Harley has her final showdown with the Joker.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Biology: Even though Joker pulled King Shark's teeth to make a necklace, Shark has a full set at the end of the episode. Although sharks' teeth are constantly growing, they are shown to be fully replaced within the time Joker ruled the city.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Joker asks what is wrong with him or why he isn’t having fun being king of Gotham after a week. To both, he gets the answer of his malignant narcissism being the reason, from Batman and Harley respectively.
- Back from the Dead: After getting killed by the Joker in the previous episode, Ivy returns to pull a Big Damn Heroes moment and rescue Harley from the Joker.
- Bittersweet Ending: Harley is able to save her crew, Ivy is resurrected, and Harley and Ivy were able to stop Joker's reign over Gotham. Unfortunately, Joker decided to detonate his tower which caused the city of Gotham to experience an 8.6 earthquake which destroyed the entire city, Batman has gone missing after getting crushed by debris when saving Harley and Ivy, the fate of the Justice League and the Legion of Doom is unknown, and Joker survives the destruction but because he fell in the acid that was supposed to make Harley normal, he ends up becoming normal at the end. Of course, fitting this series, Harley's crew enjoy this ending because they've sent all of Gotham into chaos, so they're happy. Ivy even lists off some of the above as achievements.
- Brought Down to Normal: Joker mixes up an acid bath which will undo the effects of the one Harley jumped into, as well as erase her memories. He ends up falling into it instead, and the ending shows his skin and laugh turning back to normal.
- Continuity Nod: Harley diagnoses Joker as "a textbook sociopathic narcissist with a chemical imbalance in your parasympathetic nervous system". Harley was the Joker's clinical psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum before she became his patsy.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Joker tortures Dr. Psycho by forcing him to watch tapes of feminist rallies.
- Death by Secret Identity: Scarecrow is killed for removing Batman's cowl in front of Joker, and Joker loses his memories by the end of the episode anyway.
- Didn't Think This Through: Scarecrow didn't stop to consider that with the amount of time Joker has had Batman at his complete mercy, if he had ever wanted to unmask him and find out his secret identity he would have already done so.
- Dramatic Irony: In the sense that the latter attempted to do so without knowing about the former: Joker's decision to "erase [Harley] from existence" cuts even deeper when you remember that this is in addition to Harley having previously rewriten her (original) origin.
- Don't Create a Martyr: Joker doesn't want to kill Harley because then she'll be an emotional martyr in his mind. Instead, he plans to toss her in another acid bath that will reverse what the first one did, rendering her a nobody he'll no longer care about.
- Fate Worse than Death:
- The idea of becoming a normal person again is so horrifying to Harley that she would rather serve Joker forever.
- Likewise, when the Joker finds himself hanging over the acid that turns people back to normal, he pleads to Harley and Ivy to not drop him as it would destroy everything that makes him the Joker.
- Genre Savvy: Joker realizes something's wrong when he doesn't hear a splash after Harley falls, noting that he's fallen in acid enough times to know it makes a splashing sound.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: Joker broadcasts his act on television with cues to laugh that are enforced by police with miniguns tasked with killing anyone who doesn't laugh.
- Heal It with Nature: Harley's crew buries a dead Ivy only for her to be resurrected just in time for the final battle. Ivy herself states that nature is what healed her.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Batman shoves Harley and Ivy out of the path of a falling pipe, seemingly falling into the acid bath with the Joker. Since they don't see him land, they figure he's probably fine, being Batman and all.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Joker gets dropped into the neutralizing acid bath he meant to use on Harley.
- Hollywood Acid: Joker's acid-squirting flower completely melts the flesh off Scarecrow's head then causes it to burst when he hits the ground.
- Internal Reveal: Joker learns Batman's identity when Scarecrow impulsively unmasks him. Joker is pissed because it ruins the mystery of their relationship, turning Batman into some rich boy with parental issues.Batman: That's really reductive.
- Knife Fight: Between Joker and Harley, with each other's knives.
- Lodged-Blade Recycling: Harley and Joker do this with each other's blades, both having had the idea to stab the other mid-hug.
- Mythology Gag:
- Joker's greeting card features him surfing, with a pair of green baggies on over his suit.
- The shots of Joker falling into the chemicals, and the episode ending on a close-up of his hand emerging while his laughter is heard, are like what once happened with Ra's al Ghul.
- The Joker's hand reaching out is also a nod to the 1989 film, but inverted here as now his hand turns normal instead of discolored and deformed.
- Just like in Heroes in Crisis, Ivy's connection to nature allows her to survive a seemingly mortal wound.
- Gotham is caught in an artificial earthquake, which is what happened in Batman: Cataclysm and its sequel Batman: No Man's Land.
- Scarecrow unmasking Batman as Bruce Wayne and Joker complaining that Batman is now "some boring rich asshole with parental issues" are references to Batman: Arkham Knight where Scarecrow successfully unmasks Batman to the entire city of Gotham and the Joker's ghost finds the idea of Batman being "Gotham's least interesting socialite" amusing.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Clayface disguised as Batman can't stop himself from going full ham for the final line of Harley's birthday song, causing the Joker to realize he's being played moments before Batman is able to get the drop on him.
- Not Quite Dead: The Crew assumes Joker died in the earthquake, but his hand reaches out from the rubble. However it returns to a normal skin color and a normal laugh without the menace, meaning this is not quite Joker.
- Oh, Crap!: Joker when he realizes that the vines saving Harley could only mean Poison Ivy is still alive.Joker: Oooooh, fuck.
- Raised Hand of Survival: Subverted Trope. Yes, Joker's hand raises from the rubble of his tower after he seemingly dies... but his skin turns to a more normal tone and his maniacal laughter turns more normal soon after, meaning "the Joker" didn’t necessarily survive.
- Secret Identity Apathy: Like many other versions, the Joker displays this in regards to Batman's identity as he didn't care to know it, gets pissed when the Scarecrow unmasks Bruce, mocks Bruce as "just some boring rich asshole with parental issues," and kills Crane for it.
- Shout-Out: At Ivy's funeral, Clayface lifts Kirk's eulogy for Spock from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
- Skewed Priorities: After murdering the Scarecrow for revealing Batman's identity to him, Joker immediately pivots to complaining to Bruce about how WayneTech owes him an electric car.
- Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: After realizing Joker wants her alive, Harley threatens to blow herself up unless he lets her crew go.
- Swiss-Army Tears: Subverted. Ivy dismisses Harley's assertion that her tears helped revive Ivy as a Disney fantasy and attributes her recovery to the healing power of nature, but then adds that the tears may have helped a little just to make Harley feel better.
- Taking You with Me:
- When Joker tells Harley to put her old outfit back on, she says she'd rather blow herself up and him with her. Joker reveals that he's keeping her crew nearby so she'll blow them up, too.
- After being shoved into the vat he meant for Harley, Joker hits a button on his watch that destroys his tower and causes an 8.6 earthquake which levels Gotham.
- Tranquil Fury: When Ivy saves Harley in the climax and seizes Joker, she utters not one word as she crushes him and his goons in seconds, only glaring at him with obvious fury.
- Uncertain Doom: The destruction of Gotham leaves the fate of everyone, beside Harley and her crew, a mystery.
- The Justice League were trapped in Queen of Fables's fairy tale book and we don't know if they're still alive since we never see the book again when Gotham was destroyed in the chaos.
- Gordon was dragged off by Joker's cops to parts unknown.
- The fate of the other members of the Legion of Doom is still unknown and we don't know what Joker did to them.
- We still don't know the fate of Kite Man and Frank. Considering they weren't with Harley's crew, they could either be among the survivors evacuated from Gotham or they could die during the earthquake.
- Victory Is Boring: After a week of terrorizing Gotham as its undisputed ruler, Joker has completely lost any enjoyment in the task.
- Villainous Breakdown: Joker breaks down into pleading for his safety when he is in danger of falling into the "normalizing" acid bath.
- Wham Shot:
- When Harley's tears fall on a rose on Ivy's grave and washes off the black dye, it starts to blossom and grow, foreshadowing Ivy's regeneration and return when Harley needs her the most.
- In the final shot of the episode, the Joker's hand emerges from the rubble, only it slowly changes color from white to peach and his fingernails lose their black coloring. His maniacal laughter can also be heard, only for it to lower in pitch and become softer.
