The second half of Harley Quinn’s initial season has been a rocky trip for most of the cast. Where we left off last, Harley finally made it into the Legion of Doom, but she lost her crew and Ivy’s friendship in the process. Ivy herself managed to get in over her head and get captured, and things aren’t looking great for anyone. Now Harley has to try and get everyone together again and go rescue Ivy. The minor plot hole of why she never asks the Legion for help is never addressed as we eventually end up on the earlier-mentioned “Harley Quinn Highway.”

The opening scene shows Ivy in captivity. She’s definitely a bad-ass, but the deck is seriously stacked against her. She almost gets free, but falls to the villain behind her capture. There is a great line about who the supervillains consider to be the real villains nowadays, and I can’t say I completely disagree. Outside, Harley scans the facility where Ivy’s being held, and it appears a solo strike is just not going to work. She considers it anyway, but Frank the plant offers some decent advice, and Harley reluctantly sets off to find her crew and get some help.

 

No one particularly wants to see Harley, but the gang has a soft spot for Ivy, and they agree to help the imprisoned plant-lady, not the crazy clown. After some comic relief from Sy, they end up with a decent undercover way to get inside the base. This almost fails after all, but Gus the Guard, who had a decent-sized role last episode, foils the security precautions, falling for the cover story. The gang does the old capture guards and steal uniforms bit, but no one there is exactly of the common body type for thuggish goons, and this part doesn’t go as well.

 

Inside, Ivy gets villain monologed at, and is utterly unimpressed. Relying to much on her innate abilities, Ivy is cocky, and then finds out her foe is smarter than she gave credit for, sending Ivy off on a bad trip. Almost in spite of themselves, the gang finds Ivy after she’s been left alone, and repeat the journey into the mind we saw earlier when the crew had to wake up Harley from a catatonic state. It’s a weird series of scenes, and no one is happy about leaving Sy in the real world to guard their vulnerable bodies, considering how that worked out last time. Eventually, they find Ivy, fight through some of her traumas, and are shocked to find out what Ivy’s biggest fear is.

 

Eventually returning to the real world, they see what Sy has been up to while they were all in Ivy’s head. For some reason or other, they all decide they must stop the current villainous plot, whether out of a fondness for Gotham City or just to mess with the ones behind Ivy’s kidnapping isn’t clear. It is a bit odd that a collection of supervillains embark on a heroic goal where there’s really nothing in it for them. We also see that the villain in question isn’t acting alone, although Ivy finds a sort of silver, well, more green, lining to that information. What we end up with is a really wild truck chase through the city. Several episodes ago, Harley blackmailed the city into creating Harley Quinn Highway, which turns out to be a cross between a life-size Hot Wheels track, stunt car course, and video game set up come to life. As Harley puts it, “I’m regretting some of my creative choices about now.”

 

With some 80’s references and a rather grotesque transformation, they manage to stop at least most of the bad guys. Um, worse guys? There’s a lot of mayhem along the way, and Harley pressing Ivy for some answers about what they saw inside Ivy’s head. Ivy finally snaps and tells Harley the truth, which Harley isn’t really equipped for. The villainous plot at least partially succeeds, and there are some grotesque action scenes to leave (or leaf) us on a big cliffhanger.

What I liked: The overall humor is entertaining. Between the writing and the vocal performances, I absolutely believe in the friendship between Harley and Ivy, and Harley’s desperation to fix it. The gang not wanting to deal with Harley again makes sense. All the crew get some good lines, but, as usual, Tudyk’s Clayface and Funches’ King Shark are scene-stealers. The reveal of Ivy’s biggest fear made a lot of sense.

 

What I didn’t: As I’ve said several times, I’m not a big fan of the random blood splatter. Why Harley didn’t ask for help from the Legion of Doom makes sense eventually, but she couldn’t have known about that at the beginning of the episode. I’m sort of curious about why they all charged off to stop the bad guys, and would have liked at least a line or two about why they’re doing it.

 

The show continues to be amusing, even with a few holes and such as I mentioned above. I’ll give this a solid 3 out of 5.