1x01 'Til Death Do Us Part

[9.0/10] Wow! What a debut! I’m lte to the party, so I had some sense of what to expect from Harley Quinn, but still, this wowed me with its fresh take on the title character, the world of Batman, and what a superhero show can be.

What’s most impressive about “‘TIl Death Do Us Part” is the way it clearly understands the core characters and their relationship, while updating them for the modern era in a seamless way. The abusive nature of the relationship between Joker and Harley was there practically from the jump. Batman: The Animated Series, the show from which Harley sprung thanks to Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, even featured an episode where Ivy helps Harley break her vicious cycle with Joker. So by centering this first episode on that same story, Harley Quinn is true to the source material.

But at the same time, “‘TIl Death Do Us Part” feels different. Joker’s brand of manipulation and gaslighting and neglect are all more modern. His lies and broken promises and subtle digs have the character of a bad boyfriend in the 202s rather than the 1990s. So when he tells Harley he doesn’t want to disrupt their “You do your thing and I do mine” dynamic when he’s clearly stepping into her light, or frames leaving her to rot in Arkham for a year as him keeping her safe from Gordon and Batman trying to go after him, there’s a modern flavor to it that makes this story relatable for now, not just when those characters started.

To that end, I love the show’s sympathy for Harley. On the one hand, it recognizes her as capable. I love the way the core arc of the character here is going from wanting to step into the frontlines of the rogues gallery as Joker's partner, to realizing she can be a top notch villain all on her own. There’s something metatextual about that, s Harley headlines her own television show for the first time (give or take Gotham Girls), and it vindicates her as a player worthy of stepping out of the Joker’s considerable shadow.

At the same time though, it vindicates her as smart and capable, even if she falls into traps. Not only do you recognize the signs of her stumbling into familiar traps, but she herself does. Like all destructive relationships, she’s drawn by the thrills and the promises that come from a “bad boy” like Joker. But when forced to really consider it as a psychologist, and not just a paramour, she’s incisive enough to see it as an abusive co-dependency with no future. This isn’t a Harley who needs to be saved; it’s a Harley who just needs to be shown that she’s fully capable of saving herself.

That’s why my favorite character in the early going is Poison Ivy. Lake Bell plays her with a vaguely Daria-esque disposition, and she serves as the relatable voice of reason in all of this. She recognizes both Harley’s delusions and destructive patterns, but also that she’s a sharp, talented person who needs to see her own potential and not sacrifice it on the altar of someone who’s never going to nurture it. Their dynamic already hints at some coupling in the offing, but more than the plain chemistry between them, I appreciate how Ivy sees that potential because Hrley Quinn, the insightful psychiatrist, helped her. Now, she just wants Harley to help herself. That's a sweet way to kick things off.

It’s also a bloody one. I’ll admit, s someone whose exposure to D.C. comics cartoons comes from the occasionally boundary-pushing but largely all ages-friendly confines of the D.C. Animated Universe and its spiritual successors, it’s still a bit of a shock to see these characters dropping F-bombs and engaging in casual bloody violence. But I don’t mind it. Cursing and gore for the sake of cursing and core aren’t my bag, and I hope the show doesn’t end up relying on those elements as a crutch. but there’s a fun, almost Looney Tunes quality to the violence that suits the material, and a verisimilitude to the way the characters sprinkle in their profanity.

That’s the other thing I really appreciate about this opening salvo. On the one hand, Harley Quinn feels like a legitimate superhero show, with the right players, the right environments, the right dynamics amongst the familiar characters. But it also feels like the D.C. Universe’s answer to How I Met Your Mother, with a “muddling through your twenties” energy between Harley and Ivy in particular that I can’t help but appreciate.

Along the way, the jokes hit more often than they miss, with fun riffs on Calendar Man’s memory for dates, Commissioner Gordon’s exasperation, and The Bat’s deadpan wit. (It doesn’t hurt to have Batman: The Brave and the Bold’s Diedrich Bader along for the ride on that front.) The Venus Flytrap-type roommate at Ivy’s place is a hoot, especially with the dark humor of his “visitors.”

Beyond the straight gags, there's a casual, conversational, and observational dynamic amongst a lot of the characters that evokes smiles of recognition. (See: Ivy asking Harley to text her Harley’s order rather than just telling her.) and while the “staging” and “shots” are solid but unspectacular in the early going, the character designs are sharp and the animation is crisp. Heck, they even come up with a good excuse for Harley to ditch her traditional costume for the modern equivalent.

That shift comes with the epiphany that Joker doesn’t love her; he loves Bmn. Honestly, I’m over the moon for that being the source of Harley’s realization. The notion that Joker’s one true “love”, so to speak, is his archnemesis, not his distaff counterpart, feels true to the mythos of the character that’s developed over the years. And the device to convey that, an attack on the Bat that left her holding a grenade as a sacrifice to defeat Joker’s rival, which she deliberately (or wishfully) misremembers as a proposal, sums up both her dreamy-eyed view of her abuser and the root of where his “affections” truly lie.

But I also love that it’s Ivy, helping to return the favor of Hrleey helping her to see herself more clearly, who engineers the epiphany. As a kid who grew up on Batman Forever, it tickled me pink to see the epiphany stem from The Riddler (Jim freakin’ Rash!) dangling Harley and Bats over pits of acid to get the Joker to choose his priority. But even better, I love it as Ivy using “her whole saturday” to orchestrate this demonstration, and help her friend see the truth about the man Harley loves, but who gets nothing but abuse and mistreatment in return.

Having Harley break through that, see who genuinely has her interests at heart, and aim to make a name for herself in the rubble of Joker’s hideout, is hell of an opening statement for the character. I don’t know where Harley Quinn goes from here. But if this initial triumph was all we got out of the show, it would more than justify the series. Here’s hoping it’s the beginning of great things, for Harley Quinn and Harley Quinn.