Review: Harley Quinn “The Big Apricot”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

With Gotham in its worst state yet, Harley and Ivy decide to move over to Metropolis for a new life.

OUR TAKE

I’ve been watching this Harley Quinn show since it first premiered on the short lived DC Universe app, it being the only show left now from that original line up that also included Titans, Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, and Stargirl. And now I’m here after it has jumped from that, to HBO Max, and now to Max. I covered the latter third of the first season and all of the second and what I am reminded about regarding why I’ve enjoyed the show so much over the years has been both its comedy and character writing, which is exemplified no better than through Harley herself. She began the show trying to rise through the solo ranks of professional villainy, making friends and facing struggles both external and internal. In the following season, after defeating her ex Joker and her own insecurities, she took down a bunch of other villains while also coming to terms with her feelings for her best friend Poison Ivy. In the season after that, even though it wasn’t as funny as the previous two, we still got a substantive journey for Harley as she faced the struggles of being in a healthy relationship and even realized that she wanted to be a hero instead, while also using her therapist skills to help Bruce Wayne accept his parents’ deaths!

Then the fourth season happened and kinda undid a lot of that, including the more interesting developments for characters like Joker and Batman, and then we had that Kite Man show that felt like a single episode bit spread way too thin over ten episodes, and now we’re here, at the fifth season of Harley Quinn, which starts off…concerning. Remember when Harley joined with Ivy, Catwoman, and a needlessly crippled Barbara to become the Gotham City Sirens? Well, if you were confused about how that team was gonna work when their goal was to find a missing dead body, don’t worry because they broke up. And also, the show is just done with Gotham now and Harley and Ivy pack up shop and move to Metropolis, which really just means they’re swapping out all the Batman related jokes for Superman related jokes. Oh yeah, and the main bad guy is going to be Brainiaic, as hinted at during the final scene of the Kite Man show. And all of this…doesn’t give me confidence. Last season basically showed us that many of the elements that made this show work had more or less run their course. The crew that Harley put together have all gone their separate ways aside from Ivy, the Joker had a neat reformation being a stepdad and then mayor before that got suddenly reversed. And now most of the rest of the cast has been left back in Gotham. Essentially my question is: what are we doing here, man? I guess we’ll find out over the next few weeks, but we are not really starting off on the best foot.