‘Harley Quinn’ Season 4 Episode 5: Recap & Ending Explained

‘Harley Quinn’ TV series is back with a new episode titled ‘Getting Ice Dick, Don’t Wait Up’ In the last week’s episode, we saw Harley and Bat Family being financially in trouble and Poison Ivy being invited to the business conference on the Moon, where she needs to stand out and showcase her progress as the new business woman among supervillains. 

In this week’s episode, Harley figures out that she is still not a welcome addition to the Bat Family. Luthor hooks up Ivy with his own PR team, which successfully improves her public image at the cost of her close relationships, and something terrible happens to the grouchiest member of the Bat Family. If you’re interested in our recap and explanation of the ending, stay with us until the end.

Commissioner Gordon becomes security guard for Legion of Doom

The episode starts with Commissioner Gordon trying to make love to his wife in 20 years. This is his opportunity to enjoy retirement, but unfortunately, the romantic moment between the two is interrupted when he receives a call from Nora Freeze on behalf of Legion of Doom. They are looking for a new security guard, and Nora found his resume taped to a dartboard at Noona’s. 

She offers him a job, and he accepts all too willingly, claiming that he is going crazy in retirement. He leaves Barbara in the cabin on top of the mountain alone, with no way to descend.

Harley realizes that she has been abandoned

Harley is undergoing missions with Bat Family. She is charming but annoying as she asks the members of her new clique why they aren’t wearing her friendship bracelets. Nightwing says that they aren’t friends. They are just superheroes who fight crime together. 

Harley strays into a dark alley and realizes how bad her night vision is. She is attacked by a random thug and deals with him effectively but mistakenly crashes into Robin.  

She develops a theory that Bat Family doesn’t like her because her eyesight is bad, and she tries to “boop” Nightwing on his tummy. After this, he scolds her, and she crashes into a pole instead of a criminal attempting to attack Nightwing. 

Harley gets LASIK surgery, and her vision is now 20/20. She can’t wait to surprise the members of the Bat Family with her new eyes. Cara breaks the news that her emergency contact (Ivy) is unavailable, and Harley attempts to call several of her close “friends.” She attempts to contact Nightwing, who rudely hangs up on her, and Batgirl is not answering her phone. 

After pretty clear signals, Harley realizes that she has been abandoned by all her “friends.” 

Lex Luthor sets Poison Ivy up with a PR Team 

Following her conference on the Moon, Poison Ivy is enjoying her time. She is interrupted by Lex Luthor, who tells her how overjoyed he was with her performance at the conference despite having an epic meltdown. He explained that sudden anger episodes are just a side effect of forcing his body to accept the Falcon DNA. 

He tells Ivy that he wants to bring her to another level and gifts her his PR Team, “The Johns,” a group of men wearing various pieces of salmon-colored clothing. 

Commissioner Gordon has a first day in the office 

In the meantime, Nora gives Gordon a tour of the place. She shows him all the various gadgets that LexCorp makes. Gordon doesn’t care that he is working for the villains as long as someone signs his paychecks. Nora introduces him to Ivy’s mentees, Terra, Volcana, and Tefé, the daughter of Swamp Thing whose dad Nora allegedly “boinked.”

Natural Disasters are about to have their first public appearance 

Poison Ivy has a meeting with Natural Disasters, and they have pretty “good” ideas regarding their first public appearance. Volcana wants to activate the network of dormant volcanoes beneath Gotham, Terra wants to include earthquakes, and Tefé wants to repopulate the sharks in the area in order to ruin everyone’s summer. Ivy is then interrupted by the Johns. Her new PR team. 

Batgirl goes missing 

Harley is picked up from the hospital by Alysia, Batgirl’s roommate. Alysia tells Harley that she really looked up to her while she was transitioning, that Harley was this kick-ass Queen villain, and now she can’t believe that she joined the Bat Family.

Before Harley returns to her team members, she stops at the Zoo to pick up the Hyenas. Unfortunately, Nightwing breaks the news that Batgirl is missing. 

Poison Ivy is a walking PR disaster

After Johns interrupted Ivy, they told her that she needed to change a couple of things before she could dominate the world with her evil plans. First off, she needs to be more active on social media. Her last post was created in 2017 for a bagel contest she didn’t even win. 

