Why Poison Ivy Tried to Change the System (VIDEO SCRIPT)

So considering what happened in the previous season and the Valentines Day special, I can understand why season 4 of Harley Quinn the animated series wasn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea.

/After all, by making the decision to have Harley explore her desire to do good with the Bat Family, that meant breaking up the OG crew that consisted of Clayface and King Shark and giving them less screen time than we’re used to./

But in regards to her romantic relationship with Poison Ivy, that also introduced a new avenue of exploring their dynamic.

/Especially since at the end of season 3, we learn the path that Ivy will be taking in season 4; Giancarlo Esposito’s Lex Luthor offering Ivy the opportunity to run the Legion of Doom./

Now this isn’t me saying that I didn’t care what Harley went through in order for her to realize that she’s an anti-hero at heart;

/Her whole battle with her subconsciousness that came out in sleepwalking was a very real yet appropriately comedy-heightened exploration of dealing with things about yourself that you’re not willing to accept and I was glad the writers went the way they did in order to explore that./

Hell, that might be the topic of a future video if there’s enough demand for it, so let me know in the comments if you want me to explore Harley’s arc in Season 4 in another video.

But in this one, the arc that drew the majority of my attention was Ivy tackling being not just the first female leader of the Legion of Doom in the Harley Quinn-iverse...

/But how over the course of it she got a hard but much needed reminder that trying to change things from the inside out never works because of who the system caters to in the first place./

And while she got that reminder near the end of the season and proceeded to do what we leftists have been saying needs to be done to said institutions when she got that realization...

/There are a lot of key moments over the course of season 4 that Poison Ivy learned regarding how the heavily embedded patriarchal and capitalistic system-slash-establishment tries to change you when you follow its code of rules and ethics. And I wanna go over what they were in the show so you can better identify them in real life. Let’s begin./

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Hey, Readers. La’Ron here. Offering you analysis and perspective on your favorite bits of geek and pop culture media

If it wasn’t obvious from the intro, this video will in fact contain spoilers for season 4 of Harley Quinn the animated series. It’s currently available to stream exclusively on HBO Max, so give it a watch if you haven’t seen it yet, and don’t want me to spoil pivotal points of it for you in this video.

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That’s the syllabus. Now onto the lesson.

Let’s talk about EWBC

Also known as the Evil Women in Business Collective, this is where Ivy meets the likes of other female DC supervillains like Livewire and Cheetah.

/However, the ones that stand out and kinda match where Ivy is as the first female CEO of the Legion of Doom are Wonder Woman’s CEO villain Veronica Cale, and of course Talia Al Ghul./

Talia, who after returning to Gotham because she’s the conservator of Wayne Enterprises while Bruce is in jail...

/Unknowingly assisted in Ivy ruining Wayne Pharmaceuticals because she offered her advice during the EWBC networking luncheon regarding how to handle Mayor Joker in getting him to approve the permits needed to replace all the male trees with female trees/ (So if we remove all male trees, we destroy the allergy medicine market and bankrupt Wayne Pharmaceuticals)

/And as we see when Talia experienced the aftermath of what she gave Ivy advice for, the result was a surprising amount of mutual respect/ (You tanked my fucking company. Voila. I might finally be operating with someone on my level)

Now in retrospect, considering that both of these women are villains and that Harley Quinn is first and foremost a comedy show that allows its main cast to point out the worst traits of every other character for laughs while also having development of their own, this level of respect between the two of them is kinda expected.

And I hate that I have to say this because of how quickly dumbasses are killing off media literacy and putting it on the endangered species list, but just because peeps can see something coming or are successfully able to predict something doesn’t mean the something in question is bad or written poorly. It just means you’ve experienced enough stories to know what to look out for.

And that’s okay, there’s no such thing as an original idea anymore.

