Review: Harley Quinn “Floronic Man”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Ivy faces the revenge of the presumed dead Jason Woodrue, now going by the Flouronic Man. Meanwhile, Clayface tries forcing in a good review of his one man show into the critical Daily Planet.

OUR TAKE

Despite how much I can sometimes revel in putting the hate on some well deserving show, there are in fact times where I don’t like just being a hater. And unfortunately, I must turn on the haterade once again for Harley Quinn because so far I am just not feeling this season at all. Things feel…functional, storywise, but none of it makes me laugh and frankly feels like treading water. When I went back and rewatched the previous seasons of the show, what still holds up for me is how Harley’s personal journey in those initial seasons meshed well how shitty of a city Gotham was and how these more comedic versions of Batman, Gordon, Batgirl, etc, played into that. That started dulling over time, but at least there was evidence that it worked for a little while. With this change of setting to Metropolis, which is meant to be a much cleaner and upstanding location compared to Gotham, a lot of the comedy has to either change or be jettisoned, and neither option seems to be really working for either Harley or Ivy. I don’t get anything out of them or Clayface or Bane interacting with Superman characters like Lois Lane or Perry White or Brainiac just for the sake of it. I get something out of it if those characters have something meaningful to bring to the Harley Quinn characters’ dynamic or personalities or…something!

And just like with King Shark last week, where he just felt inorganically placed to facilitate a plot, Clayface and his one man show subplot feel just as artificial. Both of these characters had natural endpoints to their involvement in this show, with King Shark co-parenting with Tabitha, and Clayface getting a popular Vegas residency, and even without that, they had already lost a big part of what they added to the group dynamic when Psycho quit after Season 2, and he’s not even in this season at all! At THE VERY LEAST, Harley and Ivy had a paper thin reason for being in this new location, but lord knows if they’re gonna do fuck all with that. Last week had Ivy meet and get revenge on her ex Jason Woodrue with a hint he’d be back the same way she came back. This week, he DOES come back, with a weird autotune voice, and then is killed very quickly after, so that’s already done with, and now the Brainiac thing that seemed like it would be season long is already coming forward to take Harley and Ivy, two characters with whom he has never had any real connection to or chemistry with. I seriously hate that I am like this right now! Really! But I also have to be honest for whomever is reading this and I am seriously worried about the future of this show.