One Good Point (show) - Harley Quinn, Seasons 1-4

Technically I started this show last year, but I didn't review it in my end-of-year stuff, so I'm reviewing the full series to date right here, right now. And I also just discovered today, as I wrapped up season 4, that there'll be a season 5 starting this November. Will I watch it on time? I think you can say with some certainty that I will not. But on the off chance that I do, I'll post my little review thingy right when it ends.

But for now, we talk about the content we've got!

Season 1 of Harley Quinn was an absolute tour de force. It was everything I hoped it would be, from the action and humor and subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) shit-talking of dumb people. There are shows that hit with too heavy a hammer when it comes to "woke" ideals, but somehow this show managed to be completely irreverent and confrontational in an unapologetic way, while utterly avoiding the cringy sort of content that bogs down some newer shows. The first season was legitimately one of the best seasons of television I've ever seen, animated or otherwise.

Season 2 was good, it draws on a lot of the same ideals, and continues to build the characters that it established in season 1. It doesn't quite hit on all cylinders in the same potent way, but still a very solid season.

Seasons 3 and especially 4 seem to have sort of lost their way a bit, though. By the time we got into the middle of season 3, it seemed like the show was more focused on trying to advance a spiderweb of storylines, and not as focused on being entertaining. The jokes feel a little more "sprinkled on top" rather than a natural part of the characters' interactions. I'm hoping that season 5 gives us some more of those clean, early-season interactions, but based on the cliffhanger from the end of season 4, I'm still expecting lots of story focus, so we'll see.

One last thing. I like Bane a lot, and he's got some awesome lines in this show, but his voice absolutely kills me. I get that it's an animated series and a little bit sillier than what you'd get in a live-action product like The Dark Knight Rises, but the voice actor does like a clownish impression of that Bane voice, and it's just a mess to me. Other people might like it, it wouldn't be the first time I was the only person who hated someone's voice (I'm looking at you, 2000's jam band O.A.R.), but I stand by my opinion.

As with a lot of these series, this is a show specifically created for a streaming service, so you're almost certainly going to see Harley Quinn on Max and nowhere else. But for all you completionists out there, here's yet another link to the show's page on JustWatch, still one of my favorite sites for finding where to watch movies across my many streaming services.