Harley Quinn Season 5 Review – Was The Mess The Point?

I find it telling that there have been shows spanning multiple years and viewing platforms that I ‘shouldn’t have liked’—yet I totally did. Robot Chicken, The Boys, and, of course, the Harley Quinn animated series all come to mind. For four seasons now, I’ve been amazed at how the writers have managed to craft one of the definitive Harley Quinn storylines. For the most part, it has been incredibly consistent. However, as my Harley Quinn Season 5 review will attest, there comes a point when ‘going nuts with stories’ results in lesser-quality ones being told—and we’ve now reached that point.

So, if you don’t recall my Harley Quinn Season 4 review, the season ended with Harley Quinn, Ivy, Catwoman, and Barbara forming the ‘Gotham City Sirens.’ I was very excited about that, as you may remember, because they were set to investigate the ‘missing corpse’ of Nightwing, who had been resurrected and wanted revenge on Harley Quinn.

However, as Season 5 begins, we get…none of that. At all. It was incredibly jarring. An ‘explanation’ is provided for it, but…yeah, it was bad. I’m sorry—it really was. They essentially ‘wrote it off’ so they could pivot to a different storyline about Harley and Ivy moving to Metropolis to ‘do something fresh’ and ‘rekindle the spark’ in their relationship.

While not bad in theory—and even having fun with why they decided to leave Gotham (hint: it’s far worse than usual)—the message of ‘rekindling the spark’ was just one of many ‘mixed messages’ thrown around during the ten-episode season. This made the season, as my subtitle noted, very messy—and not in a ‘blood and gore’ kind of way. There was plenty of that! But it was messy in other ways, too.

As we soon discover, Lena Luthor is attempting to make Metropolis better than it was before, and she seeks ‘help’ from Poison Ivy to achieve this. Oh, and she has Brainiac assisting her as well. Did I forget to mention that? Yes, he’s on a quest for ‘perfection’ before bottling up Metropolis, and Lena made a deal with him to rule over Metropolis once he’s finished. Fun times. Meanwhile, Harley is trying to figure out what to do with herself while Ivy is occupied with this new job, and naturally…things get nuts.

If it seems like I’m struggling to explain the ‘overall plot’ of this season—it’s because I am. One of the biggest issues with Season 5 is that it keeps jumping from one plot point to another, sometimes in random ways, or completely disregarding them altogether! This made it difficult to understand why the writers chose certain directions for particular characters, or what the purpose was behind some of their decisions.

Let me be clear—Harlivy are AMAZING together once again. At this point, it would’ve taken a lot to make me hate them. They’re almost ‘offensively cute’ together, which is saying something. The voices of Kaley Cuoco and Lake Bell perfectly bring out the best in each other, and one can only imagine the hilarity of the two recording their lines in the VO booth. Just saying. Sure, I may not have loved everything that happened with them this season, but they always found a way to make me adore them all over again. Plus, they even made it very clear in the dialogue that their breakup would ‘break the internet’—and honestly, that’s not an inaccurate statement!

Just as important, the humor remains as dark, raunchy, and excessive as ever (sometimes to a fault), yet you can’t help but laugh at the amazing one-liners scattered throughout the season. Just when I thought they had ‘gone too far’ with one of their long bits (which happened often this season…), they’d suddenly drop a one-liner, and I’d be laughing again.

On top of that, the animation is as crisp as ever. This season, they really weren’t afraid to get violent in unexpected ways. Ivy, in particular, endured a lot of abuse, and it genuinely shocked me.

Speaking of shocking, I was mostly impressed with how Brainiac factored into the story. They took much of ‘what comic fans know’ about the character and turned it on its head at times, adding more depth. Again, not everything worked, but there were key moments where even I went wide-eyed at what happened to Brainiac or what he revealed about himself. RIP, Koko the monkey.

