IR TV Review: HARLEY QUINN - EPISODE 3 ("Trapped") [Warner Brothers Animation-S2]
The pressures of being Harley Quinn are an important progression in the ideals of what "Harley Quinn" is as a series. Harley wants to be her own girl but this episode ("Trapped") further deepens to the aspect of identity but also connection. The crux of the episode is more about Poison Ivy (played by Lake Bell) than Harley. Like "Birds Of Prey", it is seeing who everyone else is what helps "you" deconstruct yourself per se but also balance whether "you" are a follower, a leader or something in between. Ivy wants to live up to the texture of Catwoman being independent but doesn't reaaize that Selina Kyle only relaxes when no one is around which can probably bottle up. Harley by comparison is a little psycho so her logic doesn't really play into it. However she too wants to make sure what she is doing is right in her mind. She just doesn't understand why normal people like Ivy have hangups.
That is why the boyfriend subplot with Plant Guy and Ivy is so funny at times because it forces Harley to come face-to-face with her compassion, like it or not. The plot here, which is circumspect at best, has Harley wanting to steal a plasma flame thrower so she can go take down Mr. Freeze who caused her grief. This however gets lost in the melee before heading to a nice blood drenched sunset. However it is more the comedy or errors going through Sy Borgman (voiced by Jason Alexander) and his lair that helps with the fun. As the show goes on, despite all the carnage and bad puns, an essence ironically enough of existential angst in New Gotham is seemingly creeping in, because there becomes the ideas of the alpha and the beta and in a world of villainy, where there is no balance.B
By Tim Wassberg