Season 3 of Harley Quinn ended with Harley (Kaley Cuoco) trying to transition from antihero to full-on hero by working with the Bat Family while her partner Poison Ivy (Lake Bell) moved in the opposite direction by becoming CEO of the Legion of Doom. Unsurprisingly, that shift puts a strain on both Harley and Ivy’s relationship and the show itself. While there are still plenty of great moments in the first nine episodes of Season 4, the change of dynamics makes the series feel uneven as some plots and characters with big potential are cut short while others feel unfortunately thin.
The season starts strong, poking fun at the glass cliff as Lex Luthor (Giancarlo Esposito) leaves Ivy in charge of an unruly boys club uninterested in her plans for socially responsible evil. Meanwhile Harley has to stop a serial killer by using Nightwing’s incredible butt as bait. Talia al Ghul is a brilliant addition to the ensemble given that – true to her double agent status in both the comics and Batman: The Animated Series – she can move seamlessly between the world of supervillainy and the Batcave with a regal confidence similar to the show’s version of Catwoman (Sanaa Lathan), who is sadly missing in action this season. It certainly seems like Talia’s got a big scheme going on that will presumably come to fruition in the Season 4 finale, but it’s a shame there aren’t more scenes devoted to her, because she provides vital connective tissue between the two sides of the plot, dressing down the Bat Family while boosting Ivy’s confidence as a villainous leader.
Harley Quinn is often at its best a quirky hangout show, a dynamic that’s been fractured with the disintegration of Harley’s gang. Alan Tudyk continues to do an incredible job riffing on Mark Hamill’s portrayal of the Joker – who, like Harley, is struggling with the heel-face turn he’s made in order to become Gotham’s new mayor – but Tudyk’s Clayface is only in one of the first nine episodes of Season 4 and his grandiose comedy is sorely missed. King Shark (Ron Funches) remains endearingly goofy, but Frank the Plant (J.B. Smoove) isn’t making nearly as big a deal as he should about Ivy ignoring him.
This season gives more screentime to characters who just aren’t nearly as funny as the core ensemble. Mr. Freeze’s widow Nora Fries (Rachel Dratch) has been elevated to main cast as Ivy’s rude and fairly incompetent assistant, a role that comes off as a shallow imitation of Cheryl Tunt from Archer. Damian Wayne (Jacob Tremblay) continues to be hilarious in his warped version of childish petulance, but Nightwing (Harvey Guillen) is such a straight man that the writers have to turn to embarrassing him for laughs.
An episode where Harley has to coach the Bat Family in fighting without weapons is the season’s low point, especially when compared to last season’s far sharper Harley/Bat Family team-up in the Riddler’s escape room. Only Alfred (Tom Hollander) really benefits from the larger focus on the Bat Family this season, having some surprisingly sweet moments with Harley as he tries to train her before embarking on a ridiculously convoluted scheme to help the jailed Bruce Wayne (Diedrich Bader).
While Harley’s plots focus on getting the Bat Family to accept her, Ivy’s zip around too much. A supervillain convention on the moon has some great visual gags involving the mind-controlling alien starfish Starro and a warped sex scene involving Lex and Talia that feels like it would have been at home in The Boys. But the episode wastes time on easy jabs at Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and building up a swiftly dropped connection between Ivy and Darkseid’s lieutenant, Steppenwolf.
Instead, Ivy is pulled into a plot about the perils of focusing on social media fame at the expense of fostering real relationships, paralleled by Harley trying to be a hero so hard that it hurts her already fragile mental health. Both characters losing themselves without each other is powerful stuff, but Ivy’s struggles are tied up too neatly and quickly, shoved aside in favor of boardroom politics that are explicitly meant to mock Succession.
Yet Harley Quinn remains wildly ambitious and audacious. Season 4 is trying to blend together two of the most notorious Batman storylines, though it seems like it will be tough for the show to wrap them up in a single episode. Bane (James Adomian) remains one of the show’s biggest highlights, and the continuing saga of the pasta maker he bought Ivy for her canceled wedding is the show at its absurdist best.
The animation remains meticulously detailed, filled with blink and you’ll miss it gags like Calendar Man’s (Tudyk) cape sporting the numbers from Lost or Two Face (Andy Daly) partying with Sugar and Spice from Batman Forever. The writers show off their extensive knowledge of DC Comics lore with absurd situations like The Flash (Scott Porter) pulling out a portable Cosmic Treadmill to help Harley time travel as a prank. Even when there are missteps, the show still feels like an earnest love letter to the source material.
