The Most Culturally Impactful Film Franchise of All Time

"The Most Culturally Impactful Film Franchise of All Time" (originally announced as "Most Culturally Impactful Film Franchise") is the seventh episode of the fourth season of Harley Quinn, and the forty-fourth episode overall. It was released on August 24, 2023, on Max.

Synopsis[]

Harley and Ivy use the time sphere and visit their future and learn of a pending apocalypse.

Plot[]

Having seen a duplicate of herself at the Legion of Doom villains’ party, a distressed Harley barges in on Gordon for his security footage of the event. The footage, however, is of no use, leaving Harley more doggedly desperate. Meanwhile, Ivy plots with her mentees about stealing a Legion of Superheroes Time Sphere (not to actually use, just to have as a trophy) from a transport convoy.

Harley next tries talking to Batgirl who is collecting evidence of Nightwing's murder in the Batcave. Batgirl coldly rebuffs her, too focused on confirming whether Joker actually murdered Nightwing, and sends Harley off to talk to Ivy. Batgirl mentions that Harley gave her half a sandwich two hours ago with no hint of this conversation; Harley has no memory of that encounter, compounding her worry.

Meanwhile, the Joker is hosting a poker game with other villains Metallo, Gorilla Grodd, Killer Croc and Doctor Psycho. He is revelling in all the attention his recent come back to villainy has gained him, and Psycho asks him to go on his podcast.

At the L.O.D. reception, as Nora denies Harley’s attempts to speak to Ivy, Harley spots Ivy’s Time Sphere truck heist passing through the city as Superman and Wonder Woman try to stop her. Harley inserts herself into the convoy, annoying a pre-occupied Ivy. Ivy tries to put off the conversation, saying she and Harley will have all the time in the world when they’re older. Learning about the Time Sphere, Harley decides she might as well visit a 60-year-old Ivy who will fulfill that promise. She hijacks the transport truck and accesses the Time Sphere. Ivy joins Harley inside the Sphere, and is unable to talk Harley out of using it.

Harley and Ivy emerge from the Sphere in an apocalyptic wasteland. After a tussle with some underground people, the couple get captured and find themselves in a secret base. Their captors explain this dystopia is not the distant future — it is the year 2048, 25 years later, after Earth’s land and economy have been ruined. The base is a hideout for rebels (including Cheryl and one of King Shark's grown children, King Baby) against Gotham’s tyrant, Robin, the last remaining member of the Bat Family. By this time, Harley and Ivy have died.

The leader of the resistance agrees to help Harley and Ivy back to the Time Sphere if they help the group’s leader topple Robin. When Harley asks why, the group leader reveals she is the adult daughter of Harley and Ivy. To Harley and Ivy's confusion, their daughter is named Neytiri, after a character from the Avatar films. (It is explained that those films are highly impactful in this timeline’s culture)

At Doctor Psycho's podcast in the present, as Joker relays the story of how he murdered Nightwing, he gets interrupted by an anonymous call (from Batgirl). She plays surveillance footage that shows Joker was at the doctor's office at the time of Nightwing's murder, and thus is lying about his involvement. Proven to the podcast's audience that he is stealing glory to elevate his comeback, Joker storms out of the interview in angry disgrace.

As Neytiri preps her group to infiltrate Robin’s tower, Harley and Ivy seamlessly pour their love and pride in Neytiri's proficiency as a leader and fighter, as though they’ve known her since her birth.

During the resistance’s mission against Robin, Harley feels like the infiltration is easier than expected. As it turns out, Neytiri was not trying to defeat Robin, but deliver her parents to him. Robin has become not only a hyper-sedentary slob of a dictator, but a collector of superheroes and villains alike (including the Joker, Flash, Kite Man and even his own father Batman), imprisoning them in ice and keeping them as trophies. As payment for Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, Robin gives Neytiri a sample of soil — a rarity on the planet.

Neytiri reveals she was raised by Cheryl. Harley and Ivy were so useless as parents — because their communication deteriorated beyond repair — that they couldn’t even agree on their daughter’s name, and Neytiri named herself as she reached kindergarten. Neytiri claims that Harley and Ivy bottling things up is what caused the apocalypse.

As Robin prepares to freeze them, Harley quickly tells Ivy everything that’s been troubling her: sleepwalks, hallucinations, and her duplicate self. Just then King Baby crashes in, allowing Harley and Ivy to escape. Robin's body is too atrophied for him to intervene. In the ensuing fight, Cheryl dies and Neytiri loses her soil. As they brawl with an enraged Neytiri, Harley and Ivy conclude that their work-life boundaries have pushed them apart and prevented them from working out problems, asserting they need to work as a team.

King Baby
I think you two can go back and do better; raise a nice kid and stop Lex from destroying the planet.
Harley Quinn
Aww! an optimist like his dad. You love to see it.
Poison Ivy
Wait a minute, what did you say about Lex?
— King Baby's reason for helping.

King Baby presents Harley and Ivy with their Time Sphere, now repaired. They question why he saved them to which he expresses his hope that they can not only stop Lex Luthor from causing this apocalypse (which catches Ivy’s attention) but to do it better with raising their daughter and make a better future.

The couple return to 2023, but mistakenly six days later than they intended (because the Time Sphere's interface makes September 21 and 27 look almost the same). The two watch in horror as they realize that during their absence, the apocalypse has already begun.

Cast and Characters[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

Cameos[]

Spice
Supergirl
Superman
Tawny Young
Toyman
Zatanna Zatara
King Shark’s Children (video recording)
Giganta (pictured)
Lex Luthor (pictured)
Nightwing (pictured)
Parrot handler (pictured)
Starfire (pictured)

Trivia[]

This is the first episode in which Harley never wears her black choker collar. However, Neytiri wears one just like it.
Joker is called by James Corden to co-host what Joker describes as his "little musical-comic traffic jams", a reference to Cordon's show Carpool Karaoke. It is the second reference to Cordon in the show, the first being his name sounding similar to Jim Gordon's.
- Corden's association with a villain like the Joker as well as Doctor Psycho claiming to know him may be a nod towards his well-known bad reputation in the real world.
In the future, everyone is obsessed with James Cameron's Avatar from 2009 with Harley and Ivy's daughter even getting her name from the the lead heroine Neytiri.
Ivy references the movie The Iron Lady, saying Harley masturbates to the movie although Harley insists it was only once and "basically by accident".
Baby Shark saying he wants a future "focused on a different kind of movie, like a jukebox musical based on the music of a certain Swedish pop band" is a reference to the movie Mamma Mia! from 2008.
This is the first episode to have a confirmed date on which it takes place. Interestingly, it is set on September 21st 2023, nearly a month after the actual episode aired in real life.
- It's also established it has been about two weeks since the murder of Nightwing.