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Recap / Harley Quinn 2019 S 4 E 9 Potato Based Cloning Incident

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Harley confronts her doppelganger while Ivy attempts to stop Lex's evil plan.


Tropes:

  • Ass Shove: Clegg's second death has Ivy accidentally throwing her golf club and somehow sending it directly up his ass and out his mouth.
    Ivy: Wow, two holes in one.
  • Black-and-White Insanity: Harley's potato clone views the world in black and white. Violently attacking people for the most trivial of offenses, such as not recycling. Harley eventually lampshades this and compares these offenses to jaywalking. Batgirl even exploits this to figure out which Harley's the true one.
  • Black Comedy Cannibalism: The potato Harley splatters into mashed potatoes after Harley throws her off a roof and a man is immediately heard calling his family over to eat it.
  • Bystander Syndrome: Despite Clone Harley witnessing the original Harley strangling Nightwing to death, she doesn't step in to stop her and only runs away in shock.
  • Call-Back:
    • Psycho entering Harley's memories and the butt-clenching are back again.
    • Bane headbutts Ivy on live television, as he had to promise Clayface he would do last episode.
  • Chekhov's Armoury: The cloning-machine-that-looks-like-a-microwave, Gordon's potato, and the hair he found on it, from "Getting Ice Dick, Don't Wait Up", created the Harley clone from Gordon trying to microwave his potato.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Devora Macklewaithe, from back in "Gotham's Hottest Hotties", and her neglectful husband and his celebrity golf tournament that she mentioned, all Call-Back here and help Ivy secure being the Legion of Doom's CEO over Luthor.
  • Celebrity Paradox: Succession is referenced. Sanaa Lathan, who voices Harley and Ivy's friend Catwoman, had a recurring role on that show.
  • Clones Are People, Too: Harley's potato clone is treated as her own person up until it proves more beneficial for her to take the blame for Nightwing's death. Then she becomes an Expendable Clone.
  • Conditioned to Accept Horror: After the initial looting and anarchy after everything turned sepia, the world seems to have settled back down into normal routines.
  • Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Harley pins the blame for Nightwing's death on her dead clone rather than tell Batgirl the truth.
  • Eye Scream: Ivy accidentally kills Clegg the first time when she hits a golf ball into his eye.
  • Groin Attack: Harley kicks the Flash in the crotch when he refuses to take the hint and leave.
  • Idiot Ball: Knowing how wild and kill-crazy Harley gets, Nightwing still taunted her and then turned his back on her, leaving him vulnerable.
  • Imposter Exposing Test: Batgirl figures out which Harley is the original by asking if justice is black and white. Potato Harley, being the more rigid of the duo, immediately says that it is.
  • It's All About Me: Lex only cares about himself, dooming the entire planet just to screw over Superman and anyone else who might need the sun.
  • Jerkass Ball: Nightwing confronted a sleepwalking Harley and accused her of being the one that kidnapped Batgirl and never having what it takes to be a hero. A sleepwalking Harley responds by strangling him to death with her friendship bracelet.
  • Knight Templar: Harley's potato clone is a lot more hardcore on capturing criminals, bringing them to justice, etc. even if it's for something as minor as putting recycling in the wrong bin.
  • Madness Mantra: When a sleepwalking Harley kills Nightwing, she repeatedly says "I'm a good guy" in an unsettlingly calm way while strangling him with the friendship bracelet she made.
  • Mirror Match: Harley vs her clone, who have identical fighting styles and weapons.
  • Mundane Utility: Harley calls in the Flash to rewind time five minutes so Dr. Psycho won't learn about her killing Nightwing.
  • Mythology Gag: The episode ends with Batgirl getting shot by the Joker.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Batgirl's poor job of concealing her identity when she humiliated Joker put a target on herself.
  • Pyrrhic Victory: Ivy succeeds in ousting Lex as CEO and deactivating his ozone beam, but she feels as if something worse is coming as Lex jets off to the moon.
  • The Reveal: Harley was the one who killed Nightwing, or more specifically, Nightwing unwisely antagonized Harley while she was sleepwalking and got strangled to death for his lapse in judgment.
  • Red Herring: At first, the revelation that there's been a clone-doppelganger of Harley running around the last few episodes seems to answer that the clone killed Nightwing. Then the original Harley finds the truth and that her clone was just a bystander.
  • Screw Yourself: Harley plants a kiss on her clone to distract her, and to confirm that she's a good kisser.
  • Skyward Scream: After Batgirl is shot, Harley cradles her while screaming into the sky.
  • Splash of Color: When Ivy deactivates the ozone beam, it returns color to a few things but not everything. Some plants turn green again, Captain Cold's uniform turns blue (as do his balls, he says), and Batgirl's blood is bright red when Joker shoots her in the stomach.
  • Stable Time Loop: Parodied; after time is turned back five minutes, Ivy still accidentally kills Clegg on the golf course, just in a different way.
  • Shout-Out: Harley and Ivy plan to defeat Lex via board room takeover, citing Logan and Kendall from Succession.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Harley discovers from her potato clone that she was Nightwing's killer.
  • Undignified Death:
    • Ivy kills Clegg the first time by accidentally hitting a golf ball into his eye, but his second death is even worse when she accidentally threw her golf club at him when he bends over and it goes through his ass and out his mouth.
    • Nightwing's death turns out to have been this, as he was strangled to death with a friendship bracelet after unwisely provoking a sleepwalking Harley.
  • Uneven Hybrid: Harley's potato clone is 95% potato, 5% human. (She falsely claims it to be the other way around.) The potato portion appears to be all internal, except for the occasional branch popping out. The human portion appears to be all surface-level stuff, like skin and hair. This gives a Human Outside, Alien Inside vibe, except it is entirely based on material from Earth.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: While Batgirl had previously objected to Harley killing villains, she justifies killing her fully sentient clone because she was a potato.

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