“Jack & Joker” Ruining Lives and Weekends One Special Episode at a Time

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the special episode of Jack & Joker since it was announced back at YinWar’s fanmeet in December. Jack & Joker was one of my favorite shows from last year, and special episodes are always a fun time. But after the premiere event last weekend, spoilers hit the internet, and they did not sound fun. Everyone who hadn’t been able to attend the screening had to wait for the episode to drop on streaming and find out what was true and what wasn’t.

Spoiler Warning: This review contains spoilers for the Jack & Joker special episode. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read.

First off, let me explain – for the uninitiated, or anyone new to BLs – that it is, essentially, a convention of the genre that they end happily. There are exceptions, of course; no one could say that Dead Friend Forever, for example, has a happy ending. But in general, most BLs end with the couple together and any issues resolved. And special episodes especially are a way to put an exclamation point on the story. They are usually about proposals, or weddings, or graduations, or in the case of something like Love Sea, it’s just an hour of the main couple being together with no real plot.

So when the spoilers for the Jack & Joker special episode hit the internet, the fanbase was in an uproar. Because after a relatively perfect ending for the series, in the special episode that no one asked for, they actually killed off one of the leads – Joke. This is just not done! People were extremely mad about it. So much, apparently, that at the Hi-Touch after the screening, War was apologizing to fans for the ending, saying it hadn’t been his idea.

Keep in mind, before the screening, the official YWPB social media accounts had posted, asking fans who were attending the screening not to spoil anything, because they were still negotiating the streaming rights. But with such a shocking ending, word got out, and international fans immediately went into a tizzy. There were a couple of theories that sprang up out of our denial – that fans who had been there were lying about the ending, that it was a dream or another fakeout, that there would be a different ending in streaming. Some people resolved to not even bother watching it.

And the official accounts muddied the waters even more, by mentioning repeatedly in their promotional posts leading up to the streaming premiere that there would be a “unique” ending. And that could mean anything, really. It could be an entirely different ending, it could be an additional scene that changes the context of the ending. Luckily, the rest of us only had to wait a week for the episode to drop on iQIYI.

It dropped last night at 10pm for me, and y’all, I did something I very rarely do. I skipped ahead to the ending. And Jack & Joker pulled an MCU move by having a very, very important post-credits scene, where it’s revealed that Joke is not actually dead, but being held captive somewhere by an unknown entity. Once I knew that Joke hadn’t really died, I was able to go back and watch the episode in its entirety.

As I said, special episodes are usually extra treats for the fans and tend to not have a lot of plot. The Jack & Joker special episode took some of the unresolved things from the series and built them into a story that fits neatly into the world. Actually, calling this a “special episode” does it a bit of a disservice. This is a full-on film, with an almost two-hour runtime, increased production values, and a grander scale. Honestly, if this had been a standalone movie, and not a special episode, people probably wouldn’t be so upset about it. (I’m kidding; BL fans expect their couples to get together, for crying out loud.)

The basic plot is that, yes, as expected from the last episode of the series, Save is not a very good Boss. Men loyal to the previous Boss are causing problems in the neighborhood, and Jack and Joke still help out dealing with them, even as they continue teaching at the school. Then someone breaks into Save’s office and steals a hard drive containing all of the debtors’ information. When the gang assembles to retrieve it, they discover that Carbon has essentially escaped from prison and is being a general pain in the butt – but with more power.

To get the drive back, the gang goes undercover at an elite party at an underground casino. It was very Ocean’s 11, with all of them in suits, trying to complete a heist. (This was, by the way, the plot of the original pilot trailer for the show.) I always loved this aspect of Jack & Joker; Tattoo has upped his game with his inventions, Joke is using the magic hands that made him such a good thief, even Hoy and Aran get into the act. The casino scenes as they walk through their plan were clever and suspenseful. If only they hadn’t been walking into a trap.

Caught, everyone scrambles to escape, so we get some spectacular fight scenes – even though they’re all still terrible at fighting. I’d say there’s a bit more action in this than in the series as a whole – Jack gets to show off his moves and even Tattoo holds his own. When Joke is trying to help Hope and Save get away, Save states that they can’t leave without the hard drive, so Joke offers to be a distraction. That’s the beginning of the end, really.

Eventually, it all comes down to a confrontation on the waterfront. Carbon has nabbed Hoy and hooked him up to an electrical box. Tattoo rushes to save him and gets electrocuted. Aran rushes to save Tattoo and gets stabbed. Hope and Save show up and prove useless. Jack and Joke try to take on Carbon, as they did in the last episode, but this time, they’re unsuccessful. Carbon breaks Jack’s leg, then grabs Joke and offers Jack a choice; he can save Hoy, or he can save Joke, but one of them has to die.

Knowing that to be an impossible decision for Jack (he would end up choosing Joke, then hating himself forever because of it), Joke takes himself out of the equation by attacking Carbon. In their struggle for Carbon’s gun, Joke is shot (seemingly twice? I couldn’t figure that out). He grabs hold of Carbon and hurls them both into the river, while an agonized Jack screams his name. 

That entire scene was heart-wrenching, and a masterclass in how to handle moments like that. Starting with Jack and Joke curled on the ground, holding hands. The way they held on to each other until they couldn’t anymore, as Carbon dragged Joke away. Jack standing up on his broken leg and following after them. The way he is literally pleading with Carbon to spare Joke, even as he has to know that Carbon doesn’t care at all. Joke telling Jack he loves him right before he does something that is going to get him killed. If your heart wasn’t in your throat for that entire sequence, I don’t know what to tell you.

