Thus begins our recap of episode two of Birds of Prey.
Above, we have the cast as predominantly featured in the comic series.
Barbara Gordon and Black Canary are the main characters followed closely by Huntress. The roster usually varies but here we have Lady Blackhawk (Zinda Blake) as well as Hawk and Dove (Hank Hall and Dawn Granger respectively)
As you might remember, the television show is only loosely based on this series and I think that's partly why it didn't go over so well with audiences that weren't ready to comprehend alternate universe Bat-characters and bad special effects.
Barbara Gordon - former Batgirl and current Oracle survived the transition pretty seamlessly. Huntress here is actually the offspring of Batman and Catwoman and is meta-human. Which means she's got half of her mother's random cat powers and all of her dad's gloomy attire and punchiness.
Dinah is the most random.. she's super young and has mental based powers.
We open this episode with Huntress/Helena Kyle opening up to her therapist Harleen Quinzel.
Last episode she was unwilling to talk even though I personally don't think she can be cleared from her court mandated therapy without some improvement during her sessions. Harleen encourages her to keep coming to appointments to discuss the revenge desires she has against the person who killed her mother (The Joker) and her father abandonment issues (Batman).
Meanwhile, Detective Reese apparently forwent his cheerful sidekick and used two other cops to help him bring in this perp. Said perp tries to bribe the cops, they laugh, and handcuff him to a chair out of sight of other cops beside another perp, and they walk away.
There are a few things wrong with this. I don't even care that this perp straight up Alex Mack's himself out of the cop shop because it's honestly their own damn fault.
 |
| And let's not forget this guy either. |
He then travels... pretty quickly actually over to Harleen's shower and joins her.
I like that she doesn't even shiv about it. It saves a lot of time because as it turns out she hired him so she would know what his powers are and wouldn't be surprised at him showing up, shows how bad ass she is by beating him up in the shower for failing her - not just for PG-checking her out and calling his boss 'baby'.
Harley: I have a vengeance that will be spoken of in terrified whispers for generations to come! Do you understand?
Slick: Not exactly, no..
Harley: Ugh, I'm going to take over New Gotham you idiot!
She explains again about her grand scheme of terror which seems to be based on her anger that Joker is locked up somewhere? I sort of assumed he was dead because she was so angry and unhinged. I mean, come on, I'm all for schemes and things but how long is Joker ever locked up for?
Our first glimpse of the Clock tower base is poor Alfred bringing over a beautiful collection of breakfast items only for Dinah to throw a techno Bat-arang and destroy everything he made.
So great, no one gets breakfast and there's a chance your lunch menu will contain guano because you made even more work for sweet Alfred.
I thought I told you to stay out of the bat-arangs anyway you damn kid!
Barbara is trying to enrol her in school but is struggling with the amount of information they require for admission. Can you blame New Gotham though? Every second person is a sociopath or someone with evil powers. I'd probably ask them to take out a waiver as well as providing insurance details to the school before admitting them.
Helena: Greetings, Super Friends!
Helena arrives back after patrol and is instantly suspicious of Dinah's records burning down mysteriously along with apparently half her town. Dinah is as good at lying as she is at throwing Bat-arangs. It doesn't help that Dinah took some clothes that Helena left on the floor after Helena mocked her first attempt at putting an outfit together.
I'd sympathise but a prepubescent girl is able to swap wardrobes with you.. that's not good.
Barbara is still being hit on by the new guy and comically explains the dodgy way she ran off the other day as a baking emergency. Yeah, it's funny but is that really the best line she could come up with? Somehow he's not put off (or wanting to order muffins online) and they schedule a date.
Barbara delays leaving for sometime and Dinah kicks her out eventually but not before asking about her chair and her amazing hands free gadgetry, and asking about the possibility of future use in regards to Barbara walking again. She doesn't understand any of the terminology.
Dinah: You're techno-babbling.
Barbara: I think, therefore the chair moves.
Yes, it's romantic but this meal was just sitting in a park by itself and no one ate it and the candles didn't set fire to anything. What sort of strange, alternate universe is this?!
Earlier there was a murdered cop who managed to drown on dry land. Now there's another one.
That's kinda how these things go. It's so rude though that the second dead cop's case - partner of the first dead cop - sends an urgent alert to Oracle's beeper.
She's all like nah it's not important but then it beeps again and she's like yeah buddy gotta go urgent.
Yes.. obviously it's a murder and needs investigation but this honestly couldn't wait another hour?
The beeper doesn't say what happened so for all she knows there could be some emergency but I'm pretty sure she said earlier that her computer logs all cases ALREADY filed and marked WEIRD.
