Meet the first version of a post-Joker Harley Quinn I’ve ever liked
As someone who has never been a huge fan of Harley Quinn as a character, it was a hugely pleasant surprise to find the new adult animated series based on her, created by Justin Halpern, Dean Lorey and Patrick Schumacker, to be such a joy through its first two seasons.
It’s an open question how this happened. The show begins the story with a pilot that has Harley (Kaley Cuoco) and Joker (Alan Tudyk) as a couple, but soon gets to the part where Harley decides to break free of him and become her own supervillain, amassing a crew consisting of best friend Poison Ivy (a series stealing Lake Bell), and various Batman lesser baddies, like Dr, Psycho (Tony Hale), Clayface (also Tudyk), King Shark (Ron Funches) and Sy Borgman (Jason Alexander).
From there the show displays a remarkable devotion to serialized storytelling, continuity and character growth, along with the jokes (too many to catch each episode). It’s quite a feat to see how much the show cares about its characters, from Harley and Ivy to each supporting player, like Jim Gordon (Christopher Meloni) and Kite Man (Matt Oberg). The first season is about Harley trying to establish her independence from Joker, but never waivers in respecting the pull of that original, twisted relationship, which is responsible for the popularity of the character in the first place. It’s not long before Harley herself becomes less interesting than most of the recurring and supporting characters on the show, especially Poison Ivy- this iteration of her is the most appealing version of the Batman villain I’ve ever seen. As the wisecracking, cynical and deadpan best friend, you kind of wish the show could be about her.
Season 1 does the Joker/Harley story full justice
Or, even better, that it could be about all of Gotham or even the entire DC universe, as every cameo and episode that brings in anyone you know, from Batman to Superman to Lex Luthor, Batgirl and Bane (a fast fan favorite) is a funny, knowing, instantly appealing and winningly voiced version that’s part parody, part original creation that does its own thing with the character yet respects aspects of him/her that have been absorbed through mass pop culture over the years. The show is its own universe and yet a believable, adult, funny and graphic re-orientation of DC lore. The closest it stays to “canon” is in the origins of Harley Quinn’s own story, so tied to the Joker that it’s more or less sacrosanct, as seen in several flashback episodes exploring Harley’s psychology. The second season moves on to the development of Harley and Ivy’s relationship, from best friends to a love triangle involving poor Kite Man, who gets his most sympathetic and visible representation yet in this series, as you kind of prefer the pairing of him and Ivy over Harley and Ivy. But as fans have long wanted in comics and otherwise, the romance between the two women gets to come to fruition eventually, wrapping things up in a nice little bow in case something goes wrong with the transfer from DCU to HBO Max and it turns out these two seasons are all we get of this.
But I hope it’s not. Because given the talent and creativity of the show’s writers, I can see them expanding to a lot of areas from this starting off point (there was even an episode entirely centered on Batman in the second season, with no Harley in sight), and there’s so much they have left to play with in a DC animated world with no restraints. Keep it coming, please.
Grade (Seasons 1&2): A-/A
Season 2 gives the fans what they’ve always wanted with Harley and Poison Ivy