/What matters the most is how it’s delivered, and the dynamic that Harley Quinn Season 4 established between Talia and Ivy was delivered in a way that helps drive how quickly it takes her to realize she’s just a cog in the machine./

Because as we see over the course of the season, the amount of respect that grows between Talia and Ivy soon encompasses the rest of the heavy-hitters of EWBC that allow her into their field the further she gets lost in the system.

/They offer her advice, provide comradery, and it seems like it's all coming from a genuine place/ (Uh, wow girl. Where would you even be without the Evil Women in Business Collective?)

/But as we see later on in the season, unlike her initial invitation to EWBC initially implied (Break the glass ceiling, bitch! Jesus, didn’t we move past this kind of imagery post Hillary?), the EWBC girlies are just as lost in the establishment sauce as everyone else. Even the big wigs like Talia and Veronica Cale./

Because just like real life, there IS a glass ceiling that they refuse to break.

/After Ivy succeeds in getting the board members to vote out Lex from LexCorp to stop his ozone machine, she’s celebrated among the EWBC in joining the others in accomplishing their first corporate takedown, but says this:/ (But, you know, it still feels very unresolved. LIke... Like, nothing’s changed. Change? Honey, we’re trying to get paid)

And that’s the line that needs focusing on. The EWBC, just like the real life establishment that’s rooted in capitalism and patriarchy, doesn’t really care about changing it for the better, even for the sake of fairness and feminism. It’s all about accomplishing the things that THEY want to accomplish within the system in question, without interrupting it.

/They make their stand on the matter perfectly clear when even after celebrating Ivy voting Lex out of LexCorp, the lot of them still choose to go to his birthday party on the moon./

Meanwhile, every time Ivy states her reasoning for everything she decided to do this season -- from becoming CEO of the Legion of Doom to taking down Lex -- everyone that was previously in her corner when she was playing ball with how the system works is ready to laugh her off for daring to actually try and change things.

They, like a lot of real life individuals within systems of capitalism, oppression and patriarchy, all eventually go down the paths of self-preservation and staying dominant within their niches so that THEY can be comfortable and survive in the way the system currently is with no intentions of changing it to be suitable for everyone...

/Even if they originally entered said system TO change it./ (Ivy, you know how it works. We win, we lose, we go to parties. It’s business. Don’t make it so personal)

And when Ivy DARES to follow through with her plans and tries to implement real change -- ie, challenge a Suped up Lex at his birthday party...

/Those same women that once offered advice and comradery now see her as a threat for daring to try and change an establishment that they benefit from, even IF they’re all women. And as a result of these decisions, for the likes of self-preservation, they now want nothing to do with her./ (Powerful businesswomen take an L and move on. I thought you would understand that from my mentoring. Lose my number and my real number)

However, while this was my first indicator that this was what the show was leading up to in regards to Ivy’s storyline this season, I’d be lying if I said that it was the most prominent.

Because like I said earlier, Readers; there were multiple aspects about season 4 that gave me the realization about this being a main story beat before the finale just blatantly said it. And in MY opinion, the one that WAS the most prominent...

Involved the Jons.

In my opinion, one of the most thorough and efficient ways of telling a story about how someone is changing for the worse in real time is showing a group of friends or associates being negatively affected by the change of the person in question.

/In the case of Harley Quinn Season 4, it’s how Ivy is allowing the Jons to change her image and letting herself be molded to fit the establishment she initially wanted to change, while her mentees Terra, Volcana, and Tere Holland -- aka the Natural Disasters -- see her fall from grace in real time thanks to the abandonment the Jons tempt Ivy to make./

Because the Jons -- while not necessarily inspired by any pre-existing DC characters -- represent at first that aspect of one losing oneself to the establishment.

Because it’s through the ways of social media and gaining a following in order to help better establish Ivy as the CEO of the Legion of Doom, the necessity of the PR team to establish a following for her takes what she was initially aiming to do and bumps it up to 500...

/To levels so high that it almost causes her to forget what she was initially trying to accomplish in the first place./ (Guys, loving getting my appearance critiqued, but gotta get back to work. You interrupted me while I was with my mentees. Yes. Plural. I got three. Influencing the next generation is totes crucial babe, but three people isn’t a good use of your time. Imagine mentoring three billion people. Billion? Like with a B?)

This is what sets her down the path of completely forgetting the Natural Disasters because of how connected the aspects of establishment and social media are to each other, as represented by the Jons.

/She gets a taste of how the ego can be boosted because of how the currently established system prompts up superficial numbers in order to track well with others, and for a while begins to fall down that same hole that the women of EWBC fell down long ago./

It’s even doubly disheartening when you see that before the Jons were assigned to be her PR team...

/Ivy had a genuine desire to see the Natural Disasters grow and work as a team to develop something special/ (I love these ideas. Okay, so we need to find a new way to weave these ideas together so it represents all of you as a team).

/Then the more preoccupied Ivy got because of the Jons involvement and temptations, the more lead astray the Natural Disasters became/ (We could double the lava flow. If I force it into the ocean, we could create a whole new Gotham. It’s like talking to a rock. Alright guys, good talk. Plan sounds great).

And then thanks to losing her guidance completely due to the Jons showing her the constant temptations of likeability through marketability with the establishment’s association with social media and the like...

/She completely forgets that she was ever their mentor to begin with./ (Guys, hey, look. I want to keep mentoring you. I do. But I... I have a responsibility to try to reach the other 2.9997 billion people who also look up to me. Right? Nice. Thank you so much. Ivy totes love your support. Here’s a book for you three to split. Wow)

/It isn’t until the Jons begin to multiply thanks to it feeding off the need to always grow and expand on multiple platforms of social media, and them making social media decisions for Ivy on their own accord and her noticing it that Ivy is able to catch herself and climb back to the surface before she falls too deep down the hole. And upon her realizing this, she also realizes that she did heavy damage to a very important bridge she was constructing with the Natural Disasters and tries to rectify things on the other side of it in order to eliminate the monster that is the Jons completely./ (Look, I’m sorry, I fucked up. I fucked up your debut, and I should have been focusing on you guys, not sexy beverage collabs.)

Thankfully she was able to properly reconcile with the Natural Disasters when they agreed to help her get rid of the Jons once and for all.

/Because out of all the new characters season 4 of Harley Quinn introduced, I really thought the three were a pretty fun take on their comic counterparts. And I’m not gonna lie, I was kinda digging their collaborative “New Gotham” plan./

However, because the overall purpose of the Jons was to drive Ivy away from her initial goals with what she had planned as CEO of the Legion of Doom and try to get her enthralled into establishment, we can’t forget the initial reason why she’s there in the first place:

Lex Luthor

The allegory in how Lex sets Ivy up to fail is honestly INCREDIBLY easy to spot. From offering her the position as the CEO of the Legion of Doom to how he treats her over the duration of the season up until episode 8.

/While his involvement in Ivy’s affairs was limited to a certain extent, every time he involved himself proved to be pretty impactful./

/From trying -- and failing -- to undermine her and using the position he gave her to boost his ego and PR at the business conference on the moon (That 45 seconds is the hottest time slot of the weekend. You have to save your voice. I’ll have one of the Jons get you some tea)

/To gifting her the Jons afterward that gives her a taste of what happens when you abandon your principles once the establishment takes hold of you/ (Thank you, Lex. That’s very generous. I really don’t think I need a PR team. The work speaks for itself. Ring ring ring ring. Uh, hello? Delusion. Girl, how’d you get this number? Excuse me, Ivy, it’s for you)

Everything Lex did to Ivy after she accepted the role of the Legion of Doom’s CEO directly allowed him to be relieved of both the responsibility and the consequences. But because of his status, the decision to do so doesn’t relinquish him of his power and sway within the establishment.

