Harley Quinn: Season 3

 

Based on: Harley Quinn DC comics character created by Paul Dini & Bruce Timm

Developed by: Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker and Dean Lorey

Starring: Kaley Cuoco (Harley Quinn), Lake Bell (Poison Ivy), Alan Tudyk (Joker & Clayface), Ron Funches (King Shark), Tony Hale (Dr. Psycho), Jason Alexander (Sy Borgman) 

Kinda like Castlevania, this show is far too crude and explicit for my taste.... but it keeps me going with its excellent writing and humor that actually appeals to me. 

Some scenes do get to be too much for me, especially this season when Harley walked through an actual orgie, complete moans and groans. Thankfully that didn't last too long and neither has any other really bad scene. Otherwise, it actually has pretty smart humor and genuinely good character development, especially in Harley herself. 

Harley and the team in their headquarters 

The only thing that's really upset me about this show is that going into this season, we knew that Poison Ivy would be breaking up with her fiancé Kite Man and getting together with Harley. Kite Man and Ivy had strong development and the show spent the first two seasons setting them up and slowly having Ivy fall in love with him. I really appreciated their relationship because Kite Man (appropriate to his lame, unknown title) was a lower-tier villain who was naïve and not devious--pretty much the opposite of Ivy. So when Ivy began to really fall in love with him, it was in spite of herself, and it was a sweet, genuine love that revealed new things about herself. So when they decided to tear her away from Kite Man and set her up with Harley, it felt like undoing a lot of genuine, earned development. I also don't think Harley complemented Ivy as well as Kite Man did, since Harley is just as brutal and chaotic as Ivy can be. 

But now that it's happened, what's the use in continuing to complain? The writers have stated that they're not going to break Harley & Ivy up or make anything too drastic happen to their relationship, and I can definitely appreciate that. Since they've already broken Ivy away from a serious, solid relationship once, I'm definitely glad they're not going to do it again. And more than that, I'm happy they're going to try and depict a more healthy and wholesome relationship. 

Harley and Ivy sneaking into a secret meeting of the Court of Owls, a covert supervillain organization

They also travel to visit Swamp Thing so Ivy could seek his help accessing the Green, a telepathic force connecting all plants. Swamp Thing is traditionally a hero, so that made the dynamic interesting

That aside, and a lot of realism aside, I've really enjoyed the development of this show. I've especially loved the whole premise of independence that Harley gained within this series. Its entire plot has centered on her breaking up from Joker (for real) since it was a very abuse, unhealthy relationship, and becoming her own person. The first season dived deep into that, including depicting a lot of the psychology involved, a near relapse, and a great, wholesome relationship with her then-best friend Ivy. 

I've also been impressed with the show's depiction of its heroes. In staying true to its own lore, the show hasn't been interested in nerfing its heavy-hitter and beloved characters like the Justice League or the bat-family. Yet it still needed to have Harley come out on top, pave her own way as an independent character, and allow for us as viewers to root for her success even though she's a villain leading a team of villains. And the show has.... been successful. In all of that. I'm a major fan of the most heavy-hitting characters in DC like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, and I don't feel like they've done them any disservice or depicted them as too weak. It's been trickier with the bat-family since Batman and Nightwing should canonically be able to outmaneuver Harley pretty easily. In some instances, the show has solved this by giving Harley a goal that some of the bat-family has been sympathetic to, turning them into temporary allies. In fact, this latter solution was employed in the season finale, paving the way for a more interesting idea in season 4: Harley questioning her role as a villain and whether she's more aligned with heroes. Simultaneously, they gave Ivy the opposite arc: she pulled of a crime so impressive that top-tier supervillains are offering her positions in their ranks. I'm genuinely interested in how that dynamic will proceed. 

Harley reluctantly reaming up with Batgirl

The writers haven't given us any idea what to expect for the next season, but I'm sure it'll be just as raunchy, ridiculously violent, witty, and deeply emotional as all these previous ones have been.