I do love a bit of Batman, and my favourite villain has always been Joker. I don't know why, just something about the unabashed insanity he displays but with such decorum appeals to me. Yes, the love between him and Harley Quinn is incredibly toxic and not idealistic at all, but it massively explores the vulnerability and needs these two characters have. We get an indepth look behind the eyes when these two are together and this audio series is a take on their initial meeting and the reason Harleen became Harley.
This series starts out with us getting to know Doctor Harleen Quinzel as she struggles with getting recognition as a woman in the very masculine and corrupt city of Gotham while also trying to comfort her dad who has got cancer.
Harleen gets the news that her father needs a life saving operation to remove the cancer but she doesn't have the money to pay for this. The family has cut her off, her job is awful and she is merely a junior who gets pittance, there is no way she can afford it.
This is when an inmate, Mr J, takes a shine to the young doctor and she begins to unload her heavy burden on him without quite realising why. He gives her an opportunity to get the money, and thus their partnership begins.
In this telling Harleen is very much in control, whereas later on in the relationship which is already established we see that the Joker has managed to reassert himself as the dominant one. He's on the back foot here, he likes her, this is plain to see, but she's very headstrong and showing as a challenge to him. He's eager to corrupt her, conquer her, but at the moment she's fighting back.
Harleen is reluctant to work with Mr J. She's doing it because she has to, not because she wants to. So the lure that draws her back to him following her betrayal is actually somewhat unexpected. She made it clear to him that she was manipulative, she played on his feelings for her, and that she was ruthless and brutal. Clearly this struck a chord in J as when he gets locked up in Blackgate he does nothing but talk about her. He becomes obsessed. I think this is the root of him becoming the dominant force in their relationship going forward, because of how she wronged him early on, he does everything he can to subconsciously punish her for it going forward, even once she has proven she's devoted to him.
Doctor Quinzel is losing the battle with the corrupt city of Gotham. This is until she meets Bruce Wayne who is attempting to sweep her off her feet- although subtly. Harleen already despises the Batman as she's come to sympathise with her patients and labelled the Bat as a menace himself, and Bruce wishes to change her mind while recognising her intelligence. I think this strives from him wanting to be better. Obviously Batman is vengeance personified, not to mention Gotham's safety mascot, but Bruce wants to be a force of good. To hear he is also having a negative impact is something he wants to learn about and from. When Harleen rebuffs the Bat later in the series, you can recognise the shock as Bats realises he has driven her to this. Harleen believes (rightly) that Wayne enterprises is responsible for the corruptness within Gotham which actually led to her father's death. We know in the Tv show Gotham, where we explored Batman and the villains' origins, that the Wayne's business is corrupt but not because of his family, this was taken over and he is trying to battle the forces within as well as those on the streets to make Gotham a better place, but of course Dr Quinzel doesnt know this, blames Bruce Wayne and decides she's going to stop holding her shit together and do whatever she pleases much like Mr J.
I think when she feigned attraction to the Joker and realised how easy it was to be 'bad', she realised her flirting came easy to him. I think she fell for him when he listened to her and let her pour her heart out. While the Joker sees her as something to overcome, something strong to break, but equally something to respect, Harleen sees him as a vulnerable, caring man. This explains why later on the relationship is so full of turmoil. He's belittling her, beating her, dragging her down as subconscious payback, while also a deeper part of him really cares for her and always has, he just cant let that out again. But Harley Quinn runs back to him over and over as she remembers those days as his Doctor, where he listened to her, where he cared for her to the point he risked himself to get her money for her dad. She will be forever tethered to him as she can't let go of the image of him being tender. She thinks she saw the real Joker and I think for a moment she did. However, I believe that when she betrayed him she broke him, she signed her own contract of misery in doing this as this was one more person treading on Mr J and he snaps. You can just tell by his obsession with her and her rejection that he snaps. This need to obsess with Harleen is later replaced with the Joker's ultimate obsession with Batman. Batman becomes his only constant, the only person he knows will never leave him as they have a mutual illness when it comes to each other. They have a vicious cycle that repeats as J would be broken and alone without Bats, and I think Batman feels the same, he needs someone to keep challenging him to feed his desire to do good. He needs to feed his egotastic fantasy. Harley no longer satisfies him as the challenge and fight within her has gone the longer she's with him, with Batman it is always new, always thrilling, and Joker gets off on this. That is the true toxic relationship.
I've gone off topic though, poor Harleen is again overshadowed in her own story by the man who continues to make her life a misery from then onward. While she remains a fairly strong woman under the Joker's tyranny, she's nothing more than a puppet, his harlequin, and when he is around she loses herself. When he leaves her she can fend for herself no problem, before him she was unhappy but strong and independent, but she loses something in the process and this is not just her marbles.
I could talk about this sort of thing all day, but I need to reign it in. In this audio series we see an intelligent woman having life thrown at her, one negative event at a time, and then how she goes on to cope with this. Throughout these episodes we hear first hand how her mind deteriorates as her circumstances get the better of her. While her job opportunities improve, her life doesnt. People place the blame of her father's death at her feet because he loved her, nothing is ever good enough for her and she is always overlooked, always beaten down. While she goes on to accept this fate with the Joker, she won't ever let anyone else do this to her again. Harleen becomes a powerful force in her transition into Harley Quinn. She no longer cares, she keeps her brains, but she releases the restraint, and this is a dangerous thing. A woman scorned always is.
Overall then, I give Harley Quinn & The Joker an 8/10. This was an excellent origin story for a beloved character and I enjoyed seeing more of a look into Harleen's life prior to Harley. Ricci did an amazing job voicing the main and I'd love to see her play her on screen too despite adoring Margot Robbie's performance.
Have you heard this audio series? Let me know on my socials what you thought!
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