“All the Best Inmates Have Daddy Issues” is episode six of season two of Harley Quinn.
Harley and Ivy are at Noonan’s playing a game when Harley suddenly blurts out ‘Joker!’. Ivy says he’s dead. Harley means the barman. Ivy thinks he looks nothing like the Joker. Nor like someone who died after his tower collapsed on him. Harley says they never found the body. And there are those conspiracy theories on WayneTube. Ivy says it isn’t him. Until Harley makes the barman’s face up on her camera with Joker makeup. Both duck under the table.
Ivy wants to kill Joker. Harley just wants to leave without causing a scene. For the first time in her life. But accidentally trips up the barman as she’s crawling out. He apologises; he was thinking about his kids. Well, his girlfriend’s kids. He calls Harley by name. Because it’s written on her bat and she nearly forgot it. Ivy wants to kill him. Harley thinks he might have changed. People can change. Look at Harley; she did. Ivy says no, even then it was clear that deep down she was crazy.
Years earlier and Harley is at Arkham. As a psychologist. She finds Commissioner Gordon and DA Harvey Dent. She thinks she was hired because of her thesis on Joker. No; because she’s cheap and has a pulse. They need Harley to find out where Joker hid a bomb. Before the polls close. Err, the bomb goes off. Harvey is thinking a little too much about his upcoming election. An alarm goes off and Ivy is wreaking havoc, until set on fire and then sedated.
Harley heads through the maximum-security wing, apologising to Ivy on the way, heading for the even more maximum-security wing where Joker is being kept. He did read her thesis. Harley wants to go in Joker’s cell. And does. Joker says people are afraid of him. With good cause, attacking Harley and holding her pen to her neck. She manages to fend him off and heads back to the office. Joker just drew a smiley on her neck. Harley thinks she can still get Joker to talk. Then Batman steps forward and says he will.
Despite fairly physical questioning – at one point blood on the cell’s glass covers half of Harvey’s face – Joker refuses to talk. Batman says they need to evacuate the city. Harvey says they can’t panic the voters. Harley does have an idea and goes to speak to Ivy again. Ivy was in group therapy with Joker. Until Joker killed the shrink; he really didn’t want to talk about his family.
Harley thinks she can get Joker to admit where the bomb is. Joker is likely playing her, though. She does start to strike a relationship up with Ivy, however. This is all to prove that people can change. But is the barman Joker and, if so, is Joker still inside, or has he changed? It certainly looked as if Joker survived the events of “The Final Joke”, albeit gone back to normal and not the Joker.