Harley on the batfamily and Ivy leading the legion of doom, what could go wrong
"That CGI moustache cost $12 million"
This is a much, much better ending to a more thorough season than the previous one. For the whole season it felt weirdly easy to play with Joker and Batman instead Harley's and Ivy's differences, and they dodged the question of how healthy was it for Harley to fall in love with the first person she met after escaping an abusive relationship, and focusing on Ivy and her plan also felt like buying time to answer that but showing her side of the story really made an impact. Both of them wanted a relationship, but Harley because she was still submissive and dependent on others, and Ivy because she didn't want to be alone. It's really difficult to show a relationship like that where both parties constantly want to put the other first and eventually one of them has to take the lead. Harley got Ivy into their relationship and Ivy (who was with Kite Man) just gave in at some point and building on that confidence she tried to destroy Gotham. They wrote a really nice arc of how peacefully Ivy tired to prove she can still be a villain at first and how Harley wanted to bash heads in as much as support her, and Ivy indeed became a villain only to Harley letting go of that and letting her therapist side come forward.
The finale gives me hope the creators will know how to handle their relationship further down the line (Harley does learn from Ivy how can she be equal in a relationship), even if I still think they got together too soon as they can't be alone well but are also unfit to be together, like they are bad for eachother and for the world (like Saul Goodman and Kim Wexler hangin on to the tiny piece of good they see in eachother just way less subtle) and will break up at some point only to probably get together later when they are better and I'll be damned if this Bat Family - Legion of Doom setup is not an excellent choice to do that. But they can go many ways and all of them seem to be exciting right now.
Great season, loved it, convinded me that this show can not only be good when it's deconstructing comic book logic with satire. (...but how did Joker arrested Bruce if he abolished the GCPD?)
Ahh great way to end the season. I've loved Harley's growth over this show
[7.5/10] I gotta say, Harley Quinn swerved me pretty well here. I thought we were on a pretty clear trajectory, and a tragic one. Through Ivy’s help and support, Harley would steadily become a good guy. Through Harley’s help and support, Ivy would steadily become a true supervillain. The tragic irony would be that for each of them, the other would give them the solace and road to self-actualization that would ultimately drive them apart. I would have been sad, but okay with that.
Helping someone else to be their best self can mean that when they’re strong enough to know what they want and have the confidence to go get it, you both realize you don’t want the same things. That's hard, but that's okay. And it would be okay for Harley and Ivy.
Instead, the show pivots them to a healthier and more positive place. Harley acknowledges Ivy’s newfound leveling up, and her goal to forge a new Eden, possibly as the head of the Legion of Doom. And Ivy acknowledges that Harley’s not comfortable with that, and is on a different path. They can still love one another, support another, and be a team at home even if they’re not a team “professionally.”
I don’t know how that's going to work in practice, especially if Ivy is off threatening the world in tandem with Lex Luthor and Harley is off trying to save it with the Bat Family. But as a concept at least, I like it. I like the maturity of each wanting the other to fulfill their dreams, recognizing how both of them have evolved in different directions, without it diminishing their love for one another. That's a truly wholesome, heartening story, and god help me, I hope it works out for those crazy kids.
I especially like how it’s presented as an alternative to Harley’s relationship with the Joker. When the plan for Ivy’s LoD ascension requires killing Major Joker at the premiere of the new Thomas Wayne movie, Joker tries to beat back his attackers with his favorite tool: psychological warfare. He worms his way into Ivy’s psyche, despite some resistance, by commiserating over Ivy’s mundane habits like not breaking down boxes of fretting over the toilet paper supply. But then he starts to put a little poison in Ivy’s ear, so to speak. He talks about how Harley’s heart isn’t in it, how she’s going align with Ivy’s scheme even though she doesn’t believe in it, and that it’s another form of being controlling, of overriding someone else’s will, of ignoring someone else’s agency, even if it’s not nearly as malevolent as Joker’s brand of it.
I like how Joker gets through to Ivy, not in a villainous way, but in a way that convinces her to make sure that her and Harley’s relationship never comes too close to resembling Joker and Harley’s relationship. Their heart-to-heart, and resolution to go their separate Bat Family/Legion of Doom ways professionally while they stay bonded personally as a result has the tinge of realism, and again, makes it easy to root for these two.
The other material in the episode is good too. The subplot of Clayface wanting credit for his (hilariously terrible) performance, only to still be mistaken for Billy Bob Thornton despite coming clean is a solid laugh. The thuddingly blunt prestige nonsense of the Thomas Wayne biopic is a pretty standard parody, but still enjoyable. Bane getting a small presence is welcome, and his pasta maker arc this season was a blast.
I also love Bruce being touched at Selina showing up because she cares about his happiness, even if she doesn’t want them to be together. Him taking his penitentiary lumps for tax evasion is both a nice beat to show his growing maturity, and a good excuse to leave Gotham without the Bat for a while. And I particularly like how he sets up Batgirl as the leader, recognizing what she’s already accomplished, and empowering this new version of the Bat Family.
All-in-all, this season was a little less focused, and a little more all over the place than the last one. But it also hit some real heights, with a reinvigorated focus on Ivy, but also an exploration of Harley’s development, and what the changes for both mean for their relationship. I’m pleased that they landed somewhere heartening, that acknowledges their evolution, without letting it tear them apart, even and in some ways especially because I didn’t expect it.
Hoping for a way to make sense of hero Harley moving forward after season 4 walks us through it. The two personas or Harley have never felt as interchangeable as DC would like them to be.
I love the direction they went with, but not the execution.
Animation suffered greatly do to pandemic, I guess. This season Harley and Ivy interactions became the least funny part of the show.
Harley becomes part of the Bat Family, and it's implied Ivy will be the head of the Legion of Doom by the end of this episode... considering they're both still dating, this opens up so many interesting potential scenarios they could find themselves in. Ivy vs. Harley for Gotham's fate, part two perhaps?
Shout by Pranav RaghavendraBlockedParentSpoilers2022-09-16T06:15:00Z
The Joker getting Bruce Wayne on fucking tax evasion. I love this show.