Harley Quinn: Devil’s Snare Review
On this week’s episode of Harley Quinn, Devil’s Snare, Harley (voiced by Kaley Cuoco) deal with the fallout of Scarecrow’s (voiced by Rahul Kohil) mutated scare toxin that’s created mutant trees who are turning Gotham into a total bloodbath.
With the mutated trees slaughtering every civilian in sight and Ivy (voiced by Lake Bell) being unable to control them, things are looking pretty grim and get even worse when the Justice League shows up to save the day. Although it’s cool to see Green Lantern go in swashbuckling action with a sword and Superman (voiced by James Wolk) using his heat vision to decimate all the mutant trees, Harley and Ivy aren’t impressed – especially with Wonder Woman’s (voiced by Vanessa Marshall) clunky bracelets. When all the surrounding evil trees are destroyed, all eyes are on Harley and her crew and the Justice League think that Ivy is responsible for this. To punish them, Superman decides that they should be sent to the Phantom Zone to exist there forever and the League seems to have this odd obsession with trapping people in places forever – first the Queen of Fables (voiced by Wanda Sykes) and now them. With some quick thinking though, Ivy uses Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth to prove their innocence and the real villain walks into frame – the Queen of Fables.

Looking for revenge against the League for imprisoning her in the U.S. Tax Code for year, Fables returns the favor by sucking them into her book of Fables and that’s not all the revenge she seeks. She then turns her attention to Harley and her crew and sends them up a towering beanstalk to be killed by the “big dick” giant waiting at the top. The fight sequence between the crew and the giant is actually a lot of fun with Clayface (voiced by Alan Tudyk) being stepped on like gum and Ivy picking now to tell Harley that she’s dating Kite-Man (voiced by Matt Oberg) after she calls him to have him rescue them. The scene of her calling him is hilarious as he’s designing a new kite and boy does her really come through. He expertly blinds the one-eyed giant with a packet of hot sauce he found in his pants and saves everyone as they tumble through the air. You’ve never seen Kite-Man be so effective and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Hell Yeah!
Making to the ground isn’t much better, though, as there’s still plenty of mutant trees wreaking havoc in Gotham. Watching this all unfold, Commissioner Gordon (voiced by Christopher Meloni) is losing his mind and we end up seeing him and Batman (voiced by Diedrich Bader) having a bit of a dispute over how to handle it. While Gordon’s ready to roll out the tanks that tax-payers are paying for and blow up the entire park, Batman wants Gordon to be more tactical about things and go find Scarecrow, who’s apparently still alive, to stop the toxin. It’s a really funny scene with Batman being sick of craziness and Gordon ranting about Jazz festivals and tanks. It’s perfect. It’s even more perfect when Gordon goes against Batman’s wishes and starts to roll tanks into Gotham to take care of the trees. Unfortunately, Gordon’s dreams are cut short when Harley takes over her tank and heads towards the Legion of Doom building to blow it up. However, once she’s locked and loaded, the building suddenly explodes, and a giant tower emerges from the ground with the face of Harley’s true enemy – The Joker (also voiced by Tudyk).

Teaming up with Fables, Joker is ready to unleash chaos into Gotham, but he can do that with Harley still around, so he decides to have Fables finish her off. Pissed that her giant couldn’t do the job, Fables sends out her favorite creature, the wolf posing as a grandmother, to slaughter the group. As the group runs away, Clayface literally wings it and transforms into a grandpa wolf, who is Jewish for some reason, and calm the wolf down. It obviously doesn’t work, and it seems like things are coming to a bloody end for Harley. However, Harley surprises Fables when King Shark (voiced by Ron Funches) eats all of its organs and Harley hides in the carcass to basically pull off a Trojan Wolf. Things end in a very surprising fashion with Harley knocking Fables’ head off and killing her in one swift swing. It’s literally a surprise to everyone and brutally bloody finish for a strong season villain.
So, while Fables might be gone, there’s still plenty of mutated trees left and Joker’s tower is still standing. Seeing that there’s a waterspout still spewing the toxin that made the plants huge, Ivy decides that she should go and drink the water so that she can become more powerful to take out all the trees. Before she does that, Kite-Man decides to profess his love for her and even proposes to her. Now, while I love the Ivy/Kite-Man relationship, I can’t help but feel like it’s all moved to fast for this moment to feel satisfying. I mean I almost pegged him as being behind everything because he’s been absent for so long, so even though this proposal scene is very sweet, it just feels so rushed. Ivy clearly feels the same way as she just leaves him hanging and drinks up the toxic. In nearly an instant, Ivy grows to colossal size and Psycho (voiced by Tony Hale) hilariously reveals his fetish with incredibly tall women.

With this new power, Ivy goes to work dismembering every tree that attacks her – even though she doesn’t want to. The entire sequence of her apologetically beating down and ripping apart trees is great, and she even has time to save Harley from falling to her death. There’s a nice heart to heart between the two before things take a heartbreaking turn as Joker sends a harpoon through Ivy’s chest and kills her. While I don’t really think that this is the end for Ivy, the scene is still incredibly emotional and beautifully animated with white flowers sprouting around her. It’s even sadder with everyone crowding around her and sets up a strong finale with everyone having a motivation to take on the Joker.
Devil’s Snare is absolute chaos in the best way possible. There’s plenty of great action as Harley and her crew take on mutated trees and Fables, a strong culmination of everything that’s been building over the course of the season, and emotional blows that set up what looks to be a crazy finale with The Final Joke.
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