There's No Ivy in Team

Season 3
Episode 2

## All Season 3 Episodes

"**There's No Ivy in Team**" is the second episode of the third season of *Harley Quinn*, and the twenty-eighth episode of the series overall. It was released on July 28, 2022 on HBO Max.

## Synopsis

After a heist gone wrong, Harley takes the crew to an escape room to foster camaraderie and sharpen Ivy's leadership skills.

## Plot

> ***Nightwing**Gotham City. Demons are rising up. Criminals breed in the shadows. Blood paints the streets like graffiti. My home needs, Nightwing.**Harley Quinn**Uhhhh, anyone wanna switch seats?*

Nightwing is returning to Gotham on the same bus as Harley and Ivy. Alfred greets him to pick him up, however, he is quickly shoved out of the way by Harley who loudly announces her and Ivy's return to Gotham before speeding off in Alfred's limo, leaving Nightwing having to call a cab.

Back at Gotham Mall, Clayface, Frank the Plant and King Shark are hanging out when Harley and Ivy suddenly crash through the wall with the limo, destroying King Shark's lemon tree in the process. After announcing their return and shrugging off Frank's complaints of their cheap postcard from Paris, Harley starts Harley announcing Ivy has cooked up an amazing new plan. However, Ivy, feeling self-conscious from Harley's vamping, struggles to articulate it when Harley gives her the floor, and quickly excuses herself. Nonetheless, as Ivy runs off, Clayface fondly remarks that the "house is a home" again.

In the Batcave, Nightwing remains stoic, although is confused upon finding a woman's suit in his old alcove. He is unimpressed when Batgirl introduces herself and reveals she knows all about him, rejecting her attempted handshake. As Batman emerges from the shadows behind him, Nightwing sternly tells him he is no longer Robin when Damian, the new Robin, appears, confirming his statement. However, Nightwing is surprised he is no longer 4 years old. Suddenly, the Batcomputer alerts them that Firefly is attacking the Old Gotham Corn Factory. Robin beats Nightwing to the Batmobile's shotgun, flipping him off, leaving Nightwing to ride with the Macaroni on his pennyfarthing.

Back at the mall, Ivy shows her friends a slideshow of her plan: use an “Edin serum” to reanimate and "supercharge" all the dead plant matter underneath Gotham to overtake the city and cover it with plant life. For the serum, they will have to steal a prehistoric mosquito specimen from the Gotham Natural History Museum. She directs them to extremely large binders that intricately detail their roles in the mosquito heist. As they wrap up, Bane suddenly barges in. Pumping himself with Venom, he demands they return his wedding gift to Ivy and Kite Man, an expensive pasta-maker. The crew claims they have no idea where it is (while enjoying pasta bowls), and Bane leaves even more enraged.

> ***King Shark**How is an Ivy-plan even more of a disaster than a Harley-plan?**Harley Quinn**It's a surprise to me too.*

Ivy's plan quickly falls apart at the museum when they are spotted by a pair of guards that Ivy didn't anticipate. As they hide from gunfire, Ivy ditches the crew when she spots a vent leading to the exhibit with the mosquito. As they are left alone, King Shark questions Ivy's leading ability, but Harley insists it must be part of the plan. When rejoined by her friends, Ivy is overwhelmed by their overlapping questions, and gags them with vines before using larger ones to carry them out of the building, guards still shooting after them.

Back at the mall, Ivy’s run-down friends look on as she lets a drop of the Edin serum fall through a crack in the concrete. A small resurrected dandelion emerges from the crack. Still, just as they start to rejoice, it begins to swell up and mutate, eventually jumping into a barrel of acid, killing itself out of agony. Dejected, Ivy hides in a giant flower in a remote part of the mall. When Harley comes to cheer her up, she reluctantly opens the petals. Ivy beats herself up over screwing up the serum and concludes she needs to work on her plan alone — including Harley, which leaves the Maid of Mischief hurt.

> ***Nightwing**Evening, gentlemen. Didn't your mom ever tell you not to play with matches?**Goon**Well. maybe he doesn't have a mom, or wasn't raised in a traditional household. You're making a lot of assumptions here.*

At the Gotham Corn Factory, the Bat Family watch from a distance while Firefly and his goons start burning the corn factory. As Batman starts laying out the plan, they realize that Nightwing is already confronting Firefly. The villains spot them, and a fight breaks loose with Batman, Robin and Macaroni working together to put out the fire while Nightwing and Batgirl fight the goons while bickering between themselves. The heroes’ scramble eventually results in Nightwing and Batgirl getting tangled up together by their grappling hooks, Firefly igniting the corn factory, and covering Batman, Robin, and the Macoroni in a sea of popcorn. Batgirl concludes they need to improve their teamwork.

