My Review of Harley Quinn's 1x03: "So You Need A Crew?"

Written by Jess Dweck
Directed by Cecilia Aranovich Hamilton

Harley (to Clayface/Doctor Psycho): "How do you feel about petty, personal vendettas?"

It's episode 3, so now seemed like a good time for Harley to actually get herself a crew and this episode certainly presented the challenges that any aspiring supervillain would have in this regard. Then again, Harley ain't a quitter.

After being upstaged by the Joker earlier in the episode over a heist involving a warhead, Ivy had to be the one to give Harley the truth about the last aspiring female supervillain - the Queen of Fables (Wanda Sykes) whose fairytale themed antics did not come to a Happily Ever After thanks to the Justice League meeting a rather cruel and unusual punishment on her.

Not to be deterred, even from a sleaze lifestyle guru like Maxie Zeus (Will Sasso), Harley managed to get at least two members on to her crew. First of all, there was misogynist extraordinaire, Doctor Psycho (Tony Hale) whose use of the C word to both Wonder Woman and Giganta (Vanessa Marshall) saw him getting kicked out of the Legion of Doom and grudgingly throwing his lot in with Harley.

Then there was Clayface (Alan Tudyk), who after Ivy and Frank the Plant might be my favourite character in this series. This episode seriously went overboard on Basil's theatricality and in the best way possible as his attempts to distract Zeus while Harley and Psycho stole from the latter were highly amusing as hell to watch. Of course, Harley is going to have to add a few more members to her crew but at least she's getting the desired results she wants in posing a threat to the Joker.

The first two episodes of this series did allude to the glass ceiling but this episode was overt about it throughout with both Harley's struggles to be taken seriously, Ivy's sage advice about female villains being tolerated to a point and of course, the whole backstory with the Queen of Fables. None of it was subtle, but it was done in a rather effective way nonetheless.

- I'm guessing Tawny is meant to be this show's stand in for the Wendy Williams Show.
- Psycho and Giganta dated until the events of this episode. We also got to see the likes of Cheetah and Felix Faust in this episode as well as Lex Luthor.
- Kite Man made another appearance and it seems that Ivy is interested in him after all.
- Chronology: Not long since the events of the second episode.

So You Need A Crew wasn't subtle on it's message on female bosses/villains but given the fun this episode had with making fools and deconstructing characters like Zeus and Psycho, it overall worked for me. Ivy continues to be the best and her little admission of love to Harley was rather sweet and understated. It does feel like they're marginally toning some of the swearing a bit. We never actually heard Psycho say the C word and yet it's impact was felt.

Rating: 8 out of 10