Awesome / Harley Quinn (2019)

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Season 1

Til Death Do Us Part

• Poison Ivy pretty much took over Arkham Asylum for a jail break with nothing more than an orange seed the Riddler shook out, which she used to grow a new army of vines to attack with.
• Harley was apparently the real deal when she was still a psychoanalyst at Arkham, to the point where she's able to psychoanalyze herself from an objective standpoint just by looking at an old picture.
• When the Joker refuses to let Harley break up with him, she beats up the Joker's goons and trashes his lair to the point it collapses. It's a big moment in Harley's character development, and is fittingly framed by several minutes of pure chaos where she finally lets herself loose.

A High Bar

• Harley and Ivy actually give the other members of Batman's Rogues Gallery a decent fight before the tide turns.

So You Need a Crew?

• Harley and her budding crew of Doctor Psycho and Clayface beat up Maxie Zeus and leave him lying in the lap of his own statue so he can tell the inevitable news reporter covering the incident "don't fuck with Harley Quinn's crew." And they stole all his gold medals, which Harley used to buy a nuclear warhead to blackmail Gotham into naming a highway after her. Even Ivy is impressed.

Finding Mr. Right

• Harley wants Batman as a nemesis to improve her cred... So she steals the Batmobile.
• Batman going full Papa Wolf when Harley ties up Damien on live TV and threatens to have King Shark eat him.
  • He subdues King Shark with his trusty Shark Repellent Spray!
• Later, the episode shows that this version of Batman is making efforts to actually be a good parent to Damien!

Being Harley Quinn

• Once Harley sees the real memory of her jumping into the acid vat, she decides to change things a bit. She possesses her past memory self and starts really digging into the Joker; her rant changes the entire setting until it replicates the destroyed lair from the first episode, down to the Joker hiding under a table like the coward he is. The scene is even more awesome this time, though, because Harley decides that this is her origin story, where she truly became the villain she wanted to be.
• In Harley's memories, we see her high school graduation speech. Apparently, she dealt with a lot of misogyny and abuse during that time, and she used that pulpit to really let loose with F-bombs and middle fingers.
  High School Harley: Fuck the shop teacher who looks at my ass every time I walk out of class- yeah, I see you!
  • We cut to said shop teacher, who looks around nervously at the crowd of angry moms glaring at him. He probably didn't come back to work the next year.
• Anyone who's been on the receiving end of either a bully or an Alpha Bitch can't help but snicker and imagine what someone like Harley did to get back at her tormenter. Whatever it was, it got the police involved, but she got away with it, since it didn't interfere with her education and becoming a psychiatrist.

You're a Damn Good Cop Jim Gordon

• The Gotham PD get one. King Shark is brought by a disguised Clayface for a Trojan Prisoner Gambit. It fails because upon seeing King Shark the officers immediately unleash a Curb-Stomp Battle to subdue him and send him to prison.
  • King Shark gets one himself once he goes to prison. During his brief time there, he becomes the prison's biggest crime boss.

The Line

• Harley gets two in a quick couple seconds. Not only does she give the Queen of Fables a taste of her own medicine by seemingly handing the blood-thirsty villainess over to Jason Praxiss, she still managed to save her friend by secretly putting the Personal Force Field Generator on Fables.
• Fables' Pragmatic Villainy in general. While pretty scary compared to the cartoonish nature of the rest of Harley's world, it's nevertheless cool to see a villain who operates like she's in the real world and knows the real costs of committing crimes and heinous acts.

LODRSVP

• Ivy is a match for Aquaman in this universe without even really trying. The Justice League better hope she never gets serious or else they might have their work cut out for them.
• Harley managing to outsmart Aquaman by getting him to shatter an aquarium, so he'd be too distracted saving the sea life to fight the villians.
• Give Kite Man credit, he has serious balls to think he could take on a pissed-off Aquaman.
• Speaking of Aquaman, he was well on his way to taking out the entire Legion by himself before Harley tricked him. He may act silly and over-the-top, but he's still an A list member of the League.

