Birds of Prey: Feats of Clay

A killer is on the loose, capable of turning people into clay. He's the son of Clayface, and Huntress becomes even more determined to bring him in when she discovers it was his father who murdered her mother.

This is very oddly paced. It starts off with a poor quality villain who turns people to clay, then for some reason just leaves them alone; then he develops the ability to blow up his creations, something he could easily have accomplished before through knocking them to the floor. The fact that Oracle manages to knock up a 'turning people back to normal after being clay' serum is ridiculous and destroys any problems before they're ever an issue.

Then we have Clayface. He seems to admit to the murder of Selina Kyle without any real reason to, and there's no explanation of how or why he ended up working with the Joker to do the deed anyway. On top of this, the actor playing him seems to have put on a really odd accent that may well be his own, but I'm not entirely convinced. It's good to have a real Batman villain on the show at last, but he seems to have been simplified down to just being a shapeshifter, something I think is merely one of his abilities in the comic. He should also be a lot more malleable than he seems here; if he can switch shape, why doesn't he escape before he's taken into custody? His son also seems of little use, losing his power and being easily beaten, not to mention kowtowing to his father the instant he puts in an appearance.

Alfred is also behaving out of character, bringing Wade to the clocktower so Barbara can tell him how she feels. It's not especially conducive to a secret identity, and while we can't really blame Alfred for Barbara losing concentration during a mission, it does seem as if he could have chosen a better night on which to distract her. That said, the fact that she's distracted at all is unlike Babs, who should know the dangers of the lifestyle all too well by now, yet she ignores Helena and Dinah just as guns are pulled.

And finally we have Harley. Proving the usefulness of a secret identity, she now knows who Huntress is, which I suspect is probably a seriously bad move. Okay so it had to happen, and with the next episode being the last we needn't worry too much about that, but the fact that Helena hasn't been spotted at some high profile gathering before with someone who can put two and two together seems unlikely. Oh, and whatever Reece says, her outfit is absolutely hideous. God knows what he's looking at, although I suspect it's her breasts, which have approximately half a centimetre hidden inside the dress.

**

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