Harley Quinn season 4 review: The clown princess of crime reforms

If there’s one thing we come to Harley Quinn—Joker’s paramour-turned-self-empowered supervillain—for, it’s pure chaos. Most modern takes on the Batman universe are (quite literally) painted in shades of black and white; but Harley has always been a bright spot, from her pink-and-turquoise hair to her bright, madcap sense of humor to the vivid red bloodstains she leaves spattered on every wall. The only gray thing about her is her morality, which is as unpredictable as the weather and twice as destructive. One second she’s teaming with the arch-evil Darkseid to burn Gotham to the ground, and the next she’s saving Bruce Wayne from his own worst instincts.

That compelling quality has never been put to better use than in Harley Quinn, Max’s excellent animated series that puts the clown princess of crime front and center. Over the course of the show (its fourth season starts July 27), we’ve seen Harley come into her own, making her mark on Gotham—and abandoning her obsession with her abusive ex in favor of a loving, raunchy relationship with her “BFF, GFF” Poison Ivy.

At the end of last season, Harley (Kaley Cuoco) realized that she wanted to cut out the “anti-” and just be a hero, full stop; so she joins Batman’s trio of proteges, a.k.a. the Bat Family, in their fight against crime—a plot pulled straight from the comics. Meanwhile, Ivy (Lake Bell)—who’s functionally become the show’s co-protagonist—was tapped to take on a high-ranking role in Lex Luthor’s (Giancarlo Esposito) Legion of Doom. But in Harley Quinn’s version of Gotham, the border between hero and villain is porous, which means that Harley and Ivy can unreservedly support each other’s choices even when they find themselves on opposite sides of that line.

It’s a compelling setup for the next installment of the series: two soulmates who’ve had each other’s backs long before they started dating committed to keeping their relationship strong even as they set out on divergent paths.

Unfortunately, this concept turns out to be less compelling in practice than it is on paper. It means that Harley and Ivy are apart for much of the first half of season four, which is a bummer as their opposites-attract interplay has always been the strongest aspect of the show. But more importantly, it means Harley is laying down her iconic black-and-red baseball bat in favor of a … uh … Bat bat, working to reform her freewheeling, violent ways in an effort to be “good.” And that’s, frankly, way less fun to watch.

It doesn’t help that the Bat Fam functioned much better as side characters in Harley Quinn than as major ones. Batgirl’s (Briana Cuoco) goody-two-shoes attitude, Nightwing’s (Harvey Guillén) gruff intensity, and Robin’s (Jacob Tremblay) tween tantrums feel one-note after a couple of episodes. We miss Harley working with her old crew of C-list villains—King Shark (Ron Funches), Clayface (Alan Tudyk), and Dr. Psycho (Tony Hale), who are all consistently compelling, hilarious characters in their own right.

That said, the way Harley approaches her reformation is very on brand: Her attempts to win over the Bat Family—particularly Nightwing—are so gleefully fanatical that they inevitably lead to disaster.

On the other hand, Ivy’s story this season is riveting and fully realized from the jump. It’s a surreal office comedy in which there’s a high chance of your PR team morphing into a 50-foot-tall kaiju or your coworkers murdering each other in the conference room. And from a character standpoint, it’s compelling to watch Ivy overcome her self-confidence issues to combat Lex’s casual sexism—even as she loses herself in the delusions that come with overnight fame. It also gives us the chance to spend more time with fan faves like the wonderfully pathetic Bane (James Adomian) and the ice-cold Nora Freeze (Rachel Dratch).

Things pick up in the back half of the season (press got access to nine of 10 episodes) as the show brings Harley and Ivy back together. It also leans into the joyous ultraviolence and high emotional stakes that made it a hit in the first place, with the writers treating Gotham like the giant sandbox full of costumed weirdos it is. The Elon Musk-ification of Lex is a delight to watch, as are King Shark’s struggle with single parenting and Bane’s pasta-making Italian odyssey—which, in a strange bit of TV kismet, feels like a companion piece to Marcus’ trip to Copenhagen on The Bear.

As always, the show’s voice cast never disappoints, packed as it is with acting greats (Esposito, Christopher Meloni, Justina Machado, Tom Hollander) and comedy stalwarts (Funches, Hale, Dratch, J.B. Smoove) alike. Season four also, refreshingly, features a pair of trans and nonbinary characters, played by Rain Valdez and Vico Ortiz, respectively. And it’s all anchored by Cuoco and Bell’s sweet, funny, raw performances, which perfectly balance Harley’s broad enthusiasm with Ivy’s dry humor.

A show as consistently great as Harley Quinn is bound to stumble a bit at some point; and co-creators Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker’s experiment with making Harley virtuous is a big swing that doesn’t quite pay off. But ultimately, it’s no harm, no foul, as high-stakes developments late in the season set the stage for a fifth installment that could be just as fucked-up, emotionally rich, and, most vitally, fun as the show has ever been.

Harley Quinn season 4 premieres July 27 on Max