Month: February 2020

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In Episode 3 of Picard, we learn about why Jean-Luc (Patrick Stewart) and Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), his former first officer, had a falling out. We also learn more about the details surrounding Picard’s resignation from Starfleet. On the Borg ship called The Artifact, Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) is back! He was the injured Borg drone being nursed back to health by Geordi La Forge and the rest of the Enterprise in The Next Generation episode “I, Borg”. Meanwhile, Raffi connects Picard with a ship pilot, Cris Rios (Santiago Cabrera), and Soji interviews a Romulan former Borg drone.

For more on Star Trek: Picard, read about why Picard quit Starfleet, and who is Hugh, the former Borg drone?

Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.

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Harley has made it abundantly obvious that she and the Joker are done in every trailer for Birds of Prey. The two members of Gotham’s most infamous clown royal family of crime have officially called it quits. But, considering just how strange the DCEU’s continuity and shared universe actually are (at least, compared to the MCU), we can’t fault anyone for wondering if Mr. J is going to show up in some capacity for Harley’s new movie. And, perhaps even more importantly, which version of Joker would be around, given the fact that Joaquin Phoenix is the most recent person to take on the role?

Thankfully, Birds of Prey has a relatively simple solution for such a weird, tangled web of interconnected stories. Is The Joker in Birds of Prey? Yes–but probably not in the way you’d expect.

In truth, Joker’s cameo in the movie comes care of some re-used Suicide Squad footage. The scene in which Harley is thrown into the vat at Ace Chemicals has been recut for this movie, meaning that we do get to see part of the back of Joker’s head–Jared Leto Joker, that is–just before Harley makes her swan dive. We never actually see his face or any other part of him for that matter–so, as far as cameos are concerned, it’s really not much. Still, it does confirm some things that may or may not have been gnawing at the back of your brain.

For one, Joaquin Phoenix is definitely not the Joker in the “main” DCEU. Not that anyone involved with that movie ever tried to insist that he was–but still, given how jumbled the landscape is with Batman movies in particular, it wasn’t necessarily outside the realm of possibility. But now it’s looking more like Joker, the movie, is entirely separate from movies like Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Birds of Prey, and Shazam and nothing that happened in it will have any bearing on the DCEU moving forward.

Second, Jared Leto’s Joker is still, functionally, canon for the larger DCEU, even if the actor won’t be reprising the role any time soon (at least, that we know of). James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad reboot has already released a cast list, and, despite it being huge, Leto was not included. Similarly, Matt Reeves’ Batman film has confirmed a cast that does not involve Joker at all. We still don’t know where Reeves’ film will fall in the DCEU at large, or if it’ll take a similar approach to Joker and remain completely isolated, but those are the two movies in which we’d likely see a Joker appearance if one was in the works.

So, if you’re trying to keep track of who’s who in the DCEU, your best bet when trying to understand what’s going on with Mr. J is to just keep picturing the face-tattoos and diamond grills of Leto’s Joker for, well, the foreseeable future. Trust us, we’re not stoked on it either, but them’s the breaks.

Birds of Prey is in theaters now.

Continuity and the logistics of the shared universe in DC’s movies can be a tricky thing to figure out, especially now after movies like Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Shazam have done their best to pivot away from the old and start something new–or, well, sort of new. DC certainly isn’t building their films out based on the MCU’s blueprint, but they’re also not completely scrapping their early attempts in favor of complete reboots, either.

Birds of Prey exists in that not-a-reboot middle ground. It is a sequel to Suicide Squad, in that one takes place after the other and they both feature the same version of Harley Quinn. But Birds of Prey is a Suicide Squad sequel the same way Aquaman is a direct sequel to Justice League–meaning it only really needs you to remember the tiniest handful of details from Suicide Squad to understand the plot. Can’t remember who Suicide Squad’s bad guy was? No problem. Don’t exactly recall why or how Harley even wound up on that team? Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.

Harley kicks this movie off by announcing that she and the Joker have broken up while providing some rapid-fire exposition regarding her personal origin story. Most of this is done with brand new animated scenes covering her time as a child, going to college, working at Arkham, and so on. However, when it comes time to actually explain her relationship with the Joker, Birds of Prey actually pulls footage directly from Suicide Squad to cover it. The scene where she takes a swan dive into a vat at Ace Chemicals is reused, but cut slightly differently to keep Jared Leto’s Joker mostly out of frame. In fact, the back of his head is all we see of Mr. J for Birds of Prey’s entirety.

