Review: Harley Quinn “Dye Hard”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

As Parademons continue to terrorize Gotham, Harley, King Shark, and Clayface return from their respective Bachelor/ette parties, but when the other two deny Harley’s request to hang out, she goes drinking alone and meets the now-sane Joker once again, this time as a bartender at a fancy Wayne hotel. But wouldn’t you know it, the place is taken hostage by Gus, that nice kindergarten teacher henchman who Ivy talked to around this time last season. This forces Harley to get violent to escape, but that starts triggering Sane Joker’s memories. This activity also gets Gordon’s attention, so he flies to the scene in Batman’s Batwing.

Meanwhile, Psycho officially parts ways with the crew, but has secretly formed an alliance with the Riddler, who has now seriously bulked up (more like THICCler now, amirite?) and is also in the same hotel to secure a helmet that will help boost Psycho’s mind powers so he can take control of the Parademons himself, as well as mentally nabbing King Shark and Clayface to kill Harley as revenge for the perceived belittling she gave him while he worked for her. Luckily, Sy is also there and is impervious to the mind control because of plates in his head. Unfortunately, in order for Harley, Gordon and Joker to get away, he sacrifices himself to destroy the barrier keeping them trapped. The only thing that could stop Psycho and Riddler now is the Justice League, but they were trapped in Queen of Fables’ book, which Joker only sort of remembers in his current state. In order to jostle loose his memories, Harley takes him back to Ace Chemicals in order to return him to his former horrible self.

OUR TAKE

Looks like we’re headed to the endgame with only three episodes left in the season. Though I certainly didn’t expect Psycho to be the final boss, which leads me to believe that’s probably not the case. We knew that the Riddler was going to come back into play eventually (though he seems to have traded brains for brawn, unfortunately), though this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Also, have to say, Psycho kinda loses a bit of his appeal as an antagonist. Before he was the really jerky part of the group and bounced off everyone else pretty well, but without that to work with, he’s kind of just a typical mustache twirler. That said, he does make a good point about Harley and her conflicted levels of morality. It’s an interesting detail for her as a protagonist, but in a world with a clear line between heroes and villain, I do wonder if it’s not time for her to draw a line on what faction she’s on.

Then we have the unfortunate but probably well-timed death of Sy Borgman. I’ll be missing him and what Jason Alexander brought to his character, but it did seem odd already that he wasn’t nearly as frequent a character as the rest of the cast. Maybe it was a scheduling issue or they just couldn’t work his character into most of the stories? In any case, they definitely gave him a great exit and I do hope they can bring him back every now and then, but like the Jews of old, he took what could have been a one note character and made him a highlight of over half the series thus far. Though this once again raises a question that has gone weirdly unaddressed: Where the heck is Robin?! Again, last we saw him, he was dressing up as Batman to go prancing around the city, but he’s just disappeared since then, and now Batman’s back AND with a new sidekick! It’s just odd that they haven’t mentioned him at all, is all.

Next week, we begin the end of this season with the return of the show’s most deliciously shitty character, as well as maybe the return of the Justice League? Hard to say, but I’m eager to see where it goes. This show hasn’t let me down yet, so I doubt that it will with only three episodes left in the season. But then it could surprise me!