I mean, what time is it anyway in this place? The crime isn't going anywhere. Eat yo dinner.
Dinah sneaks into Helena's workplace - a bar - by telling the bouncers she's her sister.
Man, if that actually worked we'd have a lot more under-aged minors in bars. Followed by being behind bars, in a drunk tank. Secondly, the bar seems pretty busy but Helena's got time to talk loudly about vigilantism and not pour drinks.
Dinah's upset because Helena doesn't trust her - and Helena's upset because she knows Dinah's lying about her parents and also, is like super young.
Dinah: It's not that easy. It's complicated.
Helena: You're sixteen. How complicated can it be?
Dinah: Pfft. Yeah, and when you were sixteen life was really simple and straightforward?
Helena: Okay, that's totally different and completely beside the point.
You know, Dinah's actress is beginning to grow on me.
Meanwhile, Slick arrives in Harleen's office - fully clothed this time and see's she's reading an article about a bloke who killed his ex-girlfriend and then himself. Turns out she had a hand in making this happen via her legitimate job in psychiatry. Slick doesn't understand why she even has a day job so Harleen explains it's more of a hobby and goes on to discuss the Greek goddess Eris (Discord - if you prefer Roman mythology) who started everything from petty arguments to cataclysmic war while she then sat back, watched and basically invented delegation.
That's what Harley Quinn is aiming for - being the manipulator and then getting to watch the show while remaining unscathed by the fall out.
Slick: You lost me, babe.
Harleen: Yeah, well, that's what happens when you regularly turn your brain to water.
I don't know why she bothered trying to explain anything to Slick - it just showcases her smarts and ambitions next to his dumbed down doldrums. Still, it's nice to see a smart approach to Gotham crime - keeping her hands clean and her head out of the line of law enforcement.
Which doesn't seem to hard.. I don't think anyone's even questioned where Slick went to after he slip'n'slid his soggy ass out of the cop shop.
Urgent meeting at the Clock tower.... is this after Helena's shift or did she skip out?
Slick's real name is Silas Waters. Wow. Did the name come first or did the powers? Anyway, a name like that wouldn't even raise an eyebrow in New Gotham, I'm sure. Dinah wants to nickname him Liquid Guy. Come on Dinah - you were growing on me! Don't make me regret it!
Helena mocks the cops for not taking a cut of the take from the armoured truck heist. Her buddy Reese decides to go for a swim. Because of course he does. Seriously, what time is it? How can the base of operations be a damn clock tower and yet so ambiguous with time!?
Somehow Helena knows where he is and stalks him. Probably perving on his abs. I wasn't looking at them.. dude makes me feel bad that I'm not super ripped and don't have constant access to a late night pool. Still, Helena's wearing a turtleneck and something resembling vigilante wear so that's a nice change.
Reese is all get out of here with your crazy Liquid Guy talk and Helena does a terrible job of explaining herself without sounding insane. This is not helped by Oracle sassing her in the earpiece.
Luckily Waters attacks explosively from the pool and doesn't press his usual stealth advantage.
Helena is attacked in the face and uses the jazz hands method of flailing around trying to bat water away. It's not very effective. Even her patented weak high school type flail does nothing. Or her stand there and do nothing move.
It took a lot less time to kill the police officer but Helena has maximum capacity lungs apparently. She has time to run around and look for a fire extinguisher while drowning. She can even activate it while Reese just sits there and stares. Fire extinguishers are Slick's Kryptonite so he reappears as human and engages in fisticuffs with Huntress.
Oracle explains why the extinguisher works pretty easily but still has to dumb it down for Huntress.
I'm seeing a brainiac match-up of Harleen Quinzel and Barbara Gordon - the only two people in New Gotham to achieve higher education... apparently.
Reese finally snaps out of it after Slick dives into the pool and Huntress wants to leave. He wants to apprehend the suspect.
They run into the steam room where it's conveniently on and good to evaporate a Liquid Guy with.
Reese is annoyed about being stuck in a steam room with a lady.
Back at the Clocktower Alfred works overtime because the Birds can't be bothered to do their own dishes. He offers Dinah some sage advice.
Dinah: I've grown up thinking there was no-one like me. You know, that I was all alone. Then I come here and I finally meet someone who's like me, someone who I can admire and look up to. Seems like all I can do is piss her off.
Alfred: I've always found that how much someone cares about you is directly proportional to how much you can piss them off, as it were.
Huntress and Reese strip off somewhat and talk shop. Reese don't trust her. Reese also discloses that no one has bothered to replace the dead cops on his shift. That's nice. He was supposed to again be guarding another armoured truck full of weapons. They work out that Slick has probably left the pool area to attack the truck and it's safe for them to leave.
