WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Harley Quinn Season 1, streaming now on DC Universe.
The Harley Quinn animated series has thrown Harley and Poison Ivy's relationship into disarray. The friendship was on the rocks after Harley ignored the entire crew to try to up her position with the Legion of Doom and attempted to rekindle her relationship with the Joker.
Unfortunately, Scarecrow kidnapped Ivy to experiment on her amid the melee and after keeping his project mysterious for a couple of episodes, it's finally been revealed what he's been working on. And make no mistake, this new fear toxin is the villain's greatest weapon, plunging Gotham City into physical and mental fear.
Dr. Jonathan Crane was seen injecting Ivy with chemicals and extracting her DNA, but it wasn't clear if it was for himself or Lex Luthor. In fact, it's still a mystery as to whether the Legion is in on this scheme at all. Regardless, despite trying to escape, Ivy keeps getting captured and her essence harvested.
Scarecrow then suggests he's going to upgrade his fear toxin but plays coy about it. That is until Harley and Co. reunite reluctantly just to break Ivy out. And when they do, it's pure chaos. Sure, Ivy enjoys seeing the goons using recycling bins but the front, the Planetwide Pavers, is something far more sinister. They know Scarecrow has a new chemical heading to Gotham but the effect are still unclear. This leads to a high-speed chase on a pink highway Gotham made especially for Harley so she wouldn't nuke the city in her spare time.
It appears that Scarecrow wants to gas the city but when Harley shoots down her statue, breaking free of her ego at long last, all that follows is a crash where the villain dumps all the chemicals into Gotham's water supply. At this point, fans are left wondering if it'll be like Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins where they now have to vaporize the agent, but this time it's more direct. Thanks to a contaminated river, all of the underground water network becomes tainted and as the sprinklers turn on, the city's trees turn into carnivorous monsters. They uproot themselves and begin to attack civilians.
The trees begin running wild, devouring everyone in sight. But what's most shocking is the atmosphere is also petrifying people, leaving them as sitting ducks and hapless victims, proving the chemical agent works outside the water supply. It's just a matter of time before more plants, animals and even humans turn once they ingest the contamination from the reserve. Scarecrow doesn't even seem to care if mankind gets scared, because the sight of trees consuming people is enough to make them afraid. As Harley's gang ponders their next move, the next episode might see Ivy have to destroy the very thing she swore to protect.
DC Universe's Harley Quinn stars Kaley Cuoco, Lake Bell, Diedrich Bader, Alan Tudyk, Rahul Kohli, Christopher Meloni, Tony Hale, Ron Funches, Wanda Sykes, Natalie Morales, Jim Rash, Giancarlo Esposito, Jason Alexander and J.B. Smoove. New episodes are released on Fridays.