Harley complains to the crew at the mall about Ivy shutting her out. As Harley states her wish to find a way to teach Ivy the importance of teamwork, Frank turns on the TV, which shows a commercial for an escape room that can be used to “foster camaraderie.” Meanwhile, while Bane is shopping for explosives at Mor-4-Lex, his credit card is declined. The cashier then gives his items to the next person in line, Calendar Man, angering Bane even more.

Meanwhile, Clayface brings Ivy to the escape room under the pretense that Harley has been abducted. At the escape room, Harley reveals the truth of her plan; Ivy begrudgingly agrees to the activity (because Harley already forged her signature on the release form). They’re joined by Nelvin, an "escape room extraordinaire"…. who is quickly killed by a stray death trap. The room’s lethality sets in as The Riddler then appears on a TV screen. He gives them 45 minutes to solve the room’s puzzle, or they will be squashed to death (although if they win they will get a group photo and a personalized mug).

The crew starts frantically wrecking the place, looking for a way out. Harley tries to reassure Ivy in her leadership ability but she tells her to stop vamping her. Telling her she's not a good leader, Ivy snaps and swats a candle stick that triggers the rooms to spin and shift, resulting in Ivy being put in a room with Nightwing, Harley with Batgirl, and King Shark and Clayface with Batman, Robin, and the Macaroni.

*❝ I couldn't help but wonder. Was the teller telling the truth? Was I depressed? Perhaps my identity had been stolen, by myself. ❞*
— Bane's inner monologue

At Gotham Bank, Bane tries to figure out what is wrong with his credit card. The bank teller tells him they froze his card because of "suspicious activity," including multiple fast food purchases early in the morning, 25 cases of hard seltzer, and then a $50,000 wedding dress from the *Sex and the City* movie. Although Bane insists there is nothing suspicious about these purchases, the teller suggests his spending history is a sign of depression. Bane denies this, but starts pondering the possibility.

With 25 minutes left, Robin questions if they are going to die and Shark King offered to "save [him] the trouble" of dying a painful death by eating him. Meanwhile, Riddler challenges Ivy and Nightwing to escape via “a nimble checkmate"; a chess-playing robot appears, and the ceiling starts to descend. Nightwing confidently steps up to play, noting his Mensa-worthy IQ. Meanwhile, Harley and Batgirl bond over their shared attempts to foster camaraderie with this escape room and having been drawn in by its whimsical ad.

*❝ Riddler's shit about a checkmate. He didn't say it was us doing the checking, mate. Ugh, yeah, I'm gonna kill myself too ❞*
— Poison Ivy

Nightwing defeats the robot, but instead of saving them, the ceiling grows spikes and continues to descend. Nightwing starts to berate himself, and in his meltdown, jumps to the top of a bookcase so the spikes will kill him faster. As she grows annoyed by his self-pity and chatter about failure, Ivy suddenly has an epiphany that they must fail at the chess game to escape. She tells Nightwing to stall the ceiling physically, and as he does so, he guides Ivy on how to lose at chess as quickly as possible. The robot gets the checkmate, and the descending roof stills just in time before they were crushed.

Back in the main room, when he learns about the Thomas Wayne movie from Clayface, Batman angrily rants about how the media repeatedly exploits the Wayne family's tragedy. Clayface excitedly listens to his monologue when suddenly, the rooms all shift back to normal, allowing everyone to reunite. Ivy is amazed Harley managed to find a place that allowed her to face her exact issue: fear of failure. Although unsure what Ivy means, Harley assures her that failure doesn’t mean they won't love and support her. They kiss being interrupted by King Shark, who panics that they only have three minutes to escape the room. With new confidence, Ivy asserts that she will find a way out, but at that moment, Batman solves the puzzle, and they are all released.

After returning to the mall, Ivy makes another attempt at the serum. It initially seems to work, but just as the crew celebrates, the revived flower melts into a pile of goo. The goo explodes onto Frank, then runs down the crack in the floor, causing the whole building to start to shake. At that moment, Bane rolls up to the building with his newly purchased explosives, only for the whole mall to explode without his help; feeling empty, he wonders if he needs a therapist. Harley's crew manages to make it out of the building… except for Frank. However, he soon emerges from the rubble with an altered body. Glowing and levitating, he declares: “I am… a GOD!”

