The first half of the two-part season 1 finale. Joker wreaks havoc in Gotham with a new chemical that turns everything it touches into putty. Things escalate when Joker catches wind that Police Chief Rojas, upset at his department being constantly upstaged and humiliated, considers the Batman to be a be a bigger menace than himself, and he sets out to prove that he's the biggest menace of them all by breaking one of Gotham's finest.
It is a (very) loose adaptation of The Killing Joke, and is notable for being the first adaptation of the story in any medium.
Tropes included
- Always Save the Girl: Yin drops her weapon when the Joker threatens to test his chemicals on Ethan.
- Bad Boss: Rojas threatens to fire Bennett after he lets Batman get away.
- Big "NO!": Yin yells this when Joker is about to use Joker Putty on Ethan right before Batman interfered.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: One of Joker's examples of how awful a Mean Boss can be is an employee being told to rewrite a script.
- Call-Back: In the first episode, Gotham was explicitly stated to have the lowest crime rate in the nation. Now, Gotham is seen as the scariest city in the world.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Ethan's face melting, suggesting his transformation into Clayface.
- Cops Need the Vigilante: Deconstructed. This episode shows the negative side of this trope, in that all of the villains captured by Batman have resulted in the police department looking like idiots, and Chief Rojas starts to get really desperate to turn the odds.
- The Dividual: This episode marks the debut of Punch and Judy, Joker's Co-Dragons in this continuity before the introduction of Harley Quinn in Season 4.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Joker's outraged that Chief Rojas considers Batman a bigger menace than him. He’s actually right.
- Everyone Has Standards: Yin won't let anything happen to her partner, and she will let Batman go since he saved Ethan.
- Exact Words: Joker when threatening Ethan with his Joker Putty formula says "You don't know what this stuff does to humans." When Yin drops her weapon at the implied threat, he blithely says he doesn't either and decides to find out.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Bennett hallucinates under the influence of Joker's brainwashing, he first imagines Joker as a giant surgeon threatening to 'operate' on him. Then, the image changes into Rojas as that surgeon, sharing the same baleful eyes as Joker. This foreshadows his role in "Night and the City", where his obstinate ways lead to him being just as big a threat as Joker.
- When Batman chases Joker into a Hall of Mirrors, the latter remarks, "You think this is confusing? Try living inside MY head!" This foreshadows the premise of "Strange Minds", in which Batman uses a machine designed by Hugo Strange to enter Joker's mind to find the location of Detectives Yin, who was recently kidnapped by Joker.
- GPS Evidence: How Batman finds Joker's hideout in the carnival: some sawdust he'd unknowingly left behind colored blue (paint) and covered with cotton candy residue.
- Hall of Mirrors: Batman chases Joker into one during the episode’s climax.Joker: You think this is confusing? Try living inside MY head!
- Mean Boss: Chief Rojas. Joker lampshades this.Joker! Ah, so we have issues with the boss, eh? Well, who doesn't? Bosses make terrific tormentors! "Tote that barge!" "Lift that bail!" "Rewrite that script!" "Sort that mail!" All it takes is one too many orders to make the cuckoo call.
- Mind Rape: What Joker does to poor Ethan while holding him hostage.Joker: When Joker's through clowning with you, you won't know where to find your mind!
- Mythology Gag: Joker says he came about as a result of "one rotten day" and intends to prove that others are the same. Moreover, his plan is essentially a condensed version of what he tried to do in The Killing Joke: Break the mind of an upstanding Gotham police officer. Though unlike in the comic, he succeeds here.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Ethan defending Batman by saying how he saved his life from Joker when Chief Rojas takes credit for capturing the Clown Prince of Crime in front of the press gets Ethan suspended from the force by Rojas.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Detective Yin takes down Punch and Judy by herself. For reference, note that Batman had trouble against these guys earlier in the episode.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Joker, right before Batman has caught him off guard to punch him while he's holding a shield.Joker: Uh-oh.Batman: Say cheese!
- Ethan when his face starts to melt while he's alone at home.
- Joker, right before Batman has caught him off guard to punch him while he's holding a shield.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You know Ethan is worried about his job when he restrains Batman.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Joker is captured, Chief Rojas takes credit for the arrest while talking to the press. Ethan, having been put through the wringer by both his superior pressuring him, along with being mentally tortured by Joker, reaches the end of his rope and calls him out. Unfortunately, this gets Ethan suspended from the force.Chief Rojas: Kudos to my department for capturing Joker. Without the Batman's help, I might add.
Ethan: You gotta be kidding me. We're playing cleanup, like always! The Batman saved my butt tonight! - Right Behind You: Ethan seems to have caught Joker, who then asks, "Have you met my associates Judy and Punch?" Right before Punch, who is behind Ethan, clocks him.
- Secret-Keeper: Subverted. Bruce decides to reveal to Ethan his identity as Batman, before one of them is forced to harm each other. Unfortunately, Joker's torture of Ethan prevents Bruce from doing so, and he never decides to trust Ethan with the secret after he turns into Clayface.
- Skewed Priorities: Despite Joker reshaping the face of Gotham City's biggest statue, Ethan and Yin target Batman first, as ordered by Rojas. Joker takes offense to this, lampshading that he's the vandal and yet the police force see a vigilante as a bigger threat than "the Clown Prince of Crime".
- Title Drop: By Joker himself, right before he uses his putty to remake the Lady of Gotham into his image.Joker: If Gotham belongs to Joker, the dull face of tragedy must become the rubber face of comedy!
- Too Dumb to Live: Ethan contradicting Rojas at a press conference about how the Batman saved him. This gets him landed on suspension. Though, he'd probably had lost some sanity after all he'd been through that night, and it's possible he simply refused to let Rojas get away with trying to take credit for Batman saving his life, consequences or not.
- Villain Has a Point: Joker's not exactly wrong to point out Chief Rojas's lopsided priorities when he considers the Batman a bigger criminal threat than a maniac like the Joker.
- Villainous Breakdown: The endless failures of the police to capture either Batman or the villains, the public starting to see Batman as a hero, and the plummeting reputation of both Gotham and the police really send Rojas ballistic and makes him incredibly hostile.
- We Will Meet Again: Yin lets Batman walk for helping Ethan, but she warns "the mask comes off" the next time they cross paths.
- Wham Shot: At the end of the episode when Ethan looks in the mirror he sees that his face is actually melting.
