Harley Quinn debuts new episodes on Fridays via the DC Universe streaming platform in North America. International air dates are yet to be confirmed.
Synopsis
After a falling out with her crew, Harley heads back home to Bensonhurst, where her doting mother waits along with her deadbeat father, who’s more dangerous than anticipated.
Review
“Bensonhurst” promised to be a surprising episode of Harley Quinn given the decision to take her home and meet her parents. It’s not an especially of the character which is heavily covered in any medium and meant the series had a level playing field with which to present the character.
I had concerns going in to the episode that it might soften Harley (Kaley Cuoco) or offer up an unsatisfying representation of what her home life had been like prior to working at Arkham and meeting Joker.
But this being Harley Quinn I needn’t have worried. The show was able to craft another dramatic story which brought back some of the violence of earlier episodes and paired it with a more emotionally driven piece of storytelling.
With Harley separated from her crew the show cleverly pulled focus rather than spending too much time trying to split a twenty-two minute episode between multiple storylines. The crew are cleverly written off as they enjoy some post-Harley downtime and Ivy (Lake Bell) continues her kidnap storyline to edge the plot towards next week’s eventual rescue.
As well craft as the narrative of the series is, in such a short format it would have been near impossible to balance the sheer volume of cast members who normally appear together in the crew.
Harley needed a rest bite and now was as good of a time as any to introduce her parents, played by Susie Essman and Charlie Adler. It proves to be an interesting experiment for DC to showcase a different side of Harley’s life as well as a test of how the audience would react to seeing her in a new environment and particularly vulnerable.
As always the series presents everything through a lens of violence, comedy and strong language so it never feels like we’re being taught a lesson of which characters to attach ourselves too.
I found myself feeling bad for Harley as her Dad, Charles, asked her to throw her championship gymnastics routine so that he could repay his debts to the mob. It was clearly one in a number of situations which pushed her down a dark path but, as always, the show punctuated it with a brutal scene of Harley beating his face to a bloody pulp. Harley Quinn giveth with one hand and gifts a severe left-hook with the other.
The emotional arc of the episode is packed with laughs, particularly as poor Granny Quinzel tells the family about her brain cancer mere seconds before being shot in the head, a joker repeated later with her grandfather. As they are besieged by assassins a real family bond begins to develop and it seems like this version of Harley might develop some real human connections outside of the criminal underworld of Gotham.
So when the third act rug is (predictably) well and truly ripped out from under Harley it feels exactly the same. father poking fun at generic Italian mob characters in pop culture the episode swells to a sad conclusion but one which teaches Harley a very important lesson about family.
Verdict
“Bensonhurst” is an emotional rollercoaster of an episode. It subjectively proves the audience’s admiration for the character despite her criminal status. It’s easily some of the series’ best writing.
9/10
Harley Quinn stars Kaley Cuoco as the voice of Harley, and she’ll be joined by Lake Bell, Alan Tudyk, Ron Funches, JB Smoove, Jason Alexander, Wanda Sykes, Giancarlo Esposito, Natalie Morales, Jim Rash, Diedrich Bader, Tony Hale and Chris Meloni.
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