I know I’ve said it before, but I’m saying it again: One thing that I absolutely love about the Harley Quinn animated series is the fact that Harley and company don’t spend episode after episode at status quo, they work towards a goal: Harley wants to be in the Legion of Doom so that she will be taken seriously by the supervillain community. This is a goal that’s always on her mind and she works her tail off for it. She improves, she recruits, she schemes…. heck, if she wasn’t a bad guy, you would almost consider her a role model.
What’s more, the work pays off. Every week, Harley and her crew have been inching closer and closer to the respect and position that she wants and, with “L.O.D.R.S.V.P.,” it looks like she might finally get her wish but it’s a prize that has a very hefty price.
Now, “L.O.D.R.S.V.P.” is as funny as all of the other episodes. Harley and Ivy always play off of each other wonderfully and the supporting characters are always a lot of fun. I was thinking as I watched this episode that, aside from Clayface who is, in my opinion, more of a caricature than a character, there isn’t a single supporting character in this show that I don’t like. King Shark is hilarious, Doctor Psycho is beautifully sarcastic and cynical but, at the same time, a character that reluctantly grows with time, and Clayface… God, he desperately needs to stop being a one-joke pony. It’s just part of the charm that makes up this show.
I’ve also said, and I’m saying again, that one thing that I love about Harley Quinn is that it’s a series about bad guys that lets the bad guys be bad guys. Harley’s not reformed and has no intention of being reformed. Does she have a moral code? Of course she does and we’ve seen where she’s willing to draw a line, but at her core, she is and always will be the villain. It’s her struggle with her place in the world and her relationship with her crew and friends that provides the drama in this show and it’s a formula that Harley Quinn is exploiting beautifully.
Everything about this silly show is working even when common sense says it shouldn’t. The show has no right to be this witty, it has no business making these tired and overexposed characters so fresh and charismatic, and the way that it mercilessly mocks and ridicules the DC Universe should be insulting, but it’s not… it’s just all in good fun.
I love the direction that this latest episode took, especially given that Harley is a little naive and doesn’t really understand that, even though she is evil, there are other types of evil that are more insidious and manipulative. Separating her from Ivy is really going to lead her down a road where she’s going to end up being used and manipulated again and I’m actually concerned for her and, yet… interested in where it might go.
Does that make me evil on a level? Probably… at least a level or two higher than where I already was.
Jason Gaston 