Friday, August 19, 2022

My Review of Harley Quinn's 3x06: "Joker: The Killing Vote"

 

Written by Conner Shin
Directed by Joonki Park

Joker: "I'm running for Mayor."

Remember back in the second season where both Harley and Ivy sat an episode out and the focus was on Batman getting back into the game. Well, this time around, it's about the Joker and his newfound political ambitions. Yes really.

Joker has settled into a relationship with Bethany and seems to genuinely see her children, Sophia and Benicio as his own, so he wanted the best for the best for them. The best being a dual lingo programme that Debbie stood in the way of for his step children.

The old Joker would've killed Debbie without thinking twice about it. This Joker instead decided to run for Mayor and posed enough of a threat to Gordon's mess of a campaign that Two-Face had to kidnap Benicio in order to get the Joker to drop out of. The Joker chose family over political ambition until Gordon basically handed him a win.

Simply put, with minimal efforts, some street parties with cash to give away and Gordon being just utterly useless, it was an easy win for Joker. After all, Gotham has had worse mayors and he's a changed man, right? Surely nothing can go wrong with this choice.

As for Harley and Ivy, they're back from New Orleans, worse for wear and seemingly no closer in their quest to find Frank. Of course there are four remaining episodes left this season to bring that storyline to a conclusion, so I didn't mind it being on the back burner this week.

- We got some clear shades/dialogue from Batman 89, The Dark Knight and Joker here. Debbie's a bigger pain for Joker than Batman was.
- Even Barbara thought that Joker could do a better job as the Mayor than her own father. Unsurprisingly enough, Two-Face did kill the former mayor.
- The title is a play on a certain comic and the third act of the episode somewhat subverts that comic too. 
- Chronology: Four days since Harley and Ivy's adventures in New Orleans.

Joker: The Killing Vote not only gave us a bit of a breather from the main plot this season but had a lot of fun with the sitcom aspect of Joker's new life to boot. For a character who has been overexposed a lot and will continue to do so, this was the most inventive someone has been with him for a while now.

Rating:8 out of 10

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