Quinzel manages to get information on the Birds out of Helena by asking her, and sets out to take control of the city as Harley Quinn, using a metahuman power she's stolen of hypnosis.

This is simply appalling. Okay, so the series has been bad before, but if this is an attempt to wrap things up, or indeed is what was planned for the original end of the season, thank god the show got cancelled when it did.

Firstly, Helena. Regardless of whether or not you think you're talking to a psychiatrist, if you're a superhero that doesn't want to run the risk of all her friends being found and killed or her secret base uncovered, you keep your mouth shut. Helena, for reasons best know to herself, decides to let the entire cat out of the bag and just reels off a list of all her friends and accomplices, making it easy for Harley to just wander in and take over. Later, when Oracle claims it wasn't Helena's fault, she's obviously being too kind. Yes, it clearly was entirely her fault, and the death and destruction should be on her conscience.

Next up is Dinah, who at least finally gets something to do, and beats up a few bad guys. However, she has now been lumbered by a lot of black leather which does nothing for her at all, as she doesn't look old enough to carry it off. It's like she's been given Huntress's cast-offs, and she should be in something else entirely. Maybe some kind of sharp black suit or something, who knows?

Barbara, meanwhile, also gets to enjoy a thrown-down, as with a spot of tinkering with the device that enabled her to stand for about 30 seconds a few episodes back, she can now apparently walk around with ease, kick, fight, and leap high into the air (more of that in a minute). A 'little' tinkering? This is no less than a medical miracle, and if all she gets is a bit of pain every hour or so, it's still pretty good going. Since when did she become this kind of technical genius, or is it just that the writers are as determined as ever to get shot of Oracle's wheelchair and suggest that she'd be much more use without it?

Then there's Harley. The costume department evidently couldn't be bothered to sort out the proper costume for Mia Sara, so she ends up with a half-assed red and white number that does nothing to disguise her identity. She's not anywhere near as loopy as she ought to be still, and she doesn't need metahuman powers in the comic to do what she wants. The fact that a contrived reason is supplied here to give her one does away with all her apparent planning earlier in the year with all the super-criminals. Plus her power seems to be hypnosis; why at the end of the episode does she, like Barbara, acquire the ability to leap from floor to ceiling as if she's been doing it all her life? A bit of realism wouldn't hurt, would it?

Which leads us nicely to the final battle. It's awful. In fact, it's one of the worst pieces of choreography I've ever seen in my life. Half the people don't look like they've been hit at all, everyone is leaping around as if they're wearing springs, and it's all done to the accompaniment of All The Things She Said by t.A.T.u., which in no way works. If you want to set a fight to something, you use a rock track, a dance track or some incidental music. You don't use a song about lesbian lovers which doesn't match anything going on onscreen. The fact that it ends with Barbara almost killing Harley is also unlikely, as Babs has been the first to stop Huntress all year and I can't believe she'd be that easily turned, even by the death of her boyfriend. Speaking of whom, if he'd come across as anything other than a rent-a-hunk, viewers might begin to care about Wade before he's stabbed by Harley. Frankly it doesn't seem like reason enough for Babs to fly off the handle.

The final scene, featuring Alfred calling Bruce Wayne, a man who was alleged to have gone missing when the season began, is simply rubbish, schmaltzy, sentimental and entirely unnecessary. Still, at least it's a little better written than Alfred's line when he stands up to Harley with a shotgun: "Buttle this". That's gotta hurt.

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