A Seat at the Table

• Batman saves Harley in the middle of chasing down the Joker, and even expresses sympathy for her getting duped again.
• In a much more upsetting vein, Ivy and the crew finally getting tired of Harley's obsession with proving herself to the Joker and walking out on her. Well, not King Shark, but as soon as the LOD doctors remove his catheter...

Bensonhurst

• Harley defeating the mob goons and (seemingly) reconciling with her dad.
• And later, Harley realizing that her parents are both pieces of shit and walking away after deciding they're not even worth killing.

Harley Quinn Highway

• Ivy managing to escape without the use of her powers - she stabs one goon through the eye with a scalpel, strangles the other with his key-card wire, then takes one of their guns and shoots everyone who gets in her way. Too bad the Scarecrow was waiting for her at the exit...
• The concept of the Scarecrow concocting an Ivy-specific fear toxin formula is incredibly smart and dangerous, especially for the wider DC Universe.
• Harley admitting to Ivy and her crew how badly she fucked up and being willing to do just about anything to make it up to them.
  • In order to prove her point, Harley blows up a statue of herself.

Devil's Snare

• Ivy using Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth to prove that the crew are not lying about having no involvement with the monster trees when the Justice League were ready to banish them all.
• Harley manages to get one over on Queen of Fable by making it look like the wolf from Red Riding Hood successfully kill her, only to reveal herself to still be alive and bash Fables's head off. Even Fables appears more impressed than mad about Harley pulling this off.
  • Adding to that is how they dealt with the wolf.
  King Shark: A lot of people ask who would win between a wolf and a shark. (coughs up a bone) It's the shark.

The Final Joke

• A villainous example, but the Joker actually succeeds in taking over Gotham and holding Batman hostage.
• The return of Poison Ivy and the Joker's defeat. To wit, Ivy is assumed dead at the end of the previous episode and the Joker has forced Harley to become his henchwoman again. He decides to throw her in an acid pool to make her normal again, only for Poison Ivy's vines to rise out of the ground. It turns out that Ivy's heart being destroyed only temporarily "kills" her and she is able to regenerate. She then promptly throws the Joker into the acid pool.
• Harley figuring out the one way to actually get the Joker to listen to her, threatening to kill herself and deprive him of getting to rub her face in his victory.

Season 2

New Gotham

• The crew's rescue of Harley shows just how versatile Harley's crew is.
• Harley's murder of Penguin, showing once again that the show isn't afraid to kill off A-listers.

Riddle U

• Clayface's disguise as Stephanie works so well that he manages to get a V.I.P. wristband into Riddler's power supply. It's as awesome as it is funny.
  • This also comes into contrast with Harley and Ivy, who both have a downplayed Paper-Thin Disguise that Riddler sees through when nobody else does (Paper-thin due to their outfit being of their school generation rather than current gen).
• King Shark and Psycho manage to modify a car into a Weaponized Car in order to escape some Two-Face goons. It proves effective until they leave Two-Face territory and enter Bane's zone where that meet some Bane goons who can tank the vehicle's weapons.
• Barbara manages to save Harley, Ivy, and Clayface along with the Riddle U students from Riddler on her own by getting Riddler to electrocute himself against his own machine by throwing a gun at him. Keep in mind that this is before she becomes Batgirl.

Thawing Hearts

• Ivy creating a cure for Nora in the span of a few hours on a moment's notice.
• Mr. Freeze willingly choosing to sacrifice himself in order for the cure to work. If it means saving Nora, then he can Face Death with Dignity.

Batman's Back, Man

• The bank patrons standing up to Two-Face and his goons. Particularly the woman who gets shot in the shoulder and continues to tell him off. Stupid maybe, but still commendable.
• In spite of being an idiot, Bane is still someone to be feared, as demonstrated by him breaking Batman's legs while Batman is in a Powered Armor.

