Plot summary: Six months after his transformation, Two-Face wreaks havoc on his old rival Rupert Thorne. But Batman hasn’t given up hope for his former friend.
(Originally published on The Reel World August 15th, 2020)
Notes
Original Air Date: September 28th, 1992
Directed: Kevin Altieri (5)
Written: Randy Rogel (2)
Animation: Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (2)
Music: Shirley Walker (9)
Two-Face wearing suits of two different colours split down the middle was taken from this episode.
As mentioned last time, Al Pacino turned down the role of Two-Face. Nevertheless, Harvey’s line “For the next five minutes I’m in control” is a quote from Dog Day Afternoon.
When Harvey opens his wallet you can see a credit card poking out that says Two-Face… I have SO many questions.
Recap
Our first “Previously on Batman” of the series! It skips to the end of the episode with Harvey’s accident. Obviously you don’t want to take up too much time replaying things that already happened, but that slightly undercuts the great work they did before the transformation. Ah well.
A pair of identical twins drive Two-Face to Rupert Thorne’s betting shop. One toss of a coin later, the three burst in with tommy guns and rob the place, though Harvey demands a diamond ring be left behind after another coin flip.
Thorne informs us it’s been six months since the last episode, and he is sick and tired of Dent’s vendetta, putting a two million dollar bounty on his head (one million per face, of course!)
In a dream, a pre-transformation Harvey is chased across the rooftops by Batman, blaming Bats for not saving him. His face changes and he plummets into oblivion. Batman looks over the edge to see his parents in Crime Alley. Damn.
Bruce awakens in a sweat at the Bat Computer, with dozens of books and journals about psychology open in front of him. He wonders what Harvey has become and swears that he’ll save him somehow.
The police knock at Grace’s door hoping to find Harvey’s whereabouts. Grace confirms she hasn’t seen him once in the last six months, but ‘Detective Leopold’ is insistent he may try to make contact, leaving her a tracking device/beeper combo.
Oh but wait, it’s Candace in disguise! I did wonder why they went with a cop we’d never seen before over Renee Montoya. Sure enough, Harvey does a wistful drive-by.
Back at his hideout, Two-Face diligently counts money, scolding his twin accomplices for being greedy. Opening his wallet to pocket some cash, he catches sight of Grace in a picture and becomes forlorn. His lackeys offer to bring her to him, but his coin says no.
Batman shares a theory with Alfred about a pattern to Harvey’s crimes: all of them involve the number two and are owned by Thorne. Unfortunately he’s run out of viable targets, but Batman tears off on the Bat Bike with a theory.
Two-Face breaks into the office of Thorne’s lawyer to obtain incriminating evidence that he had previously attempted to subpoena during his time as the District Attorney. When Harvey promised to do to Thorne what was done to him, I really thought he meant he was going to disfigure him.
Batman arrives and pleads with Harvey to stop. Two-Face violently rebuffs him until Bruce mentions Grace, which seems to calm him. Unfortunately the twins knock Batman out, and the baddies escape.
A janitor finds Bats and elects to wake him up rather than take a peek under the mask. A groggy Bruce examines a piece of Two-Face’s coat he tore off, which contains a matchbook stylised to look like a black two of hearts.
Two-Face continues to be a sad panda, demanding his boys stop the car after they drive past a wedding shop. He flips his coin..
Grace receives a phone call from Harvey who asks to see her, telling her to get in the car waiting outside in a neat bit of symmetry to the previous episode where he was asked to get in a car by Thorne.
The car takes Grace to the abandoned Wild Deuces club (surely it should be called Deuces Wild) where she sees Harvey for the first time in six months, half a hood over his disfigured face.
He tells her his name is Two-Face, and that chance rules his life now. Grace claims chance didn’t make him the DA, and didn’t make them fall in love and pulls the shroud off.
Harvey resigns himself to a scream that never comes, as Grace reaffirms her love for him instead. Before they can kiss, Rupert Thorne and his men barge in and surround them. Grace realises she led them right to Harvey and feels horrible.
Batman speeds to the club in the pouring rain, lightning flashes illuminating his surprisingly dope helmet (safety first, kids!). He shambles inside, still feeling the effects of his tussle with Two-Face, and a massive brawl erupts. Even Grace gets in on the action, taking down Candace.
