Harley Quinn’s Latest Episode Is All About Batman

Another new episode of Harley Quinn hit the DC Universe streaming site today, but it’s a little different from the other episodes of the animated series. At the end of the first season, Harley and her crew managed to take down the Joker, and Batman disappeared in the process. He was thought to be dead by the people of Gotham, but he finally returned this week in an episode that was all about him. In fact, Harley and her pals weren’t even featured in “Batman’s Back Man.” In a hilariously meta move, the episode opened with two nerdy dudes debating whether or not to watch the episode, criticizing the show as being for “12-year-old girls” and “a tsunami of virtue signaling”. Once they realize the episode is all about Batman, they decide to give it a chance.

In “Batman’s Back Man,” Bruce Wayne wakes up to discover that Gotham has been left in shambles. Unfortunately, Bruce is still injured and unable to continue his superhero duties. The Dark Knight struggles with this fact, upset to learn that Batgirl has been fighting crime using his symbol. Batman decides to confront Batgirl, and during the encounter, she posts that he’s back on social media, which causes him to take action. He recruits Lucius Fox to build him a new suit, which ends up being a great Iron Man parody.

Unfortunately, the new suit doesn’t work out as planned, and the hero is nearly killed by Bane and some of Two-Face’s goons. Luckily, he’s saved by Batgirl and The Macaroni, who ends up being Alfred’s superhero alter-ego. After being further injured, Batman finally accepts that he’s unable to help Gotham, and introduces Jim Gordon to the city’s newest hero: Batgirl. (Of course, Jim doesn’t know the new vigilante is actually his daughter.)

Recently, the series’ executive producers, Patrick Schumacker and Justin Halpern had a chat with ComicBook’s JK Schmidt about the current season and teased a flashback episode that could change everything for Harley, Poison Ivy, and the Joker. “We also get to do a really cool flashback episode that’s a bit of an homage to Batman: The Animated Series, while also retelling and reframing Harley’s origin story with both the Joker and her original acquaintance with Ivy. And we turn that on its ear a little bit. There’s a big revelation that a lot of the feelings that Harley had for the Joker maybe shouldn’t have been. That maybe a lot of those were based on lies and I’ll leave it at that,” Schumacker shared.

New episodes of Harley Quinn debut Fridays exclusively on DC Universe.