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‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Ending and Cameos Explained. Spoilers!

Vaseline September 7, 2024

Spoiler alert! We discuss major plot points and the ending of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (in theaters now), so be warned if you haven’t seen the film yet.

You know Baby Yoda. Now meet Baby Beetlejuice.

A maniacal child version of Michael Keaton’s demented menace is unleashed in the new sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” director Tim Burton’s revisiting of the macabre world he created in the iconic 1988 horror comedy. Beetlejuice is back, of course — original recipe plus his little hellspawn — and so is Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), the teenage goth girl Beetlejuice used to stalk.

Decades later, he’s still trying to marry her, and she even signs on the dotted lines for said wedding in exchange for his help: her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is whisked away to the afterlife and tricked into giving her soul to murderous ghost boy Jeremy (Arthur Conti). Their plight intersects with Beetlejuice’s own troubles, as he’s pursued by his vengeful ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci) and Afterlife top cop Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe).

Let’s take a closer look at the film’s wild climax, intriguing cameos, and, yes, Baby Beetlejuice.

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What happens at the end of ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’?

Together with Beetlejuice, Lydia travels through the afterlife to find her daughter, and Astrid is rescued from her predicament by the “spirit with the most” and her beloved dead father (Santiago Cabrera), a piranha-covered afterlife official. But a rescued Astrid means Lydia must tie the knot with Beetlejuice for real, so she ends up in the church where she was supposed to marry her annoying manager Rory (Justin Theroux). Rory reveals herself to be a gold-digging jerk, Delores shows up, and everyone dances in a crazy scene set to “MacArthur Park.”

As the lands of the living and the dead collide, a sandworm comes to the rescue and eats Rory and Delores. Astrid finds a legal loophole to void her mother’s contract to marry Beetlejuice, causing Beetlejuice to pop like a balloon and presumably return to the afterlife.

Are there any fun cameos or returning characters in the ‘Beetlejuice’ sequel?

Danny DeVito has been a frequent Burton collaborator over the years, appearing in such films as “Dumbo,” “Big Fish” and “Batman Returns,” where he played the Penguin. He has a small role early in the “Beetlejuice” sequel as an undead janitor in the afterlife who has his soul sucked out by Delores.

The most intriguing secondary character, though, is a familiar headless face. Jeffrey Jones played Lydia’s bird-watching father Charles Deetz in the original “Beetlejuice,” but Burton gets creative in the sequel, bringing back the character without involving the actor who played him (who’s now a convicted sex offender). Charles dies in a combination of a plane crash and a shark-eating incident, and his demise is the plot point that reunites Lydia, Astrid and Lydia’s stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) after some emotional distance had grown between them.

While Delia grieves in her own artistic way, Charles—headless and with a gurgling voice that sounds a bit like Jones—ends up in the afterlife. They cross paths but don’t notice each other after Delia dies from an accidental snakebite, but the odd couple ends up with a happy ending as they board a soul train to heaven together.

Is There a Post-Credits Scene in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’?

No! But the final scene sets the tone for where a third film could go. After Astrid is rescued, there’s a time-jump montage showing her and Lydia traveling, the daughter finding love and marrying abroad. In a hospital, Astrid gives birth when Baby Beetlejuice emerges, an excitable villain previously introduced as one of Beetlejuice’s strange tricks as he plays fake therapist to Lydia and Rory.

Cut to Lydia waking up in bed and it seems like a nightmare. Then Beetlejuice sits down next to her and says, “I just had the weirdest dream.” Lydia panics and wakes up That nightmare, suggesting that Beetlejuice isn’t done tormenting her and that Astrid may be the next choice to become his unwitting bride.