Harvey points a gun at the incapacitated Thorne and then flips his coin, but Batman chucks a box full of silver dollars into the air. Unable to find his coin, Two-Face collapses to the floor in a despondent wreck. Wild how Batman Forever couldn’t top a children’s cartoon made for a fraction of the budget.
After taking Harvey into custody, Jim Gordon asks Batman an oddly philosophical question about hope. His staggeringly optimistic response? “Where there’s love, there’s hope… but a little luck can’t hurt.” He flips a coin into a nearby fountain.
Best Performance
It’s got to be Richard Moll again, though he was showing far more range in the first episode. He does get to reprise the pre-transformation Harvey briefly in Batman’s dream, but for the most part it’s all Two-Face, all the time. But that’s no bad thing, because his Two-Face voice is so incredibly distinct and intimidating. Many Batman villains are either deranged lunatics who cackle whimsically, or mobster stereotypes. Two-Face has more of an everyday rough edge and sense of danger to him, with Molly making Harvey sound equal parts monster and man.
John Vernon is great as Rupert Thorne again, and I think Murphy Cross and Diane Michelle are excellent as Grace and Candace respectively, but it’s Kevin Conroy who comes closest to knocking Moll off the pedestal. This episode is as much about Batman’s desperation and vulnerability as it is Two-Face, and it works because of Conroy.
Ranking
I deliberated about whether or not to treat two-part episodes as a single entry on the rankings before I started this series to prevent them being split over consecutive weekends. Now that we’ve hit the first one I think I made the right decision. Part 1 is notably better than part 2, largely because of how compelling Harvey’s slow decline is compared to the slither of humanity that’s obviously still within him in this episode.
Harvey’s obsession with the coin is good stuff, and they do a fantastic job showing how much his change has affected Batman, which is made all the more powerful when you learn it’s been 6 months of in-universe time.
Grace and Bruce refusing to give up on Harvey despite everything is good honest comic book optimism, and Batman’s hopeful final line could not be further from the image that recent portrayals of the character have cultivated of a grumpy sociopath who loves punching criminals and wallows in his misery.
Many would attribute the lighter tone to the fact it’s a children’s cartoon, but I think that’s overly dismissive, and it’s instead more that Batman has been around for 80 years, and he hasn’t always been a total asshole. I would welcome a return to this more nuanced, human portrayal of the character.
Some are critical of the animation in Part II compared to I, but Kevin Altieri insists that’s because Dong Yang animated it as delivred to them, whereas Part I saw the animators taking liberties (for the better). I’m sure that’s true, but Part II is definitely less visually interesting, and there’s a bit of a floaty quality to the plot compared to the tightly focused first part. Still good, just not as good.
- Two-Face Part I
- On Leather Wings
- Two-Face Part II (NEW ENTRY)
- Pretty Poison
- P.O.V.
- Christmas with the Joker
- Be a Clown
- Nothing to Fear
- The Last Laugh
- The Under-Dwellers
- The Forgotten
Villain Watch
Two-Face (Richard Moll) (second appearance)
Harvey’s obsession with his coin and fixation on duality/the number two are the kinds of idiosyncratic ticks that make characters more memorable. The brief moments where he seems to ‘still be in there’ play into the optimistic tone of the episode and the show overall.
Many question why Batman doesn’t simply kill his foes as they’re so clearly beyond redemption, but much of that is because comics can never end, and familiar names sell better than new characters, so prison becomes a revolving door and the same handful of villains take turns terrorising Gotham. But lost in that is Bruce’s earnest belief that he can save them all, which is even more pronounced when he’s dealing with his former best friend.
A few episodes ago I talked about how underrated Poison Ivy is as a villain, and how outstanding she is when written well. I think the exact same things about Two-Face, because he’s got such a simple gimmick, but there are seemingly endless possibilities. See The Dark Knight Returns or his small but thought provoking role in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth for proof.
Rupert Thorne (John Vernon) (second appearance)
I can’t decide if Rupert Thorne is better, worse or about the same in Part II as he is Part I. Nothing he does here has any impact on his position on the list. He continues to be about as good as a generic mobster villain gets in a show that features a psychotic murder clown on a regular basis.
- Joker
- Two-Face
- Poison Ivy
- Scarecrow
- Rupert Thorne
- Man-Bat
- Sewer King
- Boss Biggis
The Matt Signal 
Leave a comment