Harley’s inability to choose leads to her and her crew going on their weirdest adventure yet as she tries to get to the bottom of her chronic indecision.

There’s an awful lot this episode does right, and we’ll get to it, but first things first – there is also the use of a frankly disgusting antisemitic slur by a character at around the halfway mark which the show tries to dodge by having the character delivering the line to be implied to be a former Israeli secret agent. It’s the worst possible kind of punching-down and given the general themes of the show and how right it gets so much other stuff, it feels doubly disappointing here. There’s no place for that sort of thing in our entertainment media, and I’m frankly appalled that not only a writer scripted it but that everyone up the line signed off on it.

That said, this episode is perhaps the deftest yet at exploring the themes around its central character. With Harley paralysed (literally) by indecision while trying to find a new lair, her crew find themselves – using the unique powers of Doctor Psycho – literally getting into her head to try to figure out what the problem is with her and help her to solve it.

It goes to a lot of interesting places. There’s no sweet innocent childhood for Harleen Quinzel – turns out she’s always been bad news. But the way the show then explores her later life generally and her relationship with Joker in particular gets really interesting. The question of her agency, and why that question has left her so unable to make simple choices, is a more interesting one than you might expect from a show like this.

It’s just a shame that among all this good stuff you have that horrific slur malignantly flashing away at the heart of it. For all their good work in every other department, the writers’ room need to have a serious word with themselves on that one. For me, it really soured the whole thing, and left me questioning whether to even bother continuing with the show as a whole.

Verdict: Excellent work largely undone by a moment of profound offensiveness, and not in the good way. Needs to do an awful lot to make up for it. 5/10

Greg D. Smith