Harley’s at the big kids table now and things are starting to change.
What They Say:
Now a member of the Legion of Doom and The Joker’s equal, Harley finds herself spending time with him. Will she slip into her old ways?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With Harley and her crew members now of the Legion of Doom, things are getting interesting there. We have some fun with Lex basically playing it right but the way the Joker nudges into everything makes it clear that he’s going to try and mess with things. That has her crew really unsure about whether she’s going to toss them to the side but I like that she’s saying the right things and wanting to be on the right side of things here. She even makes an honest attempt at trying to reconnect with Ivy who is trying her best to keep her walls up toward Harley after what went down between them. It’s nicely done even if it plays out quicker than it should considering what was said. As a nice touch, Harley offers to help in dealing with an environmental issue of “evil” so that they can get back onto the same page.
As we get a better look at how the Legion works there’s definitely some amusing aspects to it. Harley didn’t realize that her crew – who get their own special room – can be signed out by other villains for use. The special room is basically a holding cell and they’re pretty pissed about how Bane is trying to sign them out since they work just for Harley. Harley herself is trying to understand some of the weird ways the Legion operates, such as spending the time building a tower and using funds instead of just taking one over and running with that. It’s the opening in the doorway that Joker uses to reconnect with Harley, setting up for a “work drink” to talk over the plan. There’s definitely some amusing and uncomfortable dialogue with it all and it shows more of how Harley isn’t focusing on what’s going on with her crew and dealing with her past again.
It’s easy to be frustrated by Harley being as mildly swayed as she is but more so because you see her missing out on the event she had with Ivy and phone calls from her crew that are becoming increasingly frustrated by being put in the goon pool.Of course, things end up going as you’d expect when Batman arrives on this meeting and Joker falls back into his usual routine, which reminds her of the past until he changes things up. While I know this season is going to work toward making her full and independent, watching her fall back into old rhythms when she should know better is frustrating. It’s brutal and hard to watch even as the realization kicks in for her because she’s beating herself up something fierce. You don’t want her to have to suffer like this but she made all the wrong choices once she ended up in the Legion even with Ivy warning her.
In Summary:
The subplot material for this works better in some ways than the main story if only because the main story is so familiar. I liked seeing the crew working for Bane because it’s just so terribly done and you feel for these guys having to deal with Bane. Bane’s really been quite the cut up this season and has grown on me immensely. Harley’s tale is one that really does have her hitting rock bottom when she should have known better and then to get piled on again after starting to deal with it herself. And that’s because of the fallout from what happened to them on a job gone bad. There’s some rough stuff between Ivy and Harley here and you do wish Ivy would dial it down a little but they’ve all been burned so many times…
Grade: B+
Streamed By: DC Universe