Smile 2 Opening Scene Explained – How It Connects to The First Film

Smile 2 is now in theaters and without getting into spoilers (yet), the sequel opens on a pretty wild note that sets the tone for a film that has horror fans buzzing. That said, there are some pretty close connections between the original Smile movie and the opening act of Smile 2 — pieces of a puzzle that viewers may not be able to put together if they haven’t seen the first film — or even if it’s been a while since they have. Below you will find the breakdown of everything you need to know — and we’ll address a potential plothole Smile 2 creates in its opening scene.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW!

What Happened at the End of Smile?

Smile followed therapist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), who was infected by the evil entity by one of her graduate students. Rose spends the movie trying to determine what the curse is and how to cure herself — and she gets aided in her investigation by her ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner), a police detective. Rose and Joel follow the chain of smile entity suicides to one survivor: Robert Talley (Rob Morgan), who explains he survived the curse by brutally killing someone in front of a witness and letting the entity pass on to that traumatized onlooker. Rose rejected that idea and instead chose to try to kill herself, ending the chain of traumas with her death. Instead, the entity intervened, and Joel found Rose possessed and watched her set herself on fire, thereby making Joel the new host for the curse.

Smile 2‘s Opening Scene Explained

Smile 2 begins by letting viewers know that six days have passed since Joel got infected. Joel is now an ex-cop (implying the curse’s hallucinations got him fired) who is running out of time before his inevitable possession. Joel finally decides to try Robert Talley’s strategy — while putting a moral twist on it. Using police resources, he tracks down two Eastern European drug dealer brothers at their stash house and tries to kill one in front of the other, passing the curse on to someone who deserves the bad Karma.

The plan quickly goes sideways: the brothers both end up dying in a shootout with Joel, with small-time drug dealer Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage) witnessing their deaths, while there to pick up his drugs. Joel desperately tries to escape the drug den when the brothers’ crew comes in guns blazing but ends up getting hit by a truck while running across the road, leaving a gruesome, bloody smear in the shape of a smile.

Is Smile 2‘s Opening Scene a Major Plothole?

Some viewers have come away wondering about the logic of Smile 2‘s opening scene. By the “rules” of the smile entity’s curse, a witness who sees an infected person kill themselves or someone else then inherits the curse. By those rules, Joel passes the curse to Lewis — who then passes it to pop star Skye Riley, setting the events of the sequel into motion. However, Smile 2 is confusing some viewers, since Joel is seemingly killed by the curse entity, even after he passes it to Lewis.

Is it a pothole? There’s never confirmation that the entity carried out Joel’s death: he’s just running away from gunshots in a panic and doesn’t look where he’s going carefully enough. The detail about Joel’s blood and entrails forming a gruesome smile in the road can be chalked up to writer/director Parker Finn finding a clever way to introduce the Smile 2 title sequence, and quickly sever ties with the dangling threads of the first film.

Smile 2 is now in theaters.