The actual details of what Harley and Joker have been doing between then and now are left completely up to the imagination. Tiny details like Joker’s reasons for ending their relationship, how Harley managed to get out from under Amanda Waller’s thumb and stay out of prison, and where Joker is now are never actually explained. As far as Birds of Prey is concerned, Harley has been galavanting around Gotham causing chaos with Joker until very recently and now they aren’t anymore. We can assume that Joker is still in the picture somewhere–other characters certainly seem to be afraid of him as if he’s still at large–but he otherwise never factors into the story.

Birds of Prey’s only other Suicide Squad connection comes in the form of an Easter Egg during Harley’s big police station blow out. As she leaves, she spots a wanted poster for none other than Captain Boomerang (played by Jai Courtney in Suicide Squad) and pauses long enough to say “hey, I know that guy.” This doesn’t tell us much about what Boomerang has been up to since his Suicide Squad days, obviously, just that he’s still at large–but we can assume we’ll get more info when Courtney reprises his role in the upcoming James Gunn Suicide Squad. Maybe he and Harley will get to have a nice catch-up chat before they’re both thrust into whatever mortal peril they’ll be facing this time around.

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is in theaters now. The Suicide Squad will hit theaters on August 6, 2021.

Post-credits scenes are a tradition for superhero movies at this point, and while it may be because of the MCU’s example, the modern DCEU has reliably followed suit. Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam all teased upcoming movies with their after-credits scenes, so it’s only natural to assume that Birds of Prey would include one as well. But, in typical Harley Quinn fashion, sometimes its better to expect the unexpected. Let’s take a look at the ending of Birds of Prey and break down exactly what happened after the credits finished rolling.

Obviously, massive spoilers from here on out. Please proceed with caution!

The final act of Birds of Prey see the members of the titular team coming together for the first time, mostly on accident. Harley, in a bid to save her own life, has arranged a meetup with Black Mask at the Booby Trap, an abandoned funhouse, to hand over Cassandra Cain, who swallowed the encoded Bertinelli diamond he’s so desperate to own. If Harley hands her over, Black Mask will let her go–or, that’s what he says, at least. The odds of her surviving the exchange, she soon realizes, are a lot lower than she’d like. Things get more complicated, however, when both Renee Montoya and Dinah Lance catch wind of the meeting and show up at the Booby Trap to arrest Black Mask and save Cass respectively. Dinah arrives with Roman’s right-hand man, Victor Zsasz, in tow, which in turn leads the final piece of the puzzle to the funhouse–Huntress, who doesn’t actually care about Harley, Cass, or Roman, but wants Zsasz dead for his involvement in her family’s murder, shows up. Finally, all five protagonists are in the same place at the same time.

After dealing with Zsasz by shooting him in the neck with a crossbow and stabbing him over and over with a tranquilizer dart (which may or may not have actually killed him–although Huntress clearly thinks it did), the team realizes that their only real option is to work together to take Roman down. But Roman, who surrounded the Booby Trap with heavily armed henchmen, doesn’t plan on making it easy. What ensues is a massive fight through the Booby Trap, ending in a car chase with Huntress driving a motorcycle, towing a roller skate-wearing Harley behind her. It’s Cass who ultimately saves the day by planting a grenade on Roman and pulling the pin, causing him to explode into a million tiny chunks over Gotham harbor. Zsasz may have a chance at surviving, but Roman definitely does not.

With the dust settling, the women find themselves taking stock of their situation at a Mexican restaurant, day drinking and actually getting to know one another. But before anyone can become too buddy-buddy, both Harley and Cass make a break for it, sneaking out to drive off into the sunset and leaving Renee, Helena, and Dinah to figure out their next steps. The three of them, as Harley narrates, go on to become a vigilante team of their own–calling themselves the Birds of Prey–after Renee quits the force, Dinah gives up trying to stay on the sidelines, and Helena is satisfied with her quest for vengeance. Harley and Cass’s ending is a bit more open, but it’s heavily implied that Harley intends to take Cass under her wing as a sort of protege, at least for the time being. Of course, this may mean Cass will have some role in the upcoming James Gunn Suicide Squad reboot, but we can’t be sure, especially given how fast-and-loose the DCEU tends to be with shared universe continuity.

As for a proper post-credits stinger? Birds of Prey offers only an audio gag and no real scene. If you sit through the credits, Harley breaks the fourth wall to speak over the final seconds, promising that she’s going to share a super-secret detail about Batman. But she only gets as far as saying “Batman f–” before the screen and her audio are cut off completely. What does Batman “f—“? The world may never know.

Harley’s next big-screen outing will be The Suicide Squad, due out August 6, 2021.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.