Harley Quinn S2E4 recap: Harley Quinn gets a lesson in love

Harley Quinn finally gets inside of Mr. Freeze’s lair but things get chillier than expected. Here’s what happened in “Thawing Hearts!”

With Firefly’s flamethrower, Harley Quinn and the gang are finally melting their way to Mr. Freeze. However, in true Harley Quinn fashion, the group is forced to fight their way through a group of goons in order to get to their goal. What sounds like a challenge is actually done with finesse, and all while having a conversation about their dates (or in Harley’s situation, lack of date) to Ivy’s wedding. As soon as Harley, Doctor Psycho, Clayface and King Shark make it to their target, Mr. Freeze gains the upper hand by turning them into ice blocks.

Poison Ivy is missing out on all of the action, as she has some wedding planning to do. It’s venue-choosing time, and a very freaked-out Kite Man has the perfect one in mind. But to his dismay,  another villain wants the same venue — his nemesis, Condiment King.

Returning to the ice lair, Mr. Freeze releases Harley and the crew from their frozen prison, assuring them that his plan is not to kill them. He then lurches into his reasoning behind building the ice lab — to find a cure for his wife’s rare blood disease. He informs them that after experimenting with rats, he realized that he needed a human to experiment on and that Harley Quinn is the perfect test subject.

Quick to buy some time, Harley Quinn informs Mr. Freeze that Poison Ivy will help create a cure. As soon as he’s out of earshot, she then tells the rest that she doesn’t plan on dragging Ivy into the mess, and that instead, hopes this will give her enough time to kidnap his wife, Nora, as leverage.

Her plan sounds great, until Mr. Freeze brings out a frozen Nora and Harley decides that she’d rather save Nora from her husband. Without a second thought, she thaws the supposed ice prisoner out, only to discover that it was the ice keeping her alive. Beyond livid about this turn of events, Mr. Freeze threatens to blow up the building if Poison Ivy doesn’t come up with a cure.

Unfortunately, this leads to the one thing Harley wanted to avoid: dragging Ivy into her mess. Poison Ivy leaves the wedding venue during the engaged couple’s appointment, in hopes that Kite Man will manage to score it without her.

A very stunned Harley Quinn discovers that it was Mr. Freeze who convinced the rest of the Injustice League not kill her. This bit of information arrives too late, because Nora’s lifespan is already quickly ticking away. Ivy announces that she figured out the cure, and asks Kite Man to fetch some flowers from her greenhouse in order to create it. By leaving the venue to help, Kite Man officially had to give up the venue that his heart was set on.

In a very heartbreaking conclusion, Poison Ivy explains the cure to Mr. Freeze. By taking it, Mr. Freeze’s blood type will turn into Nora’s, allowing him to give a transfusion. However, there’s a catch: it will kill Mr. Freeze. As he’d do anything for the woman he loves, he accepts the consequences.

“Thawing Hearts” gives Harley Quinn a lesson on what love really means. From Poison Ivy and Kite Man sacrificing their wedding venue to Mr. Freeze sacrificing his life, she realizes these are things that the Joker would have never done for her. I’m looking forward to seeing how this new-found knowledge will impact Harley in future episodes.

Harley Quinn airs on DC Universe every Friday! The first season will also soon begin airing on SYFY!

What are your thoughts on “Thawing Hearts?” Let us know in the comments!