WesternAnimation Ham and Sandpaper sandwich.
Frankly, I'm neutral to Harley Quinn. There are some incarnations that are interesting (BTAS), others that are loathsome (Injustice, DCEU Movies), and I lost interest in anything DC a long time ago. But after being nagged for quite long by friends, and watching some snippets on youtube, I decided to give this series a go.
- On one hand, the snippets didn't lie. This show is actually quite funny! There are lots of good jokes and materials that catch me unaware (which is a mark of good humor) even after seeing some 'compilations'. A special mention goes to the jewish humor snippets reminding me of Mel Brooks, and this won't ever be a bad thing (I really miss 'communities poking fun at themselves' humor).
- The characterization is overall interesting. There are some points of contention (I hate what they did to Gordon, dude didn't deserve it, Clayface is boring) but when Bane is around, its nearly guaranteed laughs. Batman is an interesting case, made fun of with actual care as to keep him relatable and still close to the core of the character. Generally comedic Batman incarnations end up scathing and destructive.
- The animation... isn't anything to write home. I'd say that for a 2019 its actually choppy at some spots, and some effects, such as gore and blood splatters, look like gifs sometimes.
The problem, though, its that the show pokes fun at the DC mythos, but can't get rid of its tropes and storytelling to the point of being formulaic and predictable. Through most of what I saw, every single episode and/or arc starts the same way:
Harley: "I wanna do X!" Ivy "X is a terrible idea." Harley: "I wanna do X anyway!" Harley does X, and shenanigans ensue.
Sometimes its the inversion, where Ivy needs Harley to do something, and Harley doesn't do it, leading to disaster.
Weirdly, this made Harley herself the weakest and sorest spot of the whole show, because while side-characters were free to explore weird situations (dating D-listers, dealing with estranged family, etc), Harley had to follow the acts accordingly, like the usual "I let my friends down" arc, or try to get back to her family only to discover they are bastards, and so on. Not that the jokes involving her weren't bad, just weaker due to the railroading. And since the show was still formulaic, she can't exactly learn and properly grow with her mistakes, ending as an extremely shitty idiotic person that barely anyone would hang around with (yes, her team abandons her, but its temporary and she continues to be a shitty person). Worst of all, since it still follows the DC universe escalation rules, not only Harley barely gets a slap on the wrist for all the trouble she causes, the narrative uses 'comedy' as a justification to her taking down A-listers that would mop the floor with her, in order to help her save the day. Sure, yeah, she is a gymnast that fought batman many times, but her taking on people like KG Beast? That robs opportunities to be more invested in a character actually growing (due to new techniques, or new members of the team, etc) or showing wit, like Harley using her experience battling batman to outwit bigger foes.
This is more a personal taste than anything, but the breaking point to me was the ending of the first season and the start of the second season where I basically went: "Oh, sure, as if they would really kill the joker, even if he literally went over past the point of no return by making Gotham a dystopi- annnd I was right. Alright, second season. I gotta say I hope after that whole 'Destroying her own statue to prove she changed', the writers actually make Harley change and not rely on the same 'I wanna do X' plot-GODDAMMIT!"
I know, she is a villain, but villain protagonists need something extra in order to carry their shows (charisma, intelligence, wit, skill, etc), and if I wanted to watch shitty idiotic villains get away with awful stuff, I'd go watch real politics.
In the end it felt like a Sandpaper and Ham sandwich: To get to the ham of really good jokes, I had to chew through the extremely grating Harley with her annoying voice and shitty attitude. This is more of a personal opinion and taste, I actually suggest you to try this show, and if you can withstand the clown (or enjoy Harley), you're in for a treat. I myself couldn't go past it.
... also a shower thought (literal, so don't take this seriously). It can feel as if Harley went on from escaping from an abuser to become something of a smaller abuser herself: Ivy didn't have friends, but she was an independent respected villain with her own gorgeous flat. After Harley gets into the picture, she keeps pulling Ivy to be her muscle, forcing her to go through series of shitty situations and basically pulling the same 'I can change' over and over and never really changing. Sounds familiar?
WesternAnimation Eat, Bang, Kill, and Then Some
I've learned about this show relatively late. It peaked my curiousity: DC Comics had done an R-rated series about one of their iconic characters - and it already gone through three critically acclaimed seasons? I've decided to see for myself whether or not "Harley Quinn" show is really good, as critics and people claim it to be.
