‘Beetlejuice’ Beetlejuice’ ending and cameo, explained. Spoilers!

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

You know Baby Yoda. Now meet Baby Beetlejuice.

A manic, child version of Michael Keaton’s unhinged menace is unleashed in the new Beetlejuice sequel Beetlejuice, director Tim Burton’s return to the macabre world he created in the 1988 cult horror comedy. Beetlejuice is back, of course — the original recipe plus his tiny hellspawn — as is Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), the goth teen girl once haunted by Beetlejuice.

Decades later, he’s still trying to marry her, and she even signs on the dotted line for the nuptials in exchange for his help: her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is taken to the Underworld and tricked into giving her soul to murderous ghost boy Jeremy (Arthur Conti). Their fates intersect with Beetlejuice’s own, as he’s pursued by his vengeful ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci) and the Underworld’s top cop Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe).

Let’s take a look at the film’s crazy climax, intriguing cameos, and of course, Baby Beetlejuice.

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What happens at the end of the movie “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice”?

Along with Beetlejuice, Lydia journeys through the afterlife to find her daughter, and Astrid escapes with the help of the “ghost with the most” and her beloved dead father (Santiago Cabrera), a government official covered in piranhas in the afterlife. But Astrid being saved means Lydia has to marry Beetlejuice in the real world, so she ends up in a church where she’s supposed to marry her annoying manager Rory (Justin Theroux). Rory reveals himself to be a greedy jerk, Delores shows up, and everyone dances in a crazy scene set to “MacArthur Park.”

As the realms 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, leading to Beetlejuice popping like a balloon and presumably returning to the Afterlife.

Will there be any funny cameos or comebacks in the Beetlejuice sequel?

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

The most intriguing side character, though, is a familiar face without a head. Jeffrey Jones played Lydia’s birdwatching father, Charles Deetz, in the original Beetlejuice, but Burton gets creative in the sequel, bringing back the character without the actor who played him (and is now a convicted sex offender). Charles dies in a combination plane crash and shark-eating incident, and his departure is a plot point that brings Lydia, Astrid, and Lydia’s stepmother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), back together after some emotional distance had been lost between them.

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

Is there a post-credits scene in Beetlejuice?

No! But the final scene sets the stage for the third film. After Astrid is rescued, there’s a time-jump montage of her and Lydia traveling, their daughter finding love abroad and getting married. In the hospital, Astrid gives birth when Baby Beetlejuice, the excited rascal previously introduced as one of Beetlejuice’s weird tricks, shows up when he pretends to be Lydia and Rory’s therapist.

We cut to Lydia waking up in bed from what seems like a nightmare. Beetlejuice then sits down next to her and says, “I just had the weirdest dream.” Lydia panics and tears herself out of This nightmare, suggesting that Beetlejuice hasn’t stopped messing with her and perhaps Astrid is another candidate to be his unwitting wife.