What They Say:
While Harley & Ivy deal with their post-kiss awkwardness, the President tells Gordon that he must get rid of Harley to put Gotham back on the map.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Spend the last episode with the whole judge and jury bit and throwing our leads into the pit was certainly fun. Bane getting center stage has a certain kind of delight to it as I’m enjoying the way they’re messing with the character here. I haven’t read him in comics since Gail Simone’s Secret Six run when he was there so I’m more than fun with doing something really amusing with him. The show also moved things forward with Gordon and his daughter with her revealing herself to be Batgirl and him getting things together to finally deal with crime in the city. It’s a good take back Gotham moment and a good parent moment – in a way – that helps to push their relationship in a new direction. Gordon’s been amusing across the board but it’ll be welcome to get back to a more proactive one, and hone that hopefully whines about his wife less.
Unfortunately for Gordon, his attempt at getting Gotham back into America has hit the Harley wall. The president is fine with it but while Gordon has dealt with the Injustice League he hasn’t dealt with one of them, namely Harley herself. And while Gordon does try to play down her importance, it’s the sticking point that forces his hand to go after her. Harley, on the other hand, is just struggling with Ivy after their kiss at the end of the last episode and just how weird it was between them and how it doesn’t really mean anything even though it does. Neither wants to deal with it since they don’t want to ruin their friendship, which is an expected easy way to try and have the best of both worlds here, And Harley doesn’t want to impact Ivy’s upcoming nuptials with Kite-Man either, who is blissfully unaware of what’s happened. I totally get why this will frustrate a good segment of fans of both characters, myself included, but this is where the show has intended to stick for some time.
This episode works a lot of material into it as we get Ivy meeting Kite-Man’s parents and running into all sorts of trouble there. Harley spends the first half trying to distract herself from the kiss and spends time kissing others a bunch to achieve that. Gordon’s trying to rally everyone to his side from the citizenry in town with a rally while completely weaponed up. And Barbara is doing her best to try and stop her father from doing this, to the point of warning Harley as well. So what does the episode need? How about Darkseid making an appearance as Harley and her gang show up there to try and borrow an army from him. Darkseid is wonderful here in his monologuing which Harley obviously doesn’t like and I’m just excited to see him involved here and presented so well. And to make it even better, he says the price of the army is to take on Granny Goodness.
In Summary:
Everything is ramping up in a big way that the show managed to do well in the first season with the Joker and his takeover of Gotham. And its resulting destruction. Bringing that into play here with Gordon forced to goa after Harley and having her go through an anime-style transformation sequence as she takes on a new army is just a moment of brilliance. We do get a kind of creative way of ending it and giving Gordon his win, but it’s that mixed kind of ending because of Harley hiding her true feelings. There’s a lot of bloodshed and chaos in this episode and a whole lot going on but it’s a busy and thoroughly engaging episode.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: DC Universe
