; he used magic to seal the guy’s mouth and pushed him away. The candle stopped burning, indicating that the Jester had run out of time. The trickster started burning, just as Death had promised would happen if he failed. His body gradually started to turn to dust, but he refused to give up. He stabbed Max in the leg and dragged himself towards her. A struggle ensued, but Max managed to overpower the Jester as she stabbed her wand into his eye. The Jester finally perished, and he turned to dust completely.
Is Max the new Jester?
After the Jester turned to dust, help finally arrived. The emergency medics helped the guy from the diner; he survived all thanks to Max. She also managed to protect her sister, but she must have regretted not being able to help her mother as she watched the medics take away her body. In the final scene of The Jester, Max was relieved to see her mentor, a fellow magician. She embraced him and told him that she’d finally understood the trick—four tricks, four souls. I’m sure that her mentor didn’t understand what she was saying; he perhaps assumed she was traumatized and wasn’t really thinking clearly. Even if Max explained what had happened, there was no way the cops could help her with something supernatural. She even had a witness, but the criminal had already perished, so there was no case to investigate. So, what will happen to Max? Well, she has tricked the trickster and managed to save Zoe and herself. The Jester needed four souls to survive but only managed to claim three. Max, however—who had also inherited the curse—succeeded in offering Death the required four souls, one of which was the Jester’s. By doing so, she freed herself from the curse. That’s why she told her mentor she had finally figured out the trick.
The Jester 2’s ending suggests that the story has come to an end, but you never know; there might well be a catch, and by some more trickery, maybe Max will continue to carry with her the curse of the Jester; this, of course, is only valid if Colin Krawchuk decides to expand the franchise. If that’s the case, then she will have to figure out a way to deal with it all by herself. To stay alive, she will have to find four souls to sacrifice every Halloween, and if she fails, she will be set ablaze just like the Jester. Will Max find a way to cheat death? Considering her empathetic nature, it’s hard to imagine her brutally killing people. But she doesn’t really have an option unless she decides to sacrifice herself. Will she don the Jester’s hat from now on and terrorize common people? Or, will she come up with just a perfect way to get around death’s condition? Well, now we have to wait for The Jester 3 to find out how Max deals with this new trouble she might be in.
