WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), in theaters now.
Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is a consistently chaotic and charming film. A lot of that sense of style is a product of the specific sense of silliness that comes with having Harley Quinn front and center in the story. That humor even impacts a current major trend in blockbuster films -- the post-credits sequence.
Birds of Prey doesn't have a normal post-credits sequence. Instead, in the very final moments, Harley Quinn trolls those audience members who stay behind.
By now audiences expect superhero films to contain at least one post-credits stinger. This can be used to tease the audience with what's coming next in the franchise or tantalize them with the future of certain characters. Sometimes it's a way to keep audiences until the end of the credits just in case something happens that everyone else will be talking about down the line. But instead of including a substantive sequence, Birds of Prey decides to troll the audience in this moment.
The post-credits gag doesn't tease any future heroes and villains. There are not even any hints towards the future of the Birds of Prey (although the actual end of the film does a solid job of setting up all the main characters for future appearances in the DC Extended Universe).
As the credits come to an end, Harley's voice is heard. She admonishes the people who stayed behind waiting for some extra footage to be shown. However, she ultimately decides that the audience deserves something for waiting so long. She starts to tell a secret about Batman when suddenly the credits officially come to a close, the audio cuts out and the Warner Bros. logo appears. The audience never gets to hear what she was going to say.
It's kind of the perfect post-credits sequence for a film that centers on Harley Quinn, a character who is basically an agent of chaos unleashed onto the world. It makes perfect sense that she would choose to mess with the audience at least once in the film. However, her personal narration has been used consistently to clue the audience into her mental processes and thoughts throughout the film. There haven't been any of the kind of jokes that Deadpool would use, though. Saving it all for the final moments of the film gets a big laugh, and feels fitting not only for Harley Quinn but for the film as a whole.
Directed by Cathy Yan from a script by Christina Hodson, Birds of Prey: And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn stars Margot Robbie, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez, Ewan McGregor, Ella Jay Basco, Steven Williams, Derek Wilson, Dana Lee, Francois Chau, Charlene Amoia, Chris Messina and Matthew Willig. The film is in theaters now.