Batman: The Animated Series
Episode 11
Two-Face, Part 2
The follow-up to such a great episode had a lot of hype surrounding it but unfortunately the second part isn’t as epic. It certainly resolves the cliffhanger from the last episode but lacks the stakes.
Harvey Dent has fully embraced his Two-Face persona. He’s started his own criminal gang and is hitting up Rupert Thorne’s criminal enterprises. Two-Face now makes his decisions via chance. He flips his two-headed coin, one clean, one scarred to make all his choices. Batman notices the pattern in his robberies revolve around the number two.
Two-Face is having the feels for the fiancé and past life he’s abandoned. He tries to reunite with his Grace. He arranges a meeting to see her, Thorne’s people trick Grace into narcing on him, Batman also uses that as his “in” to track Harvey Dent.
A fight ensues between Two-Face, Rupert Thorne and his men, and Batman. Two-Face has a chance to kill Rupert Thorne, Batman is incapacitated but still saves the day by throwing a bunch of coins in the air as Two-Face is trying to make a decision. He goes crazy trying to find the right one. The police arrive and take everyone to jail. There’s some fluffy speech about love and hope.
The episode does the job but is a failure compared to its first part. The hopeful ending is ham-fisted given that Two-Face continues on as one of Batman’s greatest villains in the series. This episode likely suffers from following such a brilliant first part. Part 1 was done so well, it became almost impossible to follow it with any satisfying conclusion. At least anything satisfying in a children’s cartoon. The Dark Knight resolved Two-Face’s descent into evil in a more conclusive way but that wouldn’t have worked for BtAS because Two-Face needed to be a recurring villain, and regularly killing people on a kid’s show is a hard to sell.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
