Inside Harley Quinn.
What They Say:
When Harley suffers a paralyzing identity crisis, her crew must enter Harley’s mind to free her with the help of Dr. Psycho’s telepathic powers.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The cold open for this episode is a delight simply for the fact that it takes Harley and Ivy through a few different locations to check out evil lairs for Harley. She’s not exactly sure what her brand is at this point based on the lairs that they’re showing her and this makes a lot of sense considering the way her life has changed. When the questioning gets harder back at Ivy’s place – where Ivy has just now been kicked out by her landlord – Harley ends up completely broken by trying to figure it out. The reality is a given even before heading into her mind with Dr. Psycho in that so much of her identity is wrapped up in the Joker even as other things are vying for attention (such as her crew wearing Suicide Squad t-shirts). It’s a quick trip to get them into Harley’s mind while she remains frozen and the truth of her reality comes to life.
While the show opens with the “museum” aspect that’s hilarious in herself, especially her graduation, I love how Dr. Psycho phrases it in that they have to follow stripper rules – absolutely no touching. Harley makes it clear that there are no real rules in here and the whole thing goes on lockdown before they realize it, trapping them all inside her head. And battling with her inner-Harley, such as her little girl self that was pretty psycho and violence because of her upbringing. Watching the crew tear them apart as they get attacked by them is comical since it’s such basic violence on little kids. All of this combined with the landlord looking to burn their bodies in the real world means that they’ve got a limited window in which to get through all of this and out of her head before they’re really dead. Familiar stakes that won’t make any real impact but it seres to keep them hustling.
There’s a lot of fun to be had in going through all the different parts of Harley’s mind, especially its Joker fixation which is thankfully cut short, but when she thinks there may be a real clue on Repressed Memory Island with her origin story. With Harley wanting to own herself and what she’s capable of, working through some of her past is definitely necessary. And with the rest of the group fully on her side as she’s done well by them, it’s a good bit of fun to see them all work together – including teenage Frankie Munoz. What it really takes us to is to that critical moment of her origin where Harley always thought she was pushed in by the Joker, that none of it was her choice. The reality is that she went in all on her own because it was what she wanted. But what we see is that Harley is intent on this not being her real origin story. What she wants is the moment where she quit him and chose her own path in his lair at the start of the series. That’s the new origin of Harley and it works well for her to separate from that other life.
In Summary:
As chaotic as some of the past episodes have been, this one feels it even more so. And for good reason, what with delving into the mind of one Ms. Harley Quinn. It works well to help her in her own way redefine her origin story to what she wants it to be and make a more formal separation with the Joker that makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of silliness abound with her past and how her inner mind works and I enjoyed seeing that play out both with her crew and while Cy is outside with Black Mamba attempting to dispose of the bodies since they look dead. There are a ton of hilarious one-liners in this one that really push the limits but they work well and that kind of boundary-pushing makes for some great laughs. The show is still firing on all cylinders and with a lair now established, and the crew a touch bigger, all the potential in the world is there for Harley.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: DC Universe