Season Review: Harley Quinn Season Five

Harley Quinn as a character has gone through quite a lot in her over thirty years of existence, both in and out of continuity. Starting as an abused sidekick to The Joker, then a sexy double act with Poison Ivy, and even going on to join groups like the Gotham City Sirens, Suicide Squad, and Birds of Prey. This popularity only ballooned with her first proper live action appearance in the 2016 Suicide Squad movie, where she was seen as one of the main highlights despite that movie being utter crap. And when DC made its big push to make its own (short-lived) streaming service, Harley Quinn was one of the first announced for the platform. Now, seven years, a pandemic, two more streaming services, and multiple company mergers later, Harley Quinn’s show is the last one of those shows standing, having recently concluded its fifth season. Five seasons is usually where most streaming shows end nowadays, and the show began in a very different world for TV, but did the return of the show’s original showrunners be enough to spark new life into the series? Let’s look back on what could be the show’s final season and figure that out.

Following the cataclysmic events of the fourth season AND the Kite Man spin-off (which you kinda need to watch in order to understand certain things), Harley and Ivy decide to ditch the crime-ridden streets of Gotham City and change scenery to the squeaky clean home of Superman: Metropolis. But things are not as perfect as they seem, as Lex Luthor’s sister Lena forms an alliance with the otherworldly Brainiac to control the city, so Harley and Ivy must stop them…if they can get out their own ways first. With such a succinct description, you might think this season was pretty straightforward with its focus while still allowing time for the rapid fire comedy and nuanced character work that this show has come to be known for. And you would be right about that. That is, as long as it’s anything BUT plotlines introduced in this season. When it’s making callbacks to previous ones, like resolving the Nightwing death plot or bringing back Harley’s parents, it’s pretty solid…but stuff like Ivy meeting up with an ex who accidentally helped her make Frank (by almost killing her) or Clayface and Bane taking over The Daily Planet, or even King Shark dropping his manic son off with Harley and Ivy, all just end up making the plot feel cluttered and padded.

Going through the previous four seasons, I really came to appreciate parts of each, but what really kept me through it was how Harley evolved within her story. The first two seasons, likely made together, were the show at its best, fully into its theme of Harley’s journey to find out who she is, as a villain, as a boss, as a partner, as a person. The third season extended that to how she handles a healthy relationship, and the fourth added her trying to be a hero. But by the fifth season, for whatever reason, it seems her journey has paused, stalled, or perhaps even already ended. She, Ivy, Bane, Clayface and so on have experienced a lot and changed a lot, which was all great to see as it happened, but now, at least in this season, it feels like it’s treading water. I’d love to be wrong and see a sixth season pull things around or at least give it a better send off than this, but even if this is the end, at least we can always appreciate what we got before. This is very likely not the last we’ll see of Harley Quinn, even if it’s a different version, but this one will always have her great moments to look back on.