We’ve seen this plenty of times in real life when it comes to similar situations. At the time of recording this video, Elon Musk stepped down as the CEO of Twitter after buying it and getting the right-winged girlboss Linda Yaccarino to fill the position in June of 2023, but he’s still the only chairman. Same with Jeff Bezos stepping down as the CEO of Amazon 2021 but still having immense power over the company as its executive chairman.

Overly rich business owners in power -- as a way of benefitting from the fact that not EVERYONE knows that the real power in owning a conglomerate comes from its chairs -- tend to sacrifice their spots as CEO as a way of showing the uneducated masses that they’re giving up their power, especially when the public press works in favor of those who believe that CEO’s are responsible for everything that happens to a company.

But because being an executive chairman has more power over the company than the CEO, and that most of the individuals in question initially operate as both executive chairman AND CEO, they stay in their executive chairman position in order to keep the power associated with running the company assigned to them and them alone.

This is what Lex did with Ivy. With the Legion of Doom being a subsidiary of LexCorp, he -- as the executive chairman -- still had all the power associated with it while Ivy ran the day-to-day stuff.

/And because of her being a woman, how she presents herself and the type of crimes she commits, Lex uses Ivy’s socio-economical feminist status to his advantage in order to make himself look good first and foremost, molding her where necessary along the way./ (Some light compliments, a gorgeous PR team, and you became a perfectly ineffective puppet to warm my seat at the LoD while I built this)

This is why even in a comedy series, the use of Lex was PERFECT this season in order to not only show off how powerful he is as an evil conglomerate head, but how he is a perfect representation of the current way of things overall.

/Lex represents everything that Ivy has been trying to fight since honestly season 1. He’s capitalism. He’s patriarchy. He’s the establishment. Because of how much power these three things have both in the real world and in the world of Harley Quinn, everything that he wants to happen WILL happen unless something completely drastic comes along to challenge him./

And because of that -- just like all of these things he represents -- those that try to utilize the same avenues in order to change things from the inside will always prove to be ineffective because of how the system caters to those like him.

/And they’re presented with two options: either conform to it, or die within it./ (I’m a powerful business woman. Lady trees, socially conscious evil, splashy words. But ultimately, you accomplish nothing.)

Conclusion

Listen, I know the lack of Clayface, King Shark and even Frank kinda threw peeps off with the direction the writers for season 4 wanted to explore with Harley and Ivy branching off to further explore the extremes of good and evil respectively. And I totally get that there was a lack of that “Oh my God, it’s Beyonce!” energy because of it.

But when you look at what we got in season 4 BECAUSE of that sacrifice -- especially with Ivy -- it’s incredibly obvious that we got something special from the tradeoff.

Something that while still hilarious in its own right gave us a great depiction of how comedy exaggerations still hold incredible truths to them regarding how they accurately represent real-life situations and socio-political systems

And it’s not like we’re never gonna see the gang back together like they were in seasons 1 through 3. Season 5 has been officially announced, and both Harley and Ivy are in places that allow them to not only get back to OG crew shenanigans but also explore Gotham City Sirens stuff, which I can’t wait for.

/But considering every possible storyline Ivy could’ve experienced in season 4 of Harley Quinn the animated series, this much needed wake-up call that plenty of peeps are going through currently and can easily watch as a result was the right choice./

But I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:

Write in the comment section below what you thought of season 4 of Harley Quinn the animated series if you’ve seen it.

Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, write in the comment section below a storyline in film or television that you’ve seen that did a great job at conveying the message that there’s no saving a naturally corrupt system-slash-establishment from the inside and that completely destroying it to build something new is the better option.

And remember; if this video gets enough engagement via comments, views and likes, I’ll make a video on Harley’s storyline this season as well.

But whichever question you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.

/A HUGE shoutout to my Patrons both big and small for helping make this channel possible.

Make sure you check out the card at the end of the video to join, or click the link to it or any of my affiliates in the description box below.

But until then, this is Readus 101. Class dismissed./