Monday, December 30, 2019

My Review of Harley Quinn's 1x05: "Being Harley Quinn"

Written by Adam Stein
Directed by Juan Meza-Leon

Harley: "You didn't make me, Joker. I made myself."
Joker: "But you can't change your memories. This isn't Eternal Sunshine rules."

Ah, for the fifth episode, let's take a trip into the murky mind of one Harleen Quinzel, shall we? If you wanted a retooling of Harley's origin story, then no better than what this episode attempts to do and pulls off rather well.

With the stress of trying to find a new lair upon Sy Borgman turfing out Ivy and company out of the apartment, Harley goes into a catatonic state and it's up to Dr Psycho and everyone else to venture into Harley's mind in order to bring her around.

The trip into Harley's mind isn't too shocking if you've read any variation of Mad Love or watched the animated episode from 1999. Throw in some New 52 and Suicide Squad movie origins and it's more of a case of subverting things around by the time we get to the moment where Harley realised that she was in charge of her destiny the whole time.

Before that though, we saw a glimpse into Harley's family life, her bratty/stalkerish beginnings, her academic career and of course meeting a certain pale faced, green haired menace who admittedly she's not quite as over as she'd like to be.

Of course, then Harley went and subverted everything by "changing" her origin, thus breaking everyone out of being trapped in her mind and nearly incinerated by Sy Borgman and his female friend. Then the episode ended with Harley getting a new lair and a new member to her every expanding crew so things continue to mostly go well for her.

- Frankie Muniz appeared in this episode as himself and the object of a younger Harleen's affections. Restraining orders be damned on that one.
- I love that Ivy struggled to come up with even one negative for King Shark when trying to motivate him to help Harley.
- Five episodes in and can we please rest the Joker for at least one episode now? I mean this episode definitely needed him but I want at least two or three in the series without him.
- Chronology: Not long from where the last one left off.

Being Harley Quinn had fun with subverting some established origin lore and while it wasn't the most original look into Harley's psyche, it was definitely a lot of fun nonetheless. Hopefully though we see more of the Legion of Doom and Harley's crew making some bigger strides in their criminal aspirations.

Rating: 8 out of 10

No comments: