‘Harley Quinn’ Coshowrunners on Season 3, Zack Snyder, the Joker, More

• Warning: There are spoilers ahead for “Harley Quinn” season three.
• Insider spoke with co-showrunners Patrick Schumacker and Justin Halpern about the show’s HBO Max return.
• They revealed Zack Snyder never reached out about the NSFW Batman and Catwoman artwork he tweeted.

“Harley Quinn” co-creators Patrick Schumacker and Justin Halpern were a bit worried about the animated series’ chances of getting a third series on HBO Max.

“It was a very painful wait for us because the ink wasn’t dry yet. We were sitting there for what felt like six months or something before it was officially announced, but we did know. We just couldn’t say anything,” Schumacker told Insider over Zoom in July from the Warner Bros. lot.

The uncertainty of whether or not the adult animated series would be renewed for a third season is why the show’s second season ended with Harley (Kaley Cuoco) and her best friend, Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), riding off into the sunset proclaiming their love for one another.

Without giving away spoilers, it’s also likely why season three, which is currently releasing new episodes weekly on HBO Max, also ends its 10-episode run in a similar fashion. The series was just renewed for a fourth season as other original series and films have been axed and removed from the streaming service ahead of Discovery+ and HBO Max merging into one new service next summer.

“Unless you’re on a big hit show, you always have to make it so that every season finale could be the series finale in some way,” Halpern said. “We really wanted to have that gratifying Harley/Ivy moment that we felt was earned and that the fans deserved and the characters deserved.”

“That was why we ended it that way,” Halpern continued, adding, “We were hopeful we’d get a season three, but also it’s like, who the fuck knows?”

Before the show returned to HBO Max at the end of July, Insider spoke with Halpern and Schumacker about the Joker’s interesting turn as the mayor of Gotham City, their reaction to Zack Snyder’s NSFW Batman and Catwoman fan art that he posted, and how WB had no problem with them including a massive orgy scene on episode four.

Parts of season 2 were recorded in a closet during the pandemic. At times, it was a struggle to write season 3 because of the team’s mental state.

 

 

Courtesy of HBO Max

You guys had a bit more time to work on this third season than the first two because of the pandemic. Is the season that we’re watching the one that you guys always had in mind or did the pandemic help it to evolve into what fans are seeing?

Halpern: That’s a good question.

Schumacker: I don’t know that it had any specific effect on it. The pandemic hit when we were in post on the end of season two. This is how glamorous it got. I was voice directing Diedrich Bader remotely. I was at home. Diedrich was in his wife’s walk-in closet using his iPhone. Our sound engineers had to send him pictures of his own daughter holding the iPhone at the appropriate angle so that Diedrich could know exactly where to hold it for the best sound quality.

I was blindly doing it. I could see the finished animation. Diedrich could see that, but I couldn’t see Diedrich so it was voice-only communication and he’s literally in his wife’s closet huddled under her dresses because there was decent sound in that area in his house.

I would say it affected production a little bit or post-production from all the way back in season two. Then our writer’s room in season three was all Zoom.

In terms of the actual content of the show, I think it pretty much was the season that we envisioned.

Halpern: I do think it was affected by the pandemic in terms of the sort of mental state all of us were in when we were writing it. I certainly felt like it was more of a struggle. “Harley” is a pretty joyful show, even if it’s got a bit of cynicism to it in certain areas. It’s a pretty exuberant, joyful show. Normally, when we’re in person and there’s no pandemic, it’s easier to get to that place.

During the pandemic, we started the writer’s room six months into the pandemic. You could feel us struggling to get to those places that we needed to get to, to write the show and there were a lot of times where we would go too dark with something and then we’d have to pull ourselves back just because of the mental state we were all in during that time.

Bringing in two female co-showrunners on season 3 helped bring fresh eyes to the Harlivy story and the show in general

 

Courtesy of HBO Max

There’s a lot of pressure to get things right on a TV show when you have a long-shipped couple finally get together. How did you guys avoid stumbling on season three with Harley and Ivy and did bringing in new co-showrunners Chrissy Pietrosh and Jessica Goldstein help? How has the dynamic of working with them been?

Halpern: I wasn’t quite as worried about like, “Oh, they’re finally together. Is this gonna fuck up the show?” There are so many more stories we can tell now that they’re together and I had always been interested in the idea of somebody who’s been in toxic relationships and bringing those bad habits to a good relationship. That’s something universal that a lot of people can understand.

And it was really nice with Chrissy and Jess. We’ve been friends with them for a really long time. We sort of have this joke where we’ve tried to hire them and work with them several times and they’ve just always been too busy.

It was nice to have fresh eyes who are people that we love and trust working with us, along with the mix of our staff that we had worked with for a long time who totally get the show and understand all the sort of nooks and crannies that make up this weird television show.

Schumacker: Chrissy and Jess were super gung-ho about making sure that they had done the appropriate amount of research. They come from a comedy background and they’ve worked on workplace comedies, they’ve worked on family shows. They didn’t come in with this encyclopedic knowledge of the DCU, but they were super eager to dive in and immediately were like, “OK, Pat, send us the best 100 Harley or Ivy or Harlivy stories. We’re gonna just pour over this stuff to make sure we have all this stuff in our heads before we go in.”

It was a writer’s idea to make Clock King and Riddler a couple

 

 

HBO Max

I need to know whose idea it was to pair Riddler and Clock King together in the season’s third episode. I want you to know there is already fan art of the two together drawn in the style of “Batman: The Animated Series.”

Halpern: That’s amazing.

Schumacker: That’s so cool.

Halpern: I think that was Jamiesen Borak.

Schumacker: It was definitely Jamiesen Borak who wrote several episodes this season. He wrote the Villy’s episode — episode three. That’s obviously, Jim Rash’s Riddler and James Adomian is playing Clock King. Jamiesen wanted them as a couple very early on and we were happy to oblige.

Halpern and Schumacker were shocked when they saw Zack Snyder tweet fan art showing Batman giving Catwoman oral sex, based on a scene they originally pitched for season 3. There’s a nod to it on episode three.

 

HBO Max

A while back, you guys had shared with Variety that a planned oral-sex scene between Batman and Catwoman was cