“The Final Joke” is episode thirteen of season one of Harley Quinn and the season finale.
At the end of the previous episode, “Devil’s Snare”, Joker, after destroying the Legion of Doom, had fired a huge harpoon through giant Ivy. Ivy collapsed to the ground and seemingly died, flowers growing up around her body. The episode opens with Harley and her crew standing around Ivy’s body. King Shark asks if Harley wants to say a few words. She’s currently unable to, so Clayface does instead. Psycho comments afterwards that Clayface’s speech wasn’t awful. Clayface says he paraphrased Kirk’s words at Spock’s funeral in The Wrath of Khan.
Cy digs a grave and Psycho puts Ivy in it. Harley is really not happy but Psycho stops her from running at Joker’s tower. So she doesn’t follow Ivy into the grave. They need a plan. Ivy wanted Harley to get rid of Joker, so that’s what Harley is going to do. Still not a plan.
Jim Gordon is playing with the Batsignal when Batman shows up. Then Harley arrives too. They need to work together. Batman works alone. No-one knows Joker better than Harley and Batman. Gordon has a file on Joker and rushes to get it. Turns out the file has been replaced with a greeting card. Harley can give Joker what he wants most in the world.
Harley turns up at Joker’s tower with King Shark, Psycho and Cy. She says she’s got a gift for the Joker on his birthday. She shouldn’t have, after what he did to Ivy. Murdering her on purpose. Harley is practical; she wants to be on the winning side and Joker has won. So, she decided to patch things up with a steaming cup of Batman. The one thing Joker doesn’t have. It’s not Batman, though, it’s Clayface; Batman is sneaking in. Unfortunately, during them singing Happy Birthday to Joker, Clayface breaks disguise. Everyone but Harley is caught. One week later, Joker is king of Gotham. He makes a necklace from King Shark’s teeth, makes Psycho watch feminism videos, pushes Cy down the stairs in his wheelchair and puts Clayface on a potter’s wheel. Surprisingly not whilst enacting a scene from Ghost. Laughing at Joker’s jokes is now mandatory, punishable by death, and Harley has a $10 million bounty on her head, alive.
Only Joker is now bored, He’s not even having fun shocking Batman. Scarecrow thinks they should celebrate. Then unmasks Batman, to reveal Bruce Wayne. Joker is now upset as well as bored; half the fun of their relationship was the mystery. So, he kills Scarecrow and demands to know where the Wayne Tech electric car he put a deposit on is.
Joker may be bored, but he’s still won. The Justice League is gone, Batman is captured and Harley is all alone. Though… Ivy is part plant and she was buried in the ground. A strong suspicion that something will happen there.