It: Chapter Two has been out for over two weeks and made over $385 million so far, so I feel like now, finally, I can address the biggest problem I have with the film.

“The ending,” as many characters in the movie like to point out to horror author Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy), “sucks.”

That line is a recurring in-joke for Stephen King fans. King has received his fair share of criticism over the years, and one of the more pervasive accusations is that his set-ups are arguably better than his pay-offs. It is probably one of the better examples, with a terrifying and seemingly universal nightmare about childhood fears coming to life culminating in a weirdly specific mythological ritual involving space turtles and a somewhat underwhelming confrontation with a giant spider.

I knew all of that was coming in It: Chapter Two, so I was ready for the sequel to venture into weirder territory than the first half. What I didn’t know was that, on top of all that strangeness, the filmmakers had decided to throw in one brand new wrinkle that retroactively sullied the whole film that came before it.

Which brings me to Stanley Uris, played in It: Chapter One by Wyatt Oleff and in the follow-up by Andy Bean. In the second half of the story, when Pennywise the Clown reemerges and The Losers Club is recalled to their hometown to finish what they started, everyone returns except Stanley. That’s because Stanley opts to kill himself rather than confront the horrors all over again. He gets the phone call, he immediately goes upstairs, he draws himself a bath, and he ends his own life.

It’s a horrifying tragedy, and it also serves a dramatic function. It reminds us that although the Losers defeated Pennywise at the end of Chapter 1, that confrontation took its toll, and even the thought of going through it again may be too frightening to bear. The stakes are raised right at the beginning of the film, the Losers are already down one member, and although we know he’s not omnipotent, it may be harder to defeat Pennywise now than it ever was before.

But, as we learn at the very end of It: Chapter Two, we didn’t see Stanley’s whole story. In the new movies, Stanley didn’t kill himself because his recovered memories were too much to bear, or because he was so frightened that he made a terrible, instinctive choice. No, it turns out – as Stanely himself reveals in handwritten letters he sent to all the other Losers – he killed himself in an act of pure logic.

Stanley explains that he knew he would be a liability to The Losers, and that his inability to overcome his fears would put them all in danger. So instead of returning to Derry with the rest of his old friends, he made the calculated decision to kill himself, just so it would be easier for his childhood chums to murder a demon clown.

In the movie Bill reads Stanley’s letter and smiles, because apparently it gives Stanley’s tragic demise a heroic purpose. But it doesn’t. It takes the straightforward plot point from the original story and makes it nonsensical. And, frankly, it makes Stanley, The Losers, and the film, look worse.

Remember, Stanley killed himself because he thought he was too afraid of Pennywise to do what had to be done. But he isn’t afraid to end his own life. The very fact that he’s making a calculated decision to sacrifice himself – with enough premeditation to handwrite letters to all his old friends, “rationally” explaining his seemingly irrational decision – proves that he was totally capable of doing scary things to stop Pennywise.

It also suggests, depending on your perspective, that this character everyone loves didn’t care very much for his wife and family. Stanley originally ended his own life suddenly, while completely overwhelmed with fear. In the new version he does so out of bravery, and with enough forethought to explain himself to all of his friends.

That’s all well and good for The Losers, but what about Stanley’s wife? She’s the one who he knows will find him in the bathtub, in a pool of blood. If, as the movie suggests, Stanley’s decision was completely rational and not a knee-jerk act of terror, that means he either didn’t think about the trauma his discovery would inflict on his wife, or he didn’t care. He could have prepared her somehow. He could have done the deed where anyone else could have found his body. Heck, he could have faked a car accident for insurance purposes, in order to leave her well cared for. Instead she’s apparently an afterthought. We have no evidence that he left his wife a note like the ones he left for The Losers, and even if he did he probably left out the demon clown stuff, so she may live the rest of her life without ever really knowing what happened.

Stanley’s death would be terrible enough for his wife and family anyway. The revelation that it was premeditated, and conceived only as a means of doing good, is completely torpedoed by the fact that it’s an illogical plan. Again, the reveal is that he was actually very brave and self-sacrificing, and so it stands to reason that he was also more than capable of returning to Derry (although, again, his noble intentions apparently didn’t extend as far as the woman he was sharing his whole life with).

But worst of all is the argument that It: Chapter Two seems to be making, that Stanley’s suicide is somehow a good thing, because it makes life easier for his friends. That is a horrifically irresponsible approach to dramatizing a very serious issue. You can’t end a movie with your protagonists smiling and thinking that their friend killing himself may have been for the best. It makes The Losers look insensitive as hell, and it potentially conveys a message to the audience that killing yourself could be a rational response to dealing with childhood trauma.

That. Is. Not. True.

It’s not true in real life, and it doesn’t ring true dramatically in this context. It is often celebrated for its sincere depiction of people suffering from trauma as children and as adults, but treating suicide like a smart play instead of as a terrible tragedy isn’t worth celebrating. It’s a sour note on which to end this otherwise impressive story, and it turns what should have been a simple, running gag about disappointing endings into a dire warning about just how badly It: Chapter Two falls apart in its very last minutes.