Harley Quinn season 3 episode 8 recap & review: Batman Begins Forever

Episode 8 of Harley Quinn revolves around Harley and friends going into Bruce Wayne’s mind with the help of an old acquaintance so that they can find out where Frank is. The episode is now streaming on HBO Max.

Recap

Harley and Ivy are torturing Bruce Wayne to get him the spill the location of Frank but to no avail. When they’re left with no more options, they decide to get help from an unlikely source.

They break into Arkham where a seemingly reformed Dr. Psycho is recording his podcast. They take him back to Selina’s apartment so that he can take them inside Bruce Wayne’s head. He agrees to do it on the condition that Harley becomes a guest on his podcast.

A ‘Frasier’ themed title card appears, signifying that the episode will be connected to psychiatry with Harley adding that she learnt a lot from the show herself.

Once they enter Bruce’s mind, they find that he constantly replays the night of his parent’s murder on a loop in a reverse repressed memory situation. After struggling to get through, Harley diverts young Bruce’s eyes at the time of the murder.

The others get expelled out of Bruce’s head while Harley remains. She tries to work with the kid and find a way for him to deal with his trauma. They eventually find the cavern where his memories are situated and Harley discovers that Bruce Wayne is Batman.

Having got a better look at all his memories, Harley is impressed by his feats and the upside to being a hero in general. Young Bruce begins to trust Harley as they spend more time with each other.

On the outside, Clayface rushes to contact James Gunn and tell him all that he has learned about Thomas Wayne from his time inside Bruce’s head. Ivy tries to find a way to wake Harley up while Psycho just hangs about being useless.

Harley and Bruce try to escape the memory of Joe Chill but no matter how hard they try, the memory is persistent. Harley offers to be Bruce’s therapist and help him get through this so he takes her to a good memory of the last Christmas before his parents died.

Young Bruce admits to kidnapping Frank so that he can use his resurrection powers to bring back his parents. He used science to suitably alter Franks’s powers for this very reason.

Joe Chill shows up and takes off his mask to reveal adult Bruce himself. Bruce explains that he blames himself for his parent’s deaths because he insisted on going to the movie and walking through crime alley.

Harley explains that moving on is still facing your problems and Bruce doesn’t need to torture himself by forcing this memory upon himself. Bruce asks Harley not to reveal his secret to the others and lets her out of his head.

When Harley wakes up, she finds herself tied up along with Ivy and the others inside Wayne Manor. Ivy tells her that Nightwing and the other Bat-family members helped bring Bruce back home.

Harley tries to talk Bruce out of it but Bruce is adamant about carrying out his plan of using Frank to bring his parents back to life. The experiment doesn’t work exactly as planned as it affects all the graves in the vicinity and hints at the corpses coming back as threatening zombies rather than their normal selves.

Review

• This episode of Harley Quinn really went all out with the callbacks and references and it’s great. The Frasier-themed opening and closing are a treat to witness.
• The fact that they focused on Harley Quinn’s professional background to help her solve the issues at hand is brilliant storytelling. It also reminds the audience about how layered Harley is as a character while giving them a different perspective on Bruce’s life.
• The fact that Bruce’s mind looks like the old Batman animated series, the use of the classic theme, Harley’s references to Robin from the Adam West era, and commenting on how many times the Wayne death scene is portrayed, all of these moments makes this one of the best episodes of the series.
• The return of Dr Psycho is unexpected but he delivers a typical performance that is filled with craziness.

---

Also Read: Harley Quinn season 3 episode 7 recap & review: Another Sharkley Adventure