(9/29/09)
Harley and Ivy dramatizes the same conflict seen in the more lauded Mad Love with a more comedic finesse. To depict the Joker’s brutality and Harley’s sick attachment to him is easy when one breaks the boundaries of cartoon programming. I love Mad Love, but I feel that Harley and Ivy is more indirect about it, while at the same time being uproariously funny in all its screwball glory.
The problem for Harley seems to be that if she is to abandon the Joker, she must embrace a new extreme. Poison Ivy casts off the shackles of her sickly serious environmental awareness in favor of a lighthearted feminist mentality much in the vein of George Cukor’s comedy classic Adam’s Rib. This disregard for nuance is the perfect way to tell a story about Harley’s crisis of character. Either it is the oppression of living with the Joker, the object of her perturbed affections, or it is the unrestricted liberation of Poison Ivy’s feminism.
From the point of view of this new duo of female criminals and given the lighthearted tone, the Joker comes off as the bumbling husband, ala The Honeymooners (referenced so wonderfully later in Harlequinade), who despite his failings, simply cannot function without his dear Harley. We know that he mistreats her, but they depend on each other for basic happiness, ideologically sound alternatives be damned. This is the ideal image of their relationship, two mad people who draw security from each other.
Batman is almost an afterthought. He is little more than a catalyst that intensifies the friction between the three characters of interest. Dini almost plays it for laughs that Batman remains out of the picture until he must spring into action by necessity. Meanwhile, Poison Ivy goes toe-to-toe with the Joker, as poor Harley is caught in the middle, unsure of where she belongs. Near the end, Harley and Ivy reclaim their Thelma and Louise identities. They ride off into the night, repeating the adage that no man will stop them, only to be apprehended by Renee Montoya, whose failings thus far had constituted a pattern of comedy, which now finally breaks off.
This also marks a landmark in animation for the series. The Mechanic was the last of the AKOM shows, and Harley and Ivy is where Dong Yang started to really hit its stride. Expressionistic faces reign supreme, with a Poison Ivy who looks like a rounded forties design and a Joker whose sharp angles say much about his interior rage. Several shots clearly took great talent to storyboard and subsequently animate. This is the norm for the rest of the series.
Some say Paul Dini declined slightly when he veered from the emotional drama of Heart of Ice, in favor of more whimsical stories as this. But we forget that even comedy can speak volumes about character, and that Harley and Ivy is one of the most telling episodes about the relationship between Harley and the Joker.
The plot is that Joker has kicked Harley Quinn out of his gang, so she, soon after committing a robbery on her own, joins up with Poison Ivy. Joker, who forgets about the fact that he kicked her out after a while, has a fit when he realizes what she’s been doing without her. So basically, he gets into conflict with Ivy, while Harley is in conflict with herself over her love of the Joker, and Batman has to put everything straight. Now this is one hilarious setup, to be honest. Dini is great with situational comedy like this. Joker assumes the role of a middle-aged husband, Ivy an active feminist, and Harley an innocent girl who doesn’t know whom to align herself with. I feel, however, that some parts were played up just a little too much.
The episode starts off fantastically. I get a thrill out of watching Joker’s interactions with Harley, and Harley’s subsequent attempt at robbing a museum. But after she teams up with Ivy, the radical feminist undertones are a bit exaggerated. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely necessary and in character for Ivy to be the symbol of female dominance in regard to the story, but to invade the Gotham City Men’s Club and deliver some of the most badly written feminist dialogue just pushes it a bit. It makes the entire conflict of the episode a tad weaker as well, as Ivy feels more like a stereotype of a feminist as opposed to the real deal. I also feel that in terms of pacing, the episode really slowed down a bit about halfway through. After an exciting first act, we get a lot of loosely related scenes that fluctuate between the couple’s escapades, Harley’s loneliness without the Joker, and Joker’s rage at Harley’s absence, not to mention an actual Batman scene. But even though I feel inclined to criticize the episode for these issues, I have to say that the episode really picks up in the third act.
All of the pretty bland moments from the second act really converge on an excellent climax come the third, as not only does Joker and his goons go to the goons’ hideout to reclaim Harley, but Batman shows up to stop the whole thing. The final scenes of the episode are filled to the brim with great animation, superb character moments, and a whole lot of comedy. So much greatness transpires over the course of the last few minutes that it’s hard to list: Ivy’s well-directed body language, her kicking Joker in the groin, the full circle ending, the capture of the duo by Renee Montoya, the beautifully animated explosions, and there’s still more.
The animation in this episode is surprisingly great. It’s easily Dong Yang’s best at this point with the notable exception of ‘See No Evil’. Just going over the stills for this episode, there are so many key shots that were nailed perfectly by the studio, and which would have no doubt been ruined if Dong Yang animated the episode in its early run on the series. This seems to be the episode that marks the transition period during which Dong Yang when from mediocrity to actual greatness. All of the artistic merit about this episode is excellent, from the beautifully abstract title card to the explosive climax; easily one of the most impressive looking episodes I’ve reviewed in a while.
While there’s quite a bit about this episode that I’m not particularly fond of, it’s for the most part a really good episode. Paul Dini has certainly redeemed himself after the lackluster ‘Zatanna’.
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