DC Universe Originals: Harley Quinn Episode 1

What's it about?

Series overview: The series will focus on a newly single Harley Quinn, who sets off to make it on her own in Gotham City.

Episode Specific: 'Til Death do us Part

Following an unsuccessful yacht robbery, Harley Quinn is sent to Arkham Asylum while deluded that her boss and lover Joker would break her out. A year later, Poison Ivy manages to get Harley out during a prison break and tries to convince her that Joker does not love her. Despite Ivy's support, Harley's attempt to break up with Joker fails after he sweet-talked her into staying with him. The Riddler, who also escaped Arkham, provokes Joker in sending Harley to kill him. But she and Batman are both captured with Riddler forcing Joker to choose who to save while the other is submerged in acid. Joker ultimately chooses Batman with Harley realising she never meant anything to the former, learning the ploy was devised by Ivy and Riddler to drive that point home. Following a costume change, Harley officially breaks up with Joker while declaring her intention to make a name for herself in the criminal underworld.

What's good about it?

The animation is good. Colours are nice, physiques aren't too bad... Harley has some amazing gymnastic moves that look great and not cheaply animated at all. There are some smart/funny lines but not nearly as much as I expected.

Jim Gordon was a horrific example of mis-characterisation, but he was funny and entertaining so that can slide a bit. 

The ton of references that weren't in our faces:

• The 'Mad Love' nightie
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The 'Mad Love' waltz
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Harley getting a grenade pin as an engagement ring
  
  
• That scene in Batman Forever where the villain has two characters trapped in an individual  glass dome and forces one character to chose who to save while in the Riddler's lair.

• The 'taste of piss' bit reminded me of the 'you eat pieces of shit for breakfast?' gag from Happy Gilmore. Except that was funnier.
  

Poison Ivy - now she was a delight to watch. I liked her voice actress, I loved her new outfit, I enjoyed how sardonic she was and ultimately how much of a friend she was to Harley. Even though Harley doesn't  deserve her, and should give her show to Ivy instead.

The hideouts. Not that they're actually hideouts but more like open advertisements as to where they are at any given time but still.... they look cool.

Harley talking to her past self via a photo - I thought this part was very well done and actually funny as well as being plot important.

What sucks about it?

Alright, the language barrier. It seems like it's highly applauded by people who think adult entertainment can't exist without some F-bombs and hey, I swear like a mildly aggravated sailor at the BEST of times but this was annoying as heck. They were just dropping the words everywhere like they're 13 years old and have just found out what they mean and they feel soooo grown up. It felt very forced.

Here's our very first introduction to this Harley:

Oooh, edgy...
And the bit directly before this was a bunch of rich old white guys laughing about abusing the poor and hoarding money... I get they want to do something different but damn this is more cringe than comedy.

Like this joke hasn't been done to death

The scene on the boat where Harley is referred to as 'The Joker's girlfriend' - then when Joker reveals himself he has to actually say "IT'S ME, JOKER!"
I mean.... really? Joker's one of the more consistent characters in DC's ever screwed up franchise, where even when you deviate from Jared Leto's take to the cartoons to Caesar Romero's TV version you know who they're supposed to be.

The characters..
Right, so, when you take a character like Harley - you know she's changed from her first incarnation. Originally she didn't care about about crime, she would commit crimes for fun but it wasn't her life. Here, she wants to be top dog, she wants people to wet themselves when they hear her name. She wants to join the Legion of Doom like it'd be fun instead of terribly boring and full of meetings. So I get it, the character needs more of a 'motivation' to anchor the show around. That's annoying, but fine. Whatever.
What is terrible about this though is that now every other character is massively changed. You don't see it too much in this episode but later on people mock Bane. Dr. Psycho gets into all out brawls in the middle of the road instead of you know, using his mind powers to mess with people. Killer Shark is a happy go lucky computer guy. Penguin is now Jewish and has a family, Two-Face blindly follows orders from Joker? The episodes skew themselves to now be both showing a family of crime that all get along and hang out at Bar Mitzvah's together, and also be a glass ceiling for our wannabe feminist to smash? It's weird. Especially seeing Damian nerfed so hard. I mean, no one really likes Damian but he grows on you, and he was good in the TMNT movie.

Riddler having his dopey 'Hush' question mark tattooed on his face, then reviewers claiming that they've never seem him portrayed like this before!

Ivy's house plant Frank. She has powers over plants. Why can she not just shut him up in his entitled face? (Plus, at what point does a mutated Venus fly-trap just grow in a dog park? WTF)

Joker calling Harley 'Puddin'.' Basic facts, she called HIM puddin', which he hated, and he called her (well, many things, but if he was sweet talking her he'd say:) Pumpkin, or pumpkin pie, etc.

