Review: Harley Quinn “A Fight Worth Fighting For”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After a bit of a recap of events by Frank (which almost feels like they couldn’t think of a couple more minutes worth of material), Harley deals with Joker as he pieces together what happened in the last six months: He was found by Beth, a nursing student with two kids, and slowly began to fall in love with her, becoming part of her family. Turns out that’s also where Queen of Fable’s book is, so they go over there to get it back, but Beth throws it into the hands of some parademons in anger when she learns the truth. Harley and Joker eventually track it down, but Joker starts wondering if maybe he shouldn’t try to make things with Beth instead of blowing something that could be great like Harley did. They eventually get it back, being saved by Batman (who has finished recovering), but it turns out that’s not even the right book, forcing them to go back to Beth’s house so Joker can make up with her and have Zatanna (who is just there, I guess) undo the spell and release the Justice League.

Meanwhile, Ivy and Kite Man are trying to plan their wedding, with Ivy in a lot more haste to get things done because Harley’s confession of love is getting to her. But the still rampant Parademons are ruining those plans so she goes to confront Psycho about things. Speaking of Psycho, it seems in order for him to receive Darkseid’s help in taking over the world, he’ll need to kill Harley for betraying Darkseid last time. So, along with already controlling Clayface and King Shark, Psycho also takes over Ivy’s mind when he comes to kill him, eventually going to fight Harley at Beth’s house.

OUR TAKE

The show’s moving more towards the dramatic as we close in on the next season finale, which is weird to say considering the last one wasn’t that long ago. And like back then, I’m wary about the comedy taking a back seat for drama because I worry about this show starting to take itself too seriously, but I’m starting to realize that’s more of a preferential thing on my part since all of these converging plot lines and character arcs DO feel pretty natural (even if some are happening a bit earlier than I first expected). With Harley losing all of her regular friends to either drama or being taken by Psycho, her only option turns out to be teaming up with her mortal enemies like Joker and Batman.

What I did NOT expect out of all of that was a Joker redemption story, as apparently his time with Beth really has changed him. When he came back as an unnamed suburban dad, I figured we’d never see Beth and that he just constructed her in his warped mind, leading to his eventual return making him just as evil once again, but…color me surprised and a bit impressed that they are using him as a pretty solid parallel for Harley and Ivy, who clearly have some things to work out before this season is done. Additionally, while last episode did establish Psycho (who is still not super compelling as an antagonist, along with Riddler still being wasted as a sidekick) as a threat that Harley would probably eventually have to deal with, this one has his goals of conquering the world and gaining Darkseid’s favor line up exactly with killing Harley, which now puts them on a crash course as needing to fight for their respective plans.

As much as I still am concerned about skooching away from being comedic for the finale AND with trying to escalate the threat a bit too much when something small and personal would probably work better, I can’t deny that the writers are doing their damndest to make everything feel like the natural flow of consequences instead of artificially building things up and losing the connection between the viewers and the story. We’ve got two episodes left to see how everything resolves, so maybe we’ll give the Justice League characters some discernible personalities to play off everybody? Though that might be too much to ask for. Guess we’ll find out soon!