There's No Place to Go But Down

• The fact that Bane, almost entirely on his own and with relatively few resources, managed to turn a hole into the ground into a better source of rehabilitation than Arkham, getting guys like Zsasz and Killer Croc to curb their violent tendencies and redirect their energies towards productive outlets like painting and engine repair.
• Gordon, after having his confidence restored once his daughter tells him she's Batgirl, decides to take back the police station. Batgirl accompanies him... but Gordon just walks in and takes it back by himself.
  Gordon: "Don't worry. Daddy's got this."
  • He then proceeded to beat up Two Face and his goons and throws him into a holding cell.
  • This exchange during Gordon and Two Face's fight:
  Two Face: "what, are you gonna write me a ticket?"
  Gordon: "to hell!"
• Batgirl herself. She wanted to inspire people and bring hope to Gotham, and to her father first and foremost. It took her only a few months to pull off exactly that.

Bachelorette

• The Cobb Squad taking down Eris and the Amazons.

Dye Hard

• Sy's Heroic Sacrifice: He turns into a ‘’missile’’ that blows up the force-field that Harley, Gordon and sane!Joker are trapped in.

Lovers' Quarrel

• Ivy's vines are always deadly and require special weapons or super strength to fight against. Harley's determination to reach Ivy leads her to just tear through them and even rip one with her teeth.
• Ivy herself gets a huge one for taking on Superman of all people and — while not winning — fighting him to a draw for most of the episode. She ABSOLUTELY deserved her invitation to the Legion of Doom.
• The rest of the crew deserve shout outs as well while Dr. Psycho unleashed the beast in all of them:
  • Clayface became outright terrifying by turning into a mindless hulk that had Batman running for his life, a fact Harley reamed him for since it took Dr. Psycho’s mind control to show what he could really do, wasting his gifts on ridiculous disguises for the majority of the show. Definitely a reminder of just how dangerous a villain Clayface can really be as he is in most other incarnations.
  • King Shark made a *way* better showing against Wonder Woman than one might have expected. She was going to eventually beat him down of course, but damn, did he not go down easy.
• Ivy and Harley easily taking down Doctor Psycho once his control on them breaks could be a huge Catharsis Factor after everything he did.

The Runaway Bridesmaid

• Two-Face pulling off a Manipulative Bastard move by sending Gordon over to disrupt Ivy's wedding, which he then uses as leverage to force Harley to help him escape Arkham.
• Kite-Man pulls off a surprising version of this. After enduring the mess of the wedding and everything that happened, he puts his foot down and calls off the wedding with Ivy. While he's clearly hurt and drained from the whole mess of it, he's mature and rational on the whole ordeal. He realizes that he and Ivy aren't meant to be together. Even though he abandons Harley and Ivy to face the cops, he knows them well enough that they will be fine on their own.
  • A subtle point is how he also notes that he deserves better, showing the true level of his confidence. He asserts himself grandly after being something of an Extreme Doormat, especially in a painful and awkward situation.
• Clayface singing a grand Italian aria to Timothy Walter Burton.
• The final battle: complete chaos reigning, and Ivy and Harley making their grand escape in a car chase.
• If it wasn't for Harley busting them up, Gordon and the GCPD would have captured dozens of Gotham supervillains without any help from superheroes. This is probably the most effective Gotham's police have been in any adaptation.
  • The sheer audacious balls of Gordon to not just take direct part in the sting, but to disguise himself as the minister, meaning everyone in the place is looking at him as he hides right under their noses. And he called a TV crew down to broadcast his victory on live television. Gordon's Adaptational Wimp from the first season has been reversed and repaid with interest.

Season 3

Season 4

B.I.T.C.H.

• After Harley gets fed up with doing chores around the Wayne Mansion and threatens Alfred, he easily manages to parry her baseball bat with nothing but the broom he's carrying, and then proceeds to disarm her and get her to sit down just by sweeping the broom at her, all without breaking a sweat. His Pre-Asskicking One-Liner beforehand makes this scene even better:
  Harley: Step aside, or I'll have to fuck you up!
  Alfred: I wish a bitch would try.

The Most Culturally Impactful Film Franchise of All Time

• Barbara Gordon manages to utterly humiliate The Joker in front of the entire world. Hacking into Dr. Psycho's podcast interview with him, Barbara uses camera footage to prove Joker did NOT kill Nightwing that night, but was getting sleep apnea treatment. The entire comment section calls him out on this with cries of stolen valor. For as ridiculous as it is? You can't deny stealing the Thunder of the Clown Prince of Crime's comeback to villainy is extremely satisfying.

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