What could have been better?

One scene that fell really flat for me was when Harley and Gordon are laughing about her being in Arkham for ages... I was already laughing because who stays in Arkham for more than a fortnight? Then Harley made it all about Batman screwing bats and Joker saving her from incarceration. I mean, there's subverting expectations and then there's missing a good joke because of it. If I'd directed this episode I would have scrubbed out Harley's dialogue after the laughter, maybe change it to something like 'As if you could keep me or anyone in that hole!" and then skip immediately to the scene showing that she'd been in Arkham for a whole six months.

Well that's the kettle calling the pot.... uh... insane. 

The bit where Batman - free of the glass container - chooses to run after Joker rather than save Harley was a bit weird. Remember in Batman Forever when Batman saves both Dr. Meridian AND Robin from falling and THEN catches the villains? Yeah, not here apparently. I am guessing that Batman figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't acid but still, not including something as to why Batman abandoned someone who may have needed help was a bit weird.

The voice acting. For the most part it was pretty good, but I have to say a lot of the characters don't seem to get all of their words across. Cuoco is particularly guilty of this - if you watch the episode with subtitles you'll realise she's 'saying' more than you actually hear. Other characters talk over each other, like Harley/Ivy and Riddler in Arkham and you can miss the good joke because the other two are so loud. Sometimes characters just talk too quickly. There's nothing wrong with fast paced scripts but you need people who can pull them off without losing anything. Cuoco isn't bad, but her accent is few and far between and her voice can get a bit shrill and irritating at times.. OH just like the Big Bang Theory! Ha!~

As always - the new Harley outfit. This time, my quarrel is with why they went with this one. Earlier in the episode, she said she wants to be a figure of terror in Gotham and wanting people to know her name, then she immediately changes her outfit and look so as to be nearly unrecognisable. In this universe, the acid bath apparently still happens, but it's in the time frame of when she was going fairly steady with Joker and wearing her classic outfit. We also get an introduction as to why she now prefers the baseball bat to her hammer - which is a stupid choice but I get it, it makes sense here - so why not show how she came to this new outfit? I feel like they should have tried to make it something more unique, and not just copy the Suicide Squad or the standalone Harley comic look. Like Ivy is normally wearing nothing but here she's got a great new outfit and it's amazing. With Harley it's like - well, you're single and so empowered, get back in those hot pants and thigh highs!

And then I did this to myself, for some reason. 

The violence. I like violence. When done right. This violence, as per the language, is just there to 'shock'.... somehow, if you've like never seen blood before. There's a whole scene where Harley is talking to Ivy while she's beating up Arkham guards, tearing off ears, getting her nose broken and what not. And it's not explained why this is happening. No one is going for Ivy, so it's not as if it's a breakout situation. No one appears to be trying to medicate her. They could have just locked her in between these two gates and starved her out but they apparently want to make her look more bad ass and spill blood for some reason. Also, why is she wearing her costume in Arkham so many months in? Eew. We get a similar scene at the Joker hideout where she has to take down a dozen Joker goons and it's played pretty much the same.

The time frame. Batman mythology sits in a funny place somewhere between timeless 1920's ish and super technologically advanced. This is probably because when you add a definite time frame, technology and some pop culture to the narrative, it gets dated REAL fast. 

In this episode we have Joker stressing out over the wi-fi password, and Ivy starting a whole dialogue about just texting her what food Harley wants from the Thai. I don't know if the last one was supposed to be 'whoa, this is so out of place, Harley just destroyed Joker's hideout and now they're taking food orders... whaaaaaaaaaat that's LOL random!' but it didn't get a laugh out of me, it just made me annoyed at people who do that in real life. There's no escapism here. 

BONUS PANEL!

Because every Harley needs to have a colouring error sometime. 

The Short End of the Jester Schtick

Well I have mixed feelings. I feel let down because every review I read, and all the trailer and hype I saw made it look as though this show would be balls to the wall funny but it wasn't. And it really should have been. Maybe it was because this episode is focused on the break up or the show is just finding it's feet but I don't think that's the case because the show spent waay too much time on things they thought were funny - but it just didn't work out that way. 

I liked that Poison Ivy is more of a friend to Harley and clearly interested in guys, although I'm not ruling out they're going to ruin this later on and turn them both miraculously bi in favour of ruining one of the best friendships DC had to offer that wasn't a bromance. 

The show's fine if you have half an hour to spend and don't want to think about the content too deeply but if you really want funny adult entertainment, stick to Archer or something because they can actually do it right.