Let me be clear—Harlivy are AMAZING together once again. At this point, it would’ve taken a lot to make me hate them. They’re almost ‘offensively cute’ together, which is saying something. The voices of Kaley Cuoco and Lake Bell perfectly bring out the best in each other, and one can only imagine the hilarity of the two recording their lines in the VO booth. Just saying. Sure, I may not have loved everything that happened with them this season, but they always found a way to make me adore them all over again. Plus, they even made it very clear in the dialogue that their breakup would ‘break the internet’—and honestly, that’s not an inaccurate statement!

Just as important, the humor remains as dark, raunchy, and excessive as ever (sometimes to a fault), yet you can’t help but laugh at the amazing one-liners scattered throughout the season. Just when I thought they had ‘gone too far’ with one of their long bits (which happened often this season…), they’d suddenly drop a one-liner, and I’d be laughing again.

On top of that, the animation is as crisp as ever. This season, they really weren’t afraid to get violent in unexpected ways. Ivy, in particular, endured a lot of abuse, and it genuinely shocked me.

Speaking of shocking, I was mostly impressed with how Brainiac factored into the story. They took much of ‘what comic fans know’ about the character and turned it on its head at times, adding more depth. Again, not everything worked, but there were key moments where even I went wide-eyed at what happened to Brainiac or what he revealed about himself. RIP, Koko the monkey.

The problem, as my Harley Quinn Season 5 review will now reveal, is that the season didn’t always push things in meaningful directions. At times, it failed to let storylines breathe, or worse, it straight-up shunted them to the side because…well… ‘reasons.’

For example, remember the Gotham City Sirens stinger? Not only did they ex-nay that with extreme speed, but they also retconned their own season ending to have Dick Grayson return as Red X to kill Harley Quinn. Damian resurrected him alongside Talia, and yet that’s not addressed in the slightest. Also, how did it take a year for Dick to make his move against Harley? Why the Red X persona? We don’t know! On top of that, they tossed all of that aside to suggest resurrecting Dick was Alfred’s plan all along (which makes no sense) so he could get revenge on Harley, Ivy, and Joker. He even induced himself with Venom to get the job done! What?

Then, at the end of that episode, Lois Lane asks Harley Quinn to help her figure out why they were having ‘skull dreams’ (due to Harley’s memory being partially erased by Brainiac after he tried to kill them). I was genuinely excited about that! But then, at the literal start of the next episode…they drop it entirely! That could’ve been a hilarious team-up we don’t often see in the comics or other media, and yet they discarded it in favor of Clayface and Harley…making a musical about Brainiac’s plan. Excuse me, what?

This pattern even crops up in one of the arguably more important storylines: when Ivy meets her ‘creator,’ Dr. Jason Woodrue. She has a panic attack upon seeing him, recovers just enough to get her revenge—which turns him into the Floronic Man—and then Harley kills him in the very next episode. Are you noticing the trend here? They rushed through Ivy’s trauma, her bid for revenge, and how it made her feel—all so Harley could dismember him and move on. And no one really addresses it aside from Lois with her article. That’s really odd, especially because Lena threw such a big fit over Ivy losing her cool with Woodrue and then…nothing.

Even Harley and Ivy, near the show’s climax, had a ‘Wait, why are they doing this?’ moment for me. Ivy argued with Harley for a completely illogical reason, and it was downright eye-rolling—especially when a single line of dialogue undid the whole argument. Sure, it was a very sweet line of dialogue…but still.

Finally, and just as importantly, I wish the show hadn’t transitioned straight from Lex Luthor last season to Lena Luthor this time. It would’ve been far more compelling to keep the focus on Brainiac, whose storyline had significantly more intrigue.

As I wrap up my Harley Quinn Season 5 review, I want to emphasize that I didn’t hate the season. However, after watching this show excel for so many years, it’s frustrating to see it stray from what made it truly special. I’m grateful we got a nice ‘capper’ to wrap things up—just in case there’s no Season 6—but I can’t help but wish this season had been less chaotic and instead built on the successes that defined it previously.

You can catch Harley Quinn Season 5 on Prime Video or Hulu!