The animated Harley Quinn season 3, episode 6, “Joker: The Killing Vote” is perfect, but it highlights a problem with the titular character's story. The Harley Quinn television show is about Harley Quinn moving on with her life and becoming her own person after breaking up with the Joker. Her bond with Poison Ivy and friendships with other villains that become her henchmen also figure heavily in the show.
"The Killing Vote" episode shows that Harley’s ex and former boss has genuinely changed as a person since he regained and then re-lost his sanity in the earlier seasons of the Harley Quinn. The Joker genuinely inspires Gotham as a political candidate by championing progressive policies. He s education reform, universal healthcare, and redistribution of wealth, the latter of which he starts during his campaign in true anti-hero fashion by robbing banks and handing out the loot to Gotham residents.
While a great individual episode, it just highlights a larger problem. Centering an episode of Harley Quinn entirely around the Joker highlights the way that media about Harley Quinn struggles to extricate her story from that of the Joker. Harley Quinn’s only role in this episode of her own show is a literal drive-by at the end. Even the episode’s title, “Joker: The Killing Vote,” makes it clear that the real main character in this installment is the Joker and caters to fans of the Joker by stuffing the sitcom-esque episode with homages to live-action Joker representations.
Why Joker For Mayor Is A Problem For The Harley Quinn Series
Dedicating “Joker: The Killing Vote” to the adorable redemption arc of Harley’s ex and former boss keeps him in the picture and connected to her story after she has thoroughly moved on. Harley Quinn repeatedly features Harley examining her relationship with the Joker and coming to healthier conclusions about what she wants from life now that they are no longer together, but the show does not seem to be able to kick the Joker habit as well Harley Quinn herself has. The move undermines the storytelling invested earlier in the show when Harley Quinn reflected on the toxicity of her past and when Harley Quinn began a romance with Poison Ivy.
Most of Harley Quinn season 1 does the heavy lifting of Harley Quinn’s personal growth, which makes sense as this is the point when she is freshest from the breakup and still measuring her success against the Joker. Thus, her season 1 obsession is with gaining Joker’s respect by succeeding in the arenas he values, particularly through hip in the Legion of Doom. This part of her arc justifies Joker having a significant role in the series at all. Earlier in Harley Quinn season 3, episode 3, “The 83rd Annual Villy Awards,” however, Harley makes the breakthrough of no longer even needing Joker and other villains’ validation of her relationship by deciding she doesn’t care about winning Best Couple with Ivy, an award that used to be one of the few validations she regularly received for her relationship with the Joker.
The choice to spend a full episode shortly thereafter on a sitcom-styled examination of the Joker’s personal growth while ignoring Harley implies that an arc about Joker’s growth belongs in Harley Quinn’s story. At this point in season 3, according to the bulk of the show’s narratives and central ideas, Joker’s story is not part of Harley Quinn’s story anymore. The Harley Quinn episode “Joker: The Killing Vote,” however fun an episode it is, confuses that message.