Mad Love

Mad Love is the 21st episode of "The New Batman Adventures". In the episode, Harley Quinn recaps of the day she first met Joker, and how she thinks Batman get in the way of her love.

Plot
The episode start with Commisioner Gordon getting a dentist's appointment as part of the police physical, but the dentist actually turns out to be the Joker, who has lead Gordon into a trap! Harley Quinn straps Gordon to the chair as Joker prepares to kill him with a drill through his head, when the Batman bursts through the window to save him. He says that he was losing his touch by leaving behind a pair of novelty teeth, but Harley claimed the teeth was her idea as she sprayed gas, stunning Batman. Harley claimed that it was a "real gaser", but the Joker angrily said that he was the one that made the jokes. Joker then throws a grenade at them, but Batman threw it out the window moments before it exploded. Meanwhile, back at the Joker's lair, the Joker was obsessively thinking of ways to kill Batman. At the same moment, Harley was flirting with him, which the Joker was ignoring. Harley then sugessted that Joker just shoots Batman, but the Joker claims that he wants to give him a superior, complicated death that would humiliate Batman. Then, he found one of his old plans called "The Death of 100 Smiles", where he drops Batman into a piranha tank and the piranhas eat him. But, the Joker immediately sees the downside of this plan because he could not get the piranhas to smile. Harley was still flirting with Joker, when the Joker kicks her out of the hideout. Frustrated, Harley wonders how her life took a turn for the worse, when she started to think it is Batman's fault. At that moment, she has a flashback of when she started working at Arkham Asylum. She was being hired by a woman named Joan Leland, the head psychiatrist of Arkham, who was surprised that Harley was applying for the job as a psychiatrist. She warned her that the inmates were hardcore psychotics and that some inmates would eat a novice like her for breakfast. Back in her office, Harley finds a flower with a note from the Joker that said "Come down and see me sone time." Later, she asks the Joker how the note got in her office. Joker claimed he put it there himself. He then comments that he liked what he heard about her, especially the name. He said if she reworks it, then it would be Harley Quinn, like the clown Harlequin. Harley claims she heard it before, and the Joker says it's a name that makes him smile. As Harley walks away, the Joker says that Harley may be the one to hear his secrets. Three months later, Harley was interviewing the Joker, where he claimed that he had an abusive father that beat him up almost every day, and that the only time he saw his father happy was when he brought Joker to the circus when he was seven years old. He laughed really hard at the clowns there, doing things like dropping their pants. The next day, he had his father's best pants around his ankles like the clowns he saw at the circus, but his father broke his nose in response. He called that the downside of comedy, that they "always take shots from folks who just don't get the joke." After numerous interviews, Harley concluded that Joker was not an insane criminal, but a tortured soul looking for acceptance, and that many people, especially Batman, are getting in the way of that. She also admits that she has fallen in love with the Joker. Then, one week, the Joker escaped. The moment he was brought back by Batman, he has been brutally beaten and instantly taken back to his cell with Harley sadly watching. Finally desiring to help Joker, she went to the novelty store and took various prank toys, a mask, and a costume. Upon returning to Arkham, she borke the Joker out of Arkham, with the Joker observing her now as Harley Quinn. At the end of the flashback, Harley gets an idea of how to get rid of Batman. She sends a tape to the police department, adressing to Batman that the Joker plans to eliminate the whole city with gas bombs. She also asks Batman to give her protection in return for helping to stop Joker. Later, at the docks, Harley gives Batman the blueprints for the Joker's plan. Suddenly, the Joker appears and starts shooting at them. But, when Batman tosses a batarang at him, the Joker turns out to be a robot as a distraction for Harley to knock out Batman with a medical shot. Upon regaining consciousness, Batman finds himself hanging upside down over a piranha tank. Harley says she was lying about the gas bombs so she can lure Batman into a trap and try the "Death of 100 Smiles" plan. Since the Joker could not get the piranhas to smile, she had the idea to hang the victim upside down to make it look like they are smiling. She thinks it will impress the Joker, but Batman laughs at the thought, which is something he rarely does. He told Harley that Joker tricked her from the start. He also told her that Joker was lying about his father during the interviews. Harley, still not believing him, prepares to drop Batman, but he claims that it may appear that his death was faked, and that it won't make the Joker believe that he is really dead. So, Harley calls the Joker to her location so he can see Batman's death himself, but instead the Joker gets angry at Harley, saying that he only wanted Batman dead if he did it. Harley explained her plan, but it made Joker angrier, saying that "If you explain a joke, then there is no joke!" The Joker then attacks Harley with a plastic swordfish, knocking her out of the window and critically injuring her. Joker asks Batman to forgive him for Harley's shenanigans, when the Joker sees this as an opportunity to kill Batman himself. He prepares to shoot him, apparently taking Harley's earlier suggestion, but Batman shatters the tank, freeing the piranhas as they bite Joker. Batman uses his lock pick to free himself as he chases the Joker. The Joker then leaps on a train to escape. Batman gets on the train too, telling Joker that Harley was very close to killing him. In fact, she was even closer that Joker ever was. He even mockingly called Joker, "puddin'". Infuriated, the Joker fights Batman, which leads to Batman knocking Joker into a burning smokestack, making him fall to his apparent death. Back at Arkham, Harley was being admitted back into custody, thinking that she saw the Joker for who he really was, and that she would never love him again. But, she quickly fell back in love again when she found a "get well soon" card on a flower, hinting that the Joker has survived his encounter with Batman.

Trivia

 * This episode was adapted from a one-shot comic called "The Batman Adventures: Mad Love", which was written by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. It had a very similar plotline, but the adaption cut out some parts for pacing the story and making sure it ran in the time alloted.
 * The interviews of the Joker and Harley in Batman: Arkham Asylum were very similar to the ones in the comic and the episode.
 * Joker claims he couldn't get the piranhas to smile, making the plan have a major downside. This contrasts to The Laughing Fish, when the Joker got many fish to smile like him.
 * Before the Joker threw the grenade, he said "May the floss be with you", which is a parody of the phrase "May the force be with you" from the Star Wars films, which Joker's voice actor, Mark Hamill, starred in as Luke Skywalker.