Review: Harley Quinn “Trapped”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Mr. Freeze is next on Harley’s kill list, but they can’t get into his frozen territory without a heat gun. To do that, they try robbing Dr. Trap’s mansion of looted super-villain tech with the help of Catwoman, Ivy’s old associate. Ivy’s changed a lot since she they last saw each other, most notably branching out (pun intended) towards making friends and getting closer with Kite Man, while Catwoman coming back reminds her of how connections might only drag her down from her goal of combating attacks on the environment. And to add on the pressure, Kite Man’s trying the big question on her again. But when Catwoman ditches them all to die in the middle of the heist, Ivy realizes that her friendships are a strength, not a weakness! Also they got the heat gun.

Also, Riddle plays on Psycho’s insecurities to seemingly make his escape, only to reveal that he’s really fine hanging around for now.

OUR TAKE

Well, I guess we weren’t going to just speed through all five villains that fast like I first thought (though next week does look to be the Mr. Freeze episode), so this week seems to be a bit of a pit stop in the plot so we can work on some non main character development. In this case, Ivy gets the limelight in an interesting parallel to last season’s “The Line”. If you’ll recall, in that episode, Harley’s own ideals as a villain got questioned by the Queen of Fables, who was willing to go all out to vanquish her enemies while Harley had a shred of decency she clung to which ultimately proved to be valid by the end of that episode. Like that episode, this one focuses on Ivy reuniting with an old friend, in this case a neat new-ish take on Catwoman, who tests her budding (again pun intended) willingness to connect with people and whether or not that’s been a perk to her original villainous ethics or not, which it seems to be by the end.

Her relationship with Kite Man also gets some focus, as it seems old Kitey is still hell bent on taking the proverbial plunge on a literal kite. I’ve not been a huge fan of how this whole ship has shaped up, but it’s been cute enough that I could be into it. Though I’ve also been a bit perplexed that a series focused on Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy would even humor Ivy in a straight relationship, especially when they’re one of the more iconic female-female ships in comic fandom. Well, turns out we’re working up to that, as recent interviews seem to be moving towards that ship later this season. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out, although it’s going to be pretty awkward considering the end of this episode really seemed like Ivy was warming up to getting hitched.

The B-Plot with Psycho was…fine. It had all the materials there, but I think Psycho could stand to be put on ice for a little bit. Not that he’s not hilarious at certain points, but we’ve gotten a plot for him and Clayface this season so far, so how about some plots for Shark or Sy? One of this show’s strengths is its well rounded cast, so hopefully we can see more of that in future episodes. But next week looks to be the next major step towards Harley’s full take over of Gotham as we get a COOL PARTY going at Mr. Freeze’s place. And I can’t wait to bring out all the ice puns I can stuff into one review.