Smile 2 might follow a slightly different story than the original film, and its roster of characters is almost entirely new, but there are still many connections to the first installment in this terrifying horror sequel, including Joel. The film centers around a celebrity singer named Skye Riley who bears witness to her friend’s violent death, causing a supernatural demon to latch onto her and haunt her with frightening visions of her deepest traumas. Smile 2 is filled with scary scenes that push this story forward while paying homage to the entry that came before it.

The most obvious connection between Smile 2 and its predecessor is the inclusion of Kyle Gallner’s character Joel, who played a large role in the first movie and indirectly passed the curse to Skye Riley in the sequel. At the end of 2022’s Smile, Sosie Bacon’s protagonist, Rose, fails to defeat the supernatural creature and falls victim to its torture, killing herself in front of Joel and passing the curse onto him. This is where Smile 2 picks up, with Joel carrying out his dangerous plan to get rid of the curse once and for all.

Joel’s Plan To Pass On The Curse & Survive Goes Horribly Wrong

Smile 2 Opens With A Direct Continuation Of The First Movie

Smile 2 opens with Joel’s attempt to pass the curse onto somebody else, and the character chooses a violent criminal as his target, presumably convincing himself that they don’t deserve their life anyway. In the scene, Joel stabs one of the criminals in front of their associate, which should theoretically pass the curse onto the one who witnessed the death. This is what Joel learned alongside Rose in the first film, and based on all the evidence from both movies, it seems to be an accurate description of how the curse works.

However, Joel’s plan quickly goes wrong when another group of criminals turns up at the house and begins shooting at Joel, forcing him to run away. Amid the chaos, Joel runs into the road and gets hit by a speeding vehicle, killing him instantly. Joel’s death happens early in Smile 2 and immediately sets the tone for the rest of the film, but it slightly complicates the chain of the curse.

Smile 2 Uses Lewis To Confirm That The Curse Continued

Lewis’ Character Serves As Confirmation That The Entity Survived

It’s not exactly clear whether Joel’s attempt to pass on the curse was successful, since he dies straight after committing the crime – which is why Lewis Frigoli is so important in Smile 2’s narrative. Once the story switches to Skye Riley, she visits Lewis’ apartment in order to score some painkillers for her injured back. Once she’s there, it’s revealed that Lewis has somehow contracted the curse from Joel, and his time is running dangerously short. Eventually, he takes his own life in front of Skye and passes the curse to her.

The fact that Lewis is cursed seemingly confirms that Joel’s plan was successful, and he managed to get rid of the demon before he was killed. This would establish a clear chain of events, with the curse then passing from Lewis to Skye before the singer passed it to (apparently) thousands of people at the end of Smile 2. Maintaining a clear order of victims for this supernatural entity is crucial for the Smile franchise’s success, as the story simply doesn’t work if the audience doesn’t know who is cursed and how they contracted it.

Did Lewis Get The Curse From Watching The Criminals Die Or Seeing Joel’s Death?

This Is Where The Chain Gets Unclear

It’s confirmed that the curse passes from Joel to Lewis, but what’s not immediately clear is which death Lewis witnessed. The most obvious explanation is that Lewis was a bystander to the car accident that slaughtered Joel, but this implies that Joel was still cursed when he died, making the entire prologue fairly pointless. The other option is that Joel managed to pass the curse directly onto Lewis by killing the criminals, suggesting that he was off-screen somewhere watching the incident. This makes sense, but it’s unclear why Smile 2 wouldn’t show Lewis at the scene if this were true.

Neglecting to show Lewis at the scene of Joel’s crime makes it difficult for the audience to ascertain how he became cursed, and we’re left to speculate on the details.

The details of this chain get fairly muddled in Smile 2’s prologue, which immediately sets the film off on a somewhat confusing note. Neglecting to show Lewis at the scene of Joel’s crime makes it difficult for the audience to ascertain how he became cursed, and we’re left to speculate on the details. However, the decision actually has some benefits as it contributes to the mysterious nature of the curse. Smile 2 refuses to fully explain the curse, and while this may seem frustrating at first, it makes complete sense when considering how unpredictable and incomprehensible the Smile entity’s curse really is.

Joel’s Death In Smile 2 Suggests That The Plan Did Work

Importantly, Joel’s Death Seems To Have Been An Accident

While Smile 2 never states this explicitly, there’s one detail of Joel’s death that implies he wasn’t cursed at the moment he was killed: his death was an accident, and not his fault. For all the other victims of Smile’s curse, their deaths have been intentional and self-inflicted once the demon has tortured them and finished feeding on their trauma. Rose sets herself on fire at the end of the first movie, Lewis smashes his skull with a weight, and Skye kills herself with a microphone. Joel’s death isn’t a suicide, which implies that he’d successfully passed on the curse.

If this is true, Joel’s death is made even more tragic by the fact that it’s nothing more than a freak accident. He came so close to beating the entity for good, going so far as to commit murder in order to save himself, but his actions proved futile anyway. The demon continued feeding on Lewis, and Joel didn’t even get to live the rest of his life.

This conclusion is somehow even more depressing than the idea that Joel’s plan was unsuccessful, which really pushes home how tragic and relentless the Smile movies can be. Killing one of the original film’s main characters in the sequel’s prologue for seemingly no reason is a perfect display of the brutal and pessimistic themes of Smile 2, which very rarely gives its characters a break.