Where do I start? First of all, the R-rating shines through: blood, gore, lots of swearing, obligatory sexual skimpiness, and all that stuff. Normally, such things require a lot of focus to execute properly... and the production company pulled that off really well.
Second, the titular character herself. Harley Quinn tries to move away from the Joker - and start her own adventures. The team of colorful characters bonds with her through many missions, and her development over the course of the entire show is engaging. So engaging in fact, that the excessive amounts of humor are on point.
Third, a de-facto deuteragonist - Poison Ivy. One of the funniest, and one of the most intriguing versions of the character at the same time. Going through death and resurrection, engagement, finding true love, executing the grand plan of her life... I personally found appreciation of Ivy while witnessing all these moments unfold.
Fourth, chaotic changes of Gotham City across the seasons. No matter what happens (Clown Prince of Crime taking charge, Parademons' invasion, terraforming into a lush green paradise - or hell, depending on your point of view), the ensuing chaos provides a lot of action and fun.
Fifth, the production values. Yes, the excessive amounts of gore and those-pesky-seven-dirty-words-that-you-can't-normally-say-on-the-national-television may turn off anyone who doesn't appreciate the raunchy exterior, but the show is done coherently enough: these factors only add to the experience. Animation is astounding. Voicework is amazing: for example, the chemistry between Kaley Cuoco and Lake Bell is exceptional - most of the lines were delivered as if they were natural conversations between best friends.
And the last... the overall amount of joy. Some say it might be a twisted amount of joy, but what else can you expect from the R-rated show such as Harley Quinn?
Overall, I recommend to watch these series to anyone who likes DC Comics' animated works, and for anyone who wants to experience an "adult" show done right.
Total Rating: 9.5/10
P.S. Can't wait to see what Season 4 will have in store.
WesternAnimation Surprisingly Good
There were a lot of potential roadblocks to me liking the 2019s ongoing Harley Quinn adult comedy cartoon. For starters I don't tend to like Harley Quinn in other shows, because I find the constant yelling and wacky persona nothing short of obnoxious. Then there's this thing about being an adult superhero cartoon comedy, which gives me flashbacks to the trash that was Pamela Anderson's Stripperella. Even the last Batman and Harley Quinn movie sets a bad precedent. Fortunately, the tv show manages to overcome all my misgivings.
The show depicts the reluctant break up of Harley Quinn and the Joker, with Harley deciding to set out as a respectable super-villain in her own right. Unfortunately, a lifetime of living as a sidekick and under the shadow of the clown makes this hard, and that's without even factoring in what any superheroes are going to do about it.
The danger of adult orientated comedy is of it falling into the trying too hard category, relying on gore and the word fuck whenever the writers can't come up with jokes that adults find funny. "Adult" often means "immature" here, and not every show manages to be like the first three seasons of Archer. Deadpool occasionally makes that mistake, and it occasionally happens with Harley Quinn as well (the opening line of a group of billionaires chortling about "fucking the poor" comes to mind), but there are so many decent jokes coming so fast, the occasional dud doesn't become an issue. Harley Quinn's comedy style is to go for a constant barrage of gags, and by not taking any single one of its characters seriously (Batman included), and that ends up working in the show's favour.
What's best about the show is seeing the comedy re-imagining of the entire DC universe. Chief Gordon is a ranting alcoholic, Bane is a mild-mannered wuss, Dr Psycho is a cancelled misogynist. Centre to it all is the odd-couple relationship between the boisterous Harley and her permanently dour roommate, Poison Ivy. As Harley describes it, "With your ability to control every single plant in the entire world, and my gymnastics, we can achieve anything!" Ivy is less than enthusiastic about the arrangement and is only in it to keep Harley safe.
Whilst that mismatch of personalities and powers often is the show's funniest element, all the characters in this show get to be fun, undermining the perpetually serious tone of the source material. I'm again reminded of Archer, in the sense that all characters treat each other like insufferable work colleagues: they hate each other but are stuck in the same space. The result is something pleasantly surprising, and a nice antidote to Batman's default grimness.
WesternAnimation 'Irreverent To A Fault' Is Still A Fault
I wanted to name this 'Rick and Harley' but I worried that it was too vague, and also there's probably a DC character named 'Rick' and I didn't want to confuse anyone who thought this was an episode-specific review about Harley and Rick Flag teaming up to kick the Anti-Monitor into a ball pit filled with dildos or something.
