Harley Quinn Season 5 Review: Harlivy’s New Start Proves the Show’s Still Exciting

This wild, wacky journey that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy continue to share throughout Harley Quinn is certainly a huge feat on Max’s behalf. Through the coming and going of other shows like Superman & Lois and Creature Commandos, Harley Quinn has managed to withstand the test of time with its bombastic action, crude meta humor, and Harlivy’s lasting relationship.

Now in its newest season, Harley Quinn hopes to go even bigger by bringing its two leads to Metropolis, Superman’s pristine city across the pond from Gotham. However, don’t let this fool you: even though Harley and Ivy have new aspirations, they’re still the chaotic, “take-no-names” couple they’ve always been since Season 2.

Of course, this also means that Harley and Ivy have more challenges to face. Although, this time, they’re much more personal than anything the two have confronted before.

This is in part due to Season 5 picking up from Kite Man: Hell Yeah! and Season 4. From the get go, the first few moments already address some parts of Season 4’s ending, like the formation of the Gotham City Sirens, quickly.

However, other aspects teased previously take time for us to resettle into the overarching narratively of Harley Quinn before they fully make themselves known. This allows us to really understand how Harley and Ivy’s personal problems play into this larger story.

Throughout Harley Quinn‘s entire run so far, Harley and Ivy have been mostly faced with dealing with external issues. For example, Season 3 had the two take these two different career paths because of Ivy’s world takeover while Season 4 tested how they’d fare in their new roles.

In Season 5, both Harley and Ivy have to deal with what’s perhaps the biggest issue every couple has to face: trusting each other.

In Harley’s case, she’s forced to come around to Lena Luthor, who’s taken the reigns of LexCorp when Lex was imprisoned. Harley’s relationship with Lena is straight business like Ivy’s working relationship with Lex, to a similar degree. Yet, her insistence on helping Harley fit into Metropolis’s high society feels like it suggests otherwise.

In Ivy’s case, through Harley’s rising reputation, she’s faced with a person from her past who wronged her in the worst way imaginable. This is only the “cherry on top” of the challenges Ivy has to confront, which also includes dealing with Harley’s shenanigans.

The way that Harley Quinn Season 5 explores this issue in the dynamic of Harlivy maintains the excitement and energy that Season 4 had. While each episode has its own “problem-of-the-week”, there’s still this subtle interconnectedness that makes Season 5’s overarching story very cohesive.

This sets in with an arc that Ivy goes on within the first three episodes, dealing with someone from her past who’s recently resurfaced. Through flashbacks that showcases a sensitive time for Ivy, it makes the resounding impact it has by Season 5’s midway point all the more impactful.

However, the fact that she has to keep this secret for so long from Harley eases in that emotional turmoil. With the hard choices that Harley also makes, and keeps secret of, in later episodes, it creates this tension that makes us really care about Harlivy.

This representation of their lack of communication shows how this fresh start in Metropolis is, in a way, bringing them back to their roots. They’re essentially turning back to who they once were: romantics who were scared of opening up to each other.

Of course, at this point, Harley and Ivy know each other, understanding one another inside and out. Yet, these internal issues between the two gradually build up to a certain point where it becomes a narrative bombshell.

This is also in due to Harley Quinn Season 5 re-introducing some characters who played an important role for Harley’s growth throughout the series. Specifically, Harley’s parents actually return from Season 1 and play an important role in teaching Harley an important lesson on one of the later episodes. 

In addition, this also makes long ongoing jokes in Season 5  to land with very satisfying punchlines. A few jokes come to mind, like when Harley is trying to get a simple “thank you” from Superman after she saved his life in Season 4.

Another one involves Bane sending Goldilocks to a “Dutch immersion” school, which is mostly a background detail until Season 5’s second half. That being said, the riff-raff humor of Harley Quinn Season 5 still continues to work thanks to Season 5’s fast-paced nature.

The side characters of Harley Quinn Season 5 are also still hilarious as always. Bane is much more of a reactor, commenting on every little tidbit while hilariously describing what he’s doing in the moment.

Meanwhile, Clayface is still the theatrical thespian, though his two-faced persona as Perry White makes for quite fun bits with Lois Lane. There’s an ongoing bit in Season 5 where Clayface replaces White due to the fact he got a bad review, hoping to rectify this mistake.

However, the character to keep an eye on is Brainiac, whose cold personality is a mix of delusion and pure intellectualism. While he was teased in Kite Man: Hell Yeah!, Brainiac actually has an interesting backstory on Episode 4.

With Season 5 Episode 4 being an origin episode, similarly to The Penguin Season 1 Episode 4 “Cent’anni”, it’s supposed to be one of the more compelling episodes. While it mostly is, thanks to its story, it leaves you with this feeling of wanting to learn more about Brainiac’s family.

Nonetheless, where we do get Brainiac, he serves as an interesting villain for Harley and Ivy to face. He’s got all the resources to be a capable antagonist. However, by the midpoint of Season 5, his role ultimately changes to the point where he’s more of a neutral force.

Still, Brainiac quest to understand his purpose and the truth about perfectionism throughout Harley Quinn Season 5 makes him a fun character. Plus, Harley Quinn‘s satirical tone really captures how funny Brainiac could be as the butt of the joke.

Witty, hilarious, and gruesome as ever, Harley Quinn Season 5 continues to capture what makes this satirical take on the Batman mythos, and DC Comics as a whole, work. If anything, it proves that Harlivy is a permanent constant of DC Comics’ lore, both with its highs and its lows.

However, it also feels like Harley Quinn has explored every corner of its world that it wanted to. I’d be okay with one more season as an epilogue since it feels conclusive. Nonetheless, Season 5 is still entertaining with all of its violent, wild card insanity and touching moments between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.

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Harley Quinn Season 5 premieres on Max on January 16. New episodes release weekly.

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