By the way, this happens about an hour and twenty minutes in. So not only does Joke seemingly jump to his own death, there is still half an hour left! Which means we have to see everyone dealing with the sad reality of a life without Joke. And let me tell you, even knowing that Joke isn’t actually dead, I ugly cried for the last twenty minutes or so. I kept telling myself, “Why are you crying? He’s not really dead,” but if you know anything about me, it’s that I cry at everything. Of course I was going to cry. It’s sad.

There’s a lot I could say here, about the nature of grief, and the things we do to deal with the things we cannot handle. But I don’t know that I could adequately articulate it. As we watch everyone struggle to move on in the wake of Joke’s “death”, the one hit hardest, naturally, is Jack. It was so hard to watch, because he wasn’t dealing with it. Since Joke’s body hadn’t been recovered, he was walking around firm in the belief that Joke wasn’t dead, and that he would be coming back soon. And everyone tiptoed around him, afraid to set him off.

That Joke “died” just days before their wedding makes everything even sadder. But it also explains the ire of fans – the first teaser for the special episode focused on Jack and Joke’s wedding, and then it turns out that the wedding was basically all in Jack’s head. It’s actually not: they hold the ceremony and Jack says his vows to a cardboard cutout of Joke dressed up in his wedding suit, following the Chinese tradition of ghost marriage. I mean, it does feel like kind of a slap in the face that the most highly-anticipated moment of this episode was Jack dealing with the trauma of losing his soulmate.

Is it fascinating from a story perspective? Yes, actually. And it’s a scene that perfectly encapsulates how everyone grieves differently. The attendees at the ceremony are sad, but they’re there, because they’re there for Jack. Jack is all smiles, because in his mind, Joke is right there with him. And the tragedy of the situation is underscored by the fact that while Jack says his vows, Joke does not. In fact, Joke doesn’t speak at all, because he’s not real.

But of course, Jack can’t live in denial forever. As soon as he and “Joke” return home from the wedding, Jack breaks down at the kitchen table. While War got the chance to shine during the actual series, with Joke’s breakdown at the hospital, Yin was really impressive as Jack finally allowed himself to grieve. I’ve not seen Yin have a scene like that before; he really nailed the desperation and the hopelessness.

I think all of the awfulness of the last quarter of the episode is nicely balanced by the fact that, for the rest of the time, Jack and Joke are disgustingly in love, which is all anyone wants from a special episode anyway! Calling each other “baby” literally every other sentence. Continuing their habit of making out aggressively in the least opportune moments. Jack officially proposes on their anniversary. Joke is so upset when Jack gets beat up by some thug that he does pro-wrestling moves on the guy, interspersed with being all sweet and gooey in making sure Jack is OK.

I’ll admit, I’m a little disappointed that TattooAran didn’t go canon. We got a few crumbs, which I did appreciate, and it is definitely heavily implied that while they aren’t dating yet, it’s just an inevitability.

The “official” (read: pre-credits) ending is bittersweet but kind of hopeful. Jack tries to move on, but he still keeps Joke with him everywhere. As expected, considering the depth of their feelings for each other. He has Joke’s booklet from before, when Joke was trying to make it up to Jack without seeing him, and is going through the list one by one. There’s a sweet moment where he imagines Joke beside him, and Joke tells him that he wants him to live and be happy, and to forget him if that helps.

I’m tearing up just thinking about that scene, because it’s so them. Joke has always felt inadequate. His family was disappointed in him. He essentially ruined Jack’s life. Everything he tried to do to help blew up in his face. Even when he and Jack found their way to each other after five years, they fought because of something Joke did. So of course he would, even in Jack’s head, downplay his significance in Jack’s life. 

Of course Jack refuses to do that, but it isn’t until the imaginary Joke has vanished that Jack emphatically states he will always ever only love Joke. He was willing to die with Joke, after all. There may be some significance that he doesn’t say this to Joke, but then again, that Joke is inside Jack’s head; he isn’t real. I’ve seen some people say this hints that he’ll move on in the future, but I disagree. I think he’s confirming that he won’t move on.

But Joke isn’t dead! He is being held somewhere unknown by persons unknown – to us, at least. It’s obvious from the way he reacts that he knows who it is, and that we weren’t shown the perpetrator implies that we may know them, too. I’m inclined to think it’s Carbon, because it’s a hard and fast rule that if you don’t see someone die, there’s no proof that they’re dead. All of the news reports claimed Carbon’s body had been found and identified, but given that Carbon himself said he switched identities with his father, it makes me wonder if that was actually his body they pulled from the river, or someone else’s. Carbon has money, and it wouldn’t take much to bribe someone at the coroner’s office to be like, “Yeah, that’s totes Carbon, nothing to see here.”

However, it could be someone new. One of Joke’s enemies from prison, perhaps? Or even someone else we know. After all, we didn’t see Alice at all, and we didn’t hear much about how he’s been handling his exile. 

And while I’m beyond thrilled Joke isn’t actually dead, I think having an ending like that, with no official announcement of a second season or even an additional episode, is very mean. Who knows how long we’ll have to wait to find out what happens? We may never find out! If that happens, I would have almost rather we got the first ending, if only for the closure.

As it stands, I actually really enjoyed the special episode. Yes, I sobbed hysterically at midnight. And yes, I do kind of hate them for not giving us a clear indication that the story will continue. But it was entertaining and well done, and Jack and Joke love each other so much. And isn’t that what matters, in the end?

Actually, what matters is WHEN IS SEASON 2?

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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