Harley Quinn was a breath of fresh air... when it first came out. A decidedly un-serious look at the DC Universe - at a time when both the live-action and animated output of DC was suffocating under the weight of its own angsty grimdark seriousness - Harley Quinn burst through the door and announced "Hey! ... What if Bane had a funny voice and everyone said 'Fuck' a bunch?" Which, in all fairness, is completely enough to carry a show, unless, for instance, you wanted to stretch that same formula over several seasons, without really developing the characters, or having them change in any meaningful way. But what are the odds of that happening?
Having split up for good and for realsies this time from The Joker, Harley Quinn is striking out as a villain on her own two feet, firstly to prove to everyone else that she doesn't need him, and then to prove to herself that she doesn't need anyone else's approval, and then... the show kind of just stagnates while both Harley and the showrunners themselves figure out exactly what the hell they want to do, besides making playground jokes about how Aquaman is lame and has sex with fish, probably.
The show is stuck in this strange limbo where they want to lambast the stereotypical tropes present in the DC Universe, while not ever actually deviating too far from the same path. So you get witty remarks like Harley Quinn commenting on how great a team she makes with Poison Ivy, since Ivy has the potential to take over the world, and Harley is... really good at gymnastics. But then Harley does save the day by being really good at gymnastics. Repeatedly. Or by being the only character who was allowed to have a brain for this episode. Or because the villains (well, villains is a relative term here) left a huge Harley Quinn-shaped hole in their evil plans, ready for her to bust in and save the day.
There are some deviations, namely the deaths of big-name characters who never had an important role in the story to begin with, like Scarecrow and the Penguin and Nightwing, at least currently, but anyone sufficiently close to Harley Quinn will probably be fine. I think the moment when I realised that the show had lost me was a storyline in Season Four where Wayne Enterprises has its funding cut, and it's revealed that Nightwing, Batgirl and Damian Wayne are all completely useless without their fancy gadgets, and it's up to good old Harley to show them how it's done. Harley Quinn. Has to teach Nightwing and Batgirl how to fight. It wasn't so much this specific point, as it was the realisation that every supporting character in the series only exists as a means to make Harley Quinn look more cool. It's not shitting on the source material to be funny - at least, not just that - but shitting on the source material in order to highlight that Harley Quinn and her Ragtag Bunch of Misfits are the only characters not covered in shit. Also, did anyone else just find it weird that Harley is hanging out with Nightwing and Batgirl, when two seasons ago, she led an army of Parademons to Gotham that led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people? No? We're just... skating straight on past that? Well, ok. At least it's consistent with how her character is treated in other media.
What this show really began to remind me of after a while is 'Harley Quinn's Little Black Book', a comic collection of short stories about Harley interacting with various other superheroes while making her fresh start as a hero. It's... not quite one of the worst things that I've ever read, but that's about the nicest thing I can say about it. I was hoping for at least one story where Harley deals with the consequences of having been a villain for so long, or struggles to let go of her past, but instead it's just a collection of Sue fics in which she outsmarts Wonder Woman, beats up Hal Jordan and steals his Green Lantern ring, knocks out (an admittedly depowered) Superman in one punch, and has sex with Lobo, and she also helps Zatanna defeat some extra-dimensional threat because said extra-dimensional threat is uncontrollably attracted to Harley. I'm surprised there wasn't one where she outruns The Flash and also goes back in time to prevent the destruction of Krypton while rewriting Season 8 of Game of Thrones to be better. There's not a moment of character growth, or introspection; it's just a collection of stories highlighting that Harley doesn't need to grow, because she's already so quirky and perfect and everybody wants to do the fuck on her. And you can only get away with these stories for so long before the audience starts to ask "Ok, but... why do I care?"
Harley Quinn, the show, succeeds and fails on the merits of Harley Quinn, the character. And the problem with Harley Quinn is that she's been coasting on her popularity for quite a few years now, with not one of her media outings doing a damned thing to examine why people like her so much; it's just assumed that you do, and then she does cool stuff. And after four seasons of 'Harley Quinn beats up everyone', the joke has lost its edge.
I saw someone say that Harley Quinn (2019) was just Teen Titans Go! with an MA rating, and honestly, that's probably a harsher and more succinct criticism than I could ever manage. I've seen this show positively compared to the first three seasons of Archer, and while that's an apt comparison, it's important to remember what came after the first three seasons of Archer. That's right. Another eleven seasons of Archer. We'll always have Season One, but here's hoping that one of the most potentially interesting characters in all of fiction gets a few more decent stories in the future to really explore why we all fell in love with her to begin with, rather than just beating us over the head with the fact.