Harley Quinn: The Animated Series

Outside of the brief few episodes where they made him buff, I also think Riddler's been treated very well overall. He manipulated Dr. Psycho into turning against the gang all while being trapped in a hamster wheel, for one thing.

Wasn't that a Take That! to the New 52? Which did turn Freeze into a creepy stalker with Nora their not even being someone he actually knows? Hence the reveal that he really did care about Nora and she was his wife.

I hated that retcon, making one of the most sympathetic tragic villains into just another psycho, what a terrible idea.

I think that while some of the villain handling isn't great, it's a side effect of one of the strengths of the show.

It doesn't give a shit about maintaining the comic status quo. It radically alters and reshuffles things at the drop of a hat and will actually bring consequences back later on.

The mayor Joker subplot reminds me of White Knight, where Joker temporarily went sane and became a politician to stop Batman from his disproportionate rampage against the villains of Gotham. Except in White Knight, Harley was behind most of Joker's actions and he genuinely loved her when he was sane. Not so much here.

Edited by PhiSat on Aug 19th 2022 at 10:07:53 AM

If Joker actually enforces his policies I could pretty much see Harley supporting him here. The drama is probably going to come from Ivy's terraforming plan being at odds with healthcare and education.

...it might be a very interesting plot point for Harley to be in a position in which her toxic ex is right and her loving girlfriend is wrong.

I wasn't too hot on this episode overall. King Shark's plotline didn't thrill me in Season 2, and it still doesn't thrill me here.

As for Babs and Harley, their dynamic really only works when Harley's not actually commiting bad acts on screen. Having Babs just shrug off Harley killing Mad Hatter in front of her is insane. That feels like more of a dealbreaker than the show thinks it is. Like, in the episode where Batgirl and Harley have their first real teamup, they go out of their way not to kill Riddler, I have no idea why they'd change that now.

Well there's the fact that Riddler looks much more well-adjusted than Mad Hatter is in this show. The guy just murdered one of his goons in a way even Joker would find random. Also this Batgirl is bound to have a moral compass that's a tidbit skewed due to how messed up both her dad and Batman are this time around.

But I agree on the King Shark plot, that came a bit out of nowhere and wasn't very engaging, even though there were enough gags in the Shark kingdom to keep it watchable.

Still don't see how that planned bit with Batman and Catwoman would be offbrand, but him calling Robin r******d and making him eat rats is onbrand.

I mean unless they soft banned All-Star Batman and Robin Boy Wonder, I don't get it.

I just think that whoever made that call is a politician.

Edited by Antiyonder on Aug 29th 2022 at 4:46:30 AM

By the way, the Mad Hatter (or the writers) clearly don't know their literature.

Chapter Six of Through the Looking Glass is just a really long discussion between Alice and Humpty Dumpty about poetry. The "Mad Tea Party" that he's recreating is from Chapter Seven of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (though the concept of "un-birthday", which the Disney version adds to the Mad Tea Party scene with a whole musical number, is originally from the Humpty Dumpty scene).

If he truly wanted to base his murder methods from the actual chapter he mentioned, he'd dress up his victims as eggs and push them off high walls, as it is implied to happen to Humpty Dumpty after Alice leaves.

Season 4 confirmed.

That is very good news.

The surprise was kind of ruined by the leaked titles lol. Let's hope nothing happens between now and then.

Where is it debuting?

HBO Max.

Harley Quinn has an interesting situation though. It was licensed out to a bunch of different companies globally for international release, and apparently it's been doing extremely well. It also airs on TV in a bunch of places (Canada and the UK for example) and has run on TV in the US multiple times. (Season 1 on Syfy and seasons 1 and 2 on TNT)

Being extremely good helps with those excellent ratings.

By "ratings" you mean viewership or reviews? The word can mean both.

In this case, TV viewership ratings. And reviews.

Yeah,the show's survival can be put down to airing in multiple formats,if it had been a pure streaming show it might not have lasted as long

plus mainstream recognition due to batman,that helps a TON

Edited by Ultimatum on Sep 1st 2022 at 12:19:13 PM

New showrunner huh? Seems to me the current ones got bored of Harley and Ivy already, feel they can't tell more stories, and are handing it off to other people who may be interested.

Watched the most recent episode. Surprisingly poignant look and Batman's subconscious and a good message about moving on from trauma. Also, Batman causes a zombie outbreak.

Edited by Kaiseror on Sep 1st 2022 at 11:30:56 AM

I would say that last one was my favorite from this season. There were enough jokes for it to remain funny, but not too much to distract from the very serious psychological parts. I liked seeing Psycho back, I missed the jerk.

My two predictions for the future are 1.that what came out from the grave will be a Solomon Grundy, whom we haven't seen - but maybe one inspired from the Earth-2 version who, as a symbol of "The Grey" fought Alan Scott who was the emissary of "The Green" and 2.that Harley is going to have to deal with the fact that she is very much a decent person and she is in love with somebody much more sociopathic than her, and she will have to find a balance between loving Ivy and stopping her from enacting her evil plans.

It's pretty interesting how the show is just...relentlessly going after standard elements of the Batman mythos and picking them apart, while staying funny and on topic.

Its fine to parody stuff if its saying something about the usual versions of the characters. But some of the characters in Harley Quinn are very different from their normal depictions, in some cases even having completely different personalities and motivations. Clayface and King Shark are good examples of that. They're essentially completely different characters with the same names. As other people have pointed out, Two-Face is not really the same either. They stripped away his sympathetic and human elements and just reduced him to a generic bad guy.

Also, Catwoman comes off as kind of unlikable in this show, despite supposedly not being a villain. She seems cold, and distant, and self absorbed, and kind of has a chip on her shoulder. Which could all be fine, except are we actually supposed to dislike Catwoman in this show? Because I get the impression that they want the audience to like her despite those flaws.

And Nora... What do people think of the way the show has handled Nora? I suspect that if Mr. Freeze were somehow resurrected and saw his wife currently, he would decide that he wasted his life (and death) on her. Again, how are we supposed to feel about this? Are we supposed to like her? Dislike her? Pity her?

I think Nora is supposed to be like...annoying but in a funny sort of way? It's telling that Harley and Ivy don't seem to really like her that much. She has a bit of an It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia vibe.

Catwoman, I think is supposed to be fun as a recurring character, but one thing about her is that she's occasionally gotten this really bifurcated characterization where she's a thief only out for herself as Catwoman but when in her secret identity, she's a lot more normal and down to earth. This show, takes the Catwoman characterization and applies it to her personal life, resulting in this weirdly cold and icy, self-centered person who is extremely difficult to get along with under normal circumstances.

King Shark and Clayface, I like what they did. The show isn't really trying to make any statements about the characters in general, just doing fun spins on their basic set-ups.

I think with Nora and Catwoman, we aren't really supposed to like them, but find how they bounce off the other cast members entertaining.

Edited by Zendervai on Sep 2nd 2022 at 1:28:57 PM