'Harley Quinn': Poison Ivy probably has the best entrepreneurial approach to a career in villainy on the show
No career path is easy, but it's not a stretch to say that supervillainy may be the strangest career choice of them all. After abandoning her job as a licensed therapist, Harley Quinn (Kaley Cuoco), has for years essentially been assistant manager to the Joker's (Alan Tudyk) operations for most of her supervillain career.
Now, she's making her own way, trying to get into the most elite supervillain organization on the planet — the Legion of Doom. She could save herself the heartbreak, however, if she just took a leaf out of Poison Ivy's (Lake Bell) book and stayed her own boss.
Poison Ivy seems to have things more or less figured out. She works on her own — or at least, she's got enough ready and willing plant helpers to not need to rely on people — and seems much happier for it.
She's got the freedom of being her own boss, having cornered the niche market of ecoterrorism. She decides who to attack, when, how, and apparently makes enough of a living to afford a greenhouse apartment in Gotham city.
She even has the free time to pursue freelance jobs with Harley and her crew. She's living the feminist dream of being a powerful woman in charge of her own career.
The Legion of Doom is the opposite of all of that.
Poison Ivy has always been dismissive of the Legion but in Episode 8 of 'Harley Quinn', we find out that she has been rejecting their invitations to join them, which is a whole other story.
She doesn't just find the Legion distasteful, she actively loathes them, and that she does, says a lot more about the Legion than anything we've seen of them so far.
'Harley Quinn' is a show that relegates "evil" to being more of a career path than a moral failing, so that the Legion of Doom is "evil" isn’t what repels Poison Ivy so much as that they’re all just terrible people.
Ivy has taken a good hard look at the corporate world the Legion of Doom represents, and she wants nothing to do with it. She paints a picture of a male-dominated work environment of smarmy suits (or costumes, as the case may be) with far too much power.
Lex Luthor can't even bring himself to remember the one female member the Legion has (it's Cheetah, by the way). Ivy likens the Legion more to a frat house than an aspirational career goal, which is why she has rejected their offer to join as often as she has.
Like any good friend, she has been critical but supportive of Harley's own career path, even when Harley finally gets the job interview she has been waiting for and Ivy has been dreading.
Ivy knows that Harley is good enough to get into the Legion on her own merits — she knows Harley is better than most of the people working at L.O.D already.
It's only when Ivy's attempts to warn Harley of the L.O.D'S petty office politics blows up in Ivy's face that Ivy brings up the idea of finally turning her solo career into a partnership.
Having spent much of the season declining to associate herself with Harley's crew, it's too little, too late — Harley's heart has been set on this prestigious job for a while, and it's going to be an interesting switch for the show.
For most of the season, Harley's been quite the enterprising villain herself. She reinvented her brand, and worked her way up from almost nothing, finding her own niche in hiring a crew of unique individuals nobody else would hire.
And even without the Legion's impressive resources, Harley has gone up against the industry's biggest hitters (literal or otherwise), holding her own against not one, but three Justice League members.
Is a corporate job really the best fit for Harley? That remains to be seen, but it is fair to say that most fans would much rather see a Harley Quinn-Poison Ivy partnership than anything else.
The next episode of 'Harley Quinn' airs on January 24 on DC Universe.