Review: Harley Quinn “Inner (Para) Demons”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Things are awkward with a capital “kward” for Harley and Ivy after their brief kiss, with Ivy wanting to throw it under the rug and Harley reluctantly following suit. So while Ivy goes to meet Kite Man’s apparently superpowered by douchey parents, Harley decides to overcompensate by diving headfirst back into villainy, even if it means gaining control of an army of Parademons from Darkseid himself. And she probably picked a bad time to double down on being bad, because Gordon has finally gotten hold of the president in hopes of Gotham rejoining the states, but the condition is getting rid of Harley, who’s Gotham’s last profile villain. This leads to Gordon and his army with Harley and her army in a slaughter clearly neither of them were really prepared for, but once Harley has a talk with Ivy about what she really wants, she calls it off and sends the Parademons home. Though even now that she knows her own feelings, she’ll still have to help with Ivy’s bachelorette party. Also Psycho has had it with her indecisiveness and quits the crew.

OUR TAKE

While not the hilarious rapid fire last week’s episode was, this one definitely did a fine job in using its comedy to build on character and escalate the situation. And oh boy, if it did ANYTHING very clearly, it was escalate things, whether through a very brief invasion by the forces of Apokolips or simply the irrevocable change to Harley and Ivy’s dynamic. I did wonder how the void in plot would be filled once the Injustice League members had all been subdued (though I at least figured Two-Face would still show up since he’s just arrested) and it seems the episode made sure to use that to its advantage. Harley wants to find something, ANYTHING to do which will help keep her mind off Ivy and rationalize the kiss away, while Gordon wants to continue the streak of heroism by proving he’s a badass, even if he doesn’t think Harley isn’t that much of a threat, which many characters notice as just these two trying to wallpaper over bigger issues. Also noticing now that it has been awhile since we saw Sy Borgman or Robin. Hope they’re okay.

One might say that it was kind of a waste to bring in stuff from the New Gods, Darkseid and his crew specifically, for just a single episode. Especially when they got Michael Ironside to reprise his role as the giant from Superman: The Animated Series! And yet I would argue that these were used for their appropriate purpose, which was to highlight the emotional state for Harley, and Gordon to a lesser extent. As the title points out, Harley has her own demons she needs to grapple with that metaphorically end up becoming everyone else’s problems when she isn’t dealing with them right. Though I should point out that those demons aren’t that she’s got feelings for Ivy, but rather how she’s handling (or rather NOT handling) those feelings in a healthy way. Gordon also has this show up in his own way with the army, since he may be overcompensating for dealing with kicking alcohol for a different addiction of thrill seeking, but that leads to similar results that he might not learn from so fast. The point is BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF, something that Harley seems to understand better now even if she is still not being honest with Ivy. But we do have five episodes to go for THAT to bubble up. And I’m not sure what the plot will do with Psycho now that he’s off the crew, but that’s yet another thing I imagine we’ll have plenty of time to get into.