She needs to focus not only on her mentees but rather on her target demographic, everyone. They organize a professional photoshoot for her, which she very much enjoys. 

Nightwing accuses Harley of working with the villains 

Following Batgirl’s disappearance, Nightwing accuses Harley of not taking the situation seriously enough. He also accuses her of working with Ivy after hyenas start eating his book of clues. Harley retorts that she left her own place and Ivy to come live in Bat Mansion with the Bat Family and that she is dedicated to the cause. 

Nightwing refuses to work with Harley and says he will start investigating alone. Harley says that he can’t do that since they are family, and Nightwing shoots back that Batgirl, Robin, and he are a family and that she is just “Harley.”

Ivy and Harley have a conflict of interests 

Ivy is having a guest appearance on Tawny’s talk show, and she can’t believe that people absolutely can’t be more excited about her new statue. Harley is backstage waiting for Ivy to congratulate her when she runs into Nightwing, who claims that he has “enough evidence” that the Legion of Doom stands behind Batgirl’s disappearance. 

Ivy meets Harley backstage, and after offering Ivy proper support, she asks her whether Legion of Doom has anything to do with Batgirl going missing. Ivy is slightly insulted and disappointed that Harley is here to get info about her instead of offering her real support. She also claims that she can’t give any info away to Harley. 

Harley returns to Batgirl’s room to investigate but falls asleep while searching for clues. Alysia finds her sleeping and offers to help her. The two go through her phone only to find that her last known location is at the mountain. 

‘Poison Thrivy: From Zero to #Girlbosshero’ 

The Johns are continuing full steam with Ivy’s PR campaign. They even wrote a book in her name called ‘Poison Thrivy: From Zero to #Girlbosshero.’ Ivy starts signing some books when she is interrupted by Natural Disasters, who are inquiring about their plan. Ivy is barely listening to them as she continues to focus on her campaign. 

Natural Disasters are now planning to cause even bigger mayhem, and Ivy approves it without realizing what that entails. Frank the Plant also visits Ivy. He asks whether she can sign the book for his sister Sally. Ivy signs the book for Zazzy, and Frank calls her out for changing for the worse after she fails to pay attention to what he is saying. 

Natural Disasters head out of the night, but they are interrupted by Commissioner Gordon, who starts rambling his usual stuff. He invites them for drinks, but the girls pretty rudely reject him, and Volcana burns the front of his pants because he failed to entertain their gender expression. 

Harley saves the day 

Harley has a dream that she is going ice skating with Ivy in real life. However, her dream was so vivid that she almost crashed the car that Alysia was driving as they made their way to the top of the mountain. 

Alysia was wondering whether Harley started having such dreams because she was repressing the villainous part of herself. They almost reach the cabin that was marked as Batgirl’s last location when they run into Captain Cold and his gang on their annual “Cold Boys Trip.”  

Captain Cold claims that he has nothing to do with Batgirl’s disappearance, but Harley beats him up anyway. Just at that moment, Batgirl runs into them, carrying wood for the fire. Harley asks Batgirl whether she would be willing to lie to Nightwing that she saved her, and Batgirl explains that she went to pick up her mother, that was stuck at the cabin, and then got stuck there herself after her mom went to the party with the ice villains. 

Harley opens her heart out to Batigirl and tells her that she is disappointed that Nightwing is still refusing the acknowledge her as part of the Bat Family, and Batgirl retorts that it takes a whole lot more to join a family than friendship bracelets. 

What happened to Nightwing & how did he die? 

Ivy’s statue was unveiled, and she was enchanted by the attention she was getting so much that she didn’t even acknowledge the Natural Disasters that needed to tell her that something important and terrible had happened, and not in a good way, while they were staging their upcoming disaster. 

Back at the cabin, Harley and Batgirl are enjoying the campfire when Harley notices Nightwing sitting on the tree. Harley points out that Nightwing is wearing her friendship bracelet when a squirrel jumps on Nightwing, and he accidentally falls from the branch and lands directly into the fire. This is when Batgirl and Harley see that Nightwing is dead. 

Who killed Nightwing and how Natural Disasters are connected to it remains to be seen next Thursday when episode 6 releases. 

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