3x09 Climax at Jazzapajizza

[7.8/10] There’s a lot to like about “Climax at Jazzapajizza”. As a fan of the zombie genre, it’s fun to see Harley Quinn play around with the tropes of mass undead near a public event, and people trying to hide their infections. Harley siding with the good guys for once, teaming up with the Bat Family to take out the zombies, leads to some great sequences and some laughs from Harley’s frustration of Batgirl and Nightwing’s reluctance to get their hands dirty.

Bruce bringing his parents back as mindless zombies, and showing them around his house like their dear relatives visiting from Ohio is the funniest thing in the episode. (One of them eating the cat he named after them is a particularly dark laugh.) And the fact that ti’s King Shark who relates to Bruce and helps him see the error of his ways is both an unexpected moment of connection in the show, and a nice win for King Shark in all of this. Him and Batman is not a pairing I would have asked for, but there’s a natural concordance there, and in keeping with the show’s psychological bent, the way King Shark helps Bruce work through his problems and see what he needs to heal is well done.

But the crux of this episode, and the thing that makes it stand out, is Harley trying to talk down Ivy. I don’t know. For all the raunch and all the irreverence, this feels like something out of a prestige drama. Two characters who love each other, and want the best for one another, but who ultimately want different things, and may ultimately have different values, is the kind of complicated version of heartbreaking you don’t see enough of on television. (Hello Better Call Saul fans!)

I love the bitter poetry of Harley spending so much of this season trying to give Ivy confidence, to give her the motivation to follow her dreams, to make it possible for her to have the satisfaction and fulfillment that Ivy helped Harley find, only to see Ivy develop those things but use it in a way that horrifies Harley. It’s such a hard thing to have someone you love come into their own in the way you’ve always hoped, but then use their newfound self-possessed nature to do things you disagree with. And likewise, it’s so hard to have the one person you care most about in the world whose love and support got you to this place, disapprove of what you want when you finally have the gumption to go after it.

Maybe that's a highfalutin way to describe a situation where a megalomaniacal plant lady wants to use her horde of leafy-green zombies to take on humanity in an ersatz New York City, but I don’t think so. The situation is larger than life, but the emotions are real. There is the ring of truth to Harley talking about how proud she is of Ivy, but that this is wrong, and Ivy telling her that she loves Harley more than anything, but that this is her dream and it’s happening. As is so often the case, the reality is heightened, but there is something genuine and authentic in how the characters interact with one another.

Hell, I love how this even ties into Harley’s arc from last season with Queen of Fables, to where she still considers herself a bad guy, but not the kind who allows innocent people to come to harm. Likewise, Ivy has harbored a disdain for humanity’s mistreatment of the natural world for ages, and now finally has a chance to act on it. Their disagreement isn’t rooted in something random; it’s rooted in what have been essential parts of both characters’ psyche and motivation to this point. That's why their confrontation is so captivating and earned.

And I love the tragedy of how it plays out. Harley is willing to sacrifice herself to save humanity, which is a hell of a bit of martyrdom from an erstwhile villain, and show’s real growth in the character. For her part, Ivy loves Harley enough that she’s willing to sacrifice her dream to save her soulmate. That's big stuff from both sides, the kind of meaningful choice that good drama and good storytelling is made of.

But everything comes at a cost. Ivy giving up her dream isn’t going to be without frustration and resentment, or so her loud f-bomb at the end of these events would seem. I’m especially interested to see the fallout. How does sticking to your guns on both sides of the equation affect Harley and Ivy’s relationship? There’s so much rich stuff to dig into here.

In truth, I liked but didn’t love a lot of this episode. Harley and the Bat Family’s attacks on the zombies was solid, but not especially novel. Bruce and King Shark’s material is creditable, but doesn’t get really good until the end. And the zombie stuff is more set dressing than something the show images with fully.

But in some ways, the whole season has been building to our two main characters loving each other deeply, but also being completely at odds in an emotional, high stakes moment. The fact that the show nails that moment, nails that conversation, and nails the hardship of each character’s choice to try to resolve it, almost makes this season and this episode work on its own. Once again, Harley Quinn impresses me with the lengths it's willing to go, and the depths it's willing to explore in what could have easily just been a zany comedy show. Instead, it’s one of the deeper, and more psychological looks at relationships good and bad on television in some time.