In the Batcave, Nightwing, now wanting to be a team player, makes amends with Batgirl, asking to start over. The Batcomputer announces that Firefly is now attacking an orphanage. As Batman and Robin run to the Batmobile, Batgirl offers to let Nightwing ride on her motorcycle. He politely declines and hitches a ride on the Macaroni’s helicopter.

## Cast and Characters

### Main Cast

* Kaley Cuoco as Harley Quinn
* Lake Bell as Poison Ivy, Bank teller
* Ron Funches as King Shark
* JB Smoove as Frank the Plant
* Alan Tudyk as Clayface, Firefly

### Guest Cast

* James Adomian as Bane, Nelvin
* Diedrich Bader as Batman
* Briana Cuoco as Batgirl
* Harvey Guillén as Nightwing
* Tom Hollander as Alfred, Woke goon
* Jim Rash as The Riddler
* Jacob Tremblay as Robin

## Trivia

* This episode was released at the same time as the first and third episode of the season, making this the first time more than one episode was released at once.
* This episode was released on Adult Swim on August 6, 2022.
* The voice actors behind a guard at the Gotham Natural History Museum, a cashier at Mor-4-Lex Wholesale, and a man from the "Green Street Escape Rooms" commercial are all uncredited despite lines of dialogue.
* The episode seems to slightly contradict one of the elements of the third issue of *The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour* comic. While in the comic, Nightwing is briefly seen together with Batgirl as they confront Gordon, in the episode, Nightwing seems to be totally surprised about her existence and new role with the Bat-Family.
* After Harley and Ivy burst through the wall of Gotham Mall, Clayface references the Kool-Aid Man, a character well-known for crashing through walls in commercials.
	+ Clayface claims Kool-Aid Man improvised that style of entry on the day of filming.
* Nightwing saying "Fuck the Macaroni" is a reference to his counterpart saying "Fuck Batman" on the show *Titans*.
* Clayface compares Ivy needing a pre-historic mosquito trapped sap for her serum to the plot of Jurassic Park. However, Ivy doesn't understand the comparison because she hasn't seen the movie, much to Harley's shock.
* The Dandelion that takes Ivy's serum is based on the flower that helps Ivy when she was captured by the Scarecrow in "Bensonhurst".
* The design of the giant flower that Ivy hides in is inspired by the *Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death* miniseries.
* Among Bane's "suspicious" bank transactions is a purchase of the wedding dress worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in the Sex and the City movie which he paid $50,000 for.
* The scene in which Ivy hits a candle stick causing the rooms to shift them to different places is an homage to *Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade*.
* Batman's angry rant about the prevalence of movies depicting the Waynes’ murder is a reference to the real-life common complaint that the depiction of Batman's origin with his parents dying is overused in adaptations.
* Folders named "Batman Taxes", "The Ayer Cut", "Batsuit Nipple Concept" and "Robin's Homwork" can be seen on the Batcomputer.
	+ "The Ayer Cut" is a reference to an alternative director's cut which has been campaigned for by many fans of the 2016 *Suicide Squad* where director David Ayer's original vision would be realized without studio interference.
	+ "Batsuit Nipple Concept" is a reference to the often mocked batsuit design from Joel Schumacher's *Batman Forever* (1995) and *Batman & Robin* (1997).

## Gallery

*See also: All images from "There's No Ivy in Team"*

Ivy presenting the plan"How is an Ivy plan even more of a disaster than a Harley plan?""I am here for revenge!"Firefly arson"Didn't your mom ever tell you not to play with matches?"FireflyNightwing and Batgirl crashOld Gotham Corn Factory covered in popcornBane shoppingHarley and BatgirlIvy looses at chessThe Bat Family
## References

1. ↑ *Hey ya @DCTitans fans, Tushwing’s quote here is a direct reference to his line in Titans where he says “F\*ck Batman” and I AGREE! #HarleyParty @dcharleyquinn,* Twitter *(July 28, 2022).*
2. ↑ *Hi @DCTitans! #HarleyQuinnS3* @dcharleyquinn, *Twitter* (July 31, 2022).
3. ↑ *DYK, that Dandelion who takes Ivy’s serum and then y’know - is based on the same dandelion from Season 1 who helps Ivy when she’s captured by Scarecrow #HarleyParty* @dcharleyquinn, *Twitter* (July 28, 2022).
4. ↑ *DYK Ives’ pink flower she’s hiding out in is similar to the designs in the Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life comic miniseries #HarleyParty* @dcharleyquinn, *Twitter* (July 28, 2022).
5. ↑ Ives should really stop hitting stuff (ironic I know) but this scene is also what the nerds refer to as an “homage” to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade #HarleyParty *@dcharleyquinn,* Twitter *(July 28, 2022).*