They get to where the truck is and engage in glass smashing and thug punching. Reese doesn't even try to cop he just vigilantes along with the best of them, even taking a running jump off of a car to football tackle a crim.
Eventually Slick makes his grand entrance, even though I'm pretty sure he was standing near the other guys when they got attacked. Anyway, a kinda cool effect here where Reese punches right through his head.
Slick: Was it good for you?
Predictably, Slick does his water thing into Reese's face. Personally, if I had these powers and wanted to murder someone I'd go the tried and true Avatar: LOK method of encasing their head.
Granted, this was air and not water and it was pulled out of the person's lungs and kept away from them but it's more horrifying then drinking from the fire-hose.
I mean here, Slick has to force watery parts of himself down someone's throat... okay yeah that's pretty horrifying but his victim is able to walk around and blink at people for like ages... it's just not very effective.
Not just that but each victim seems to take longer and longer to kill.
First cop was killed off-screen, so we don't know how long his murder took.
The second cop took maybe a minute? She didn't even look dead on the ground, more surprised than anything.
Helena took what felt like ten minutes and she didn't even die.
Reese was about the same, rolling around on the floor with Slick wrapped around him.
Don't worry, Dinah steals some car keys and arrives on the scene.
Alright, this still weirds me out. In Australia, at around 16 you can go for your learner's permit, so that by 17 you're on your provisional licence. Three years later, you can be on your full, open licence. You can legally drink at 18 years of age.
In America, from what I understand from Sweet Valley High and Birds of Prey... you can be on a licence from 16 years of age... but in most states you have to be 21 to legally drink.
Even so.. are we just meant to assume that Dinah can drive? That she knows where she's going? She's been here like a week at most. And whose car is it? If it's Oracle's.. is it handi-capable accessible or is it so high tech that Dinah would have no chance to understand it? Does Helena even have a car? Spends a lot of time jumping off rooftops and her job seems to be in walking distance. Besides, she has a butler who presumably still has access to all the Bat-cars.
Dinah doesn't even know where she's going... she sees a Google Map from across the room and just goes for it. I mean, come on.
I will point out that Reese bitches that no one helps him during his water torture but let's remember that he did nothing when Huntress was undergoing the same thing.
Dinah appears behind a thug and knocks him out with a hand held batarang. This is cool but.. Huntress had two thugs either side of her. Did one of them fail to see his fellow being sneaked up on? Huntress certainly didn't see her. Reese hasn't seen her. How the funk did she get in here?
Anyway, one of the thugs had a flame thrower - so handy right now - and Huntress straight up kills Slick via flame thrower to the groin. Somehow Reese isn't' even burnt OR drowned. What a lucky man. Dinah was knocked on her ass and is breathing heavily like she was actually part of the fisticuffs. She's earned Helena's trust!
This would be me though.
In the context of Helena's character - I don't know who she is, I don't know what she's after, I don't know how she got here, I know she's being lying to us and running from something and I don't understand her powers. I would not trust her so soon.
Back at base, Dinah finally admits her real surname and that her parents gave her up as they were freaked out by her powers and so were her foster parents.
Barbara leaves her wheelchair for a leisurely sofa lounge. Dinah is grounded. Helena is more concerned with food.
Say what you want about this bit part character but his double takes are fantastic.
It's lucky he was walking past on his usual weekday stalk to see that Barbara was setting up another romantic ... snack? I guess? I assume this is like half past three or something. It's good he didn't have anything else going on or a home to go back to.
A really nice sunset at the Clock Tower.
Although... the clouds are heading behind Barbara here...
And they're going ahead of Helena here.
Here's a third perspective on the sunset. Apparently Harleen does not own her own mirror.
Is this the next day or the same night? Helena's changed costumes and is knocking on Harleen's door like it's a reasonable hour of the day.
 |
| "Just look at what you're wearing... you definitely need therapy! Come on in!" |
Harleen closes the door with a sinister sort of look and the therapy turns to..... oh. Boys.
Well, yes, I guess that's a good enough subject for therapy but in my heart of hearts I wanted evil schemes.
I devoted my life to you Harley Quinn! You owe me!
Nah just kidding. You're alright. Well, here anyway. #bestliveactionHarleyQuinn
This episode was a lot better than the first episode.. but in my opinion most things are. Still some questionable actions by a lot of people but the dialogue wasn't so cringey, the fight scenes looked better and for the most part the actors weren't so bad.
So... quite comparable to like, Arrow or The Flash.
Fun fact: Slick resembles the Fire Hose guy from Weird Al but turns out that guy's actually Kramer.
There, that's a thing you know now.
CGI city porn!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Play nice or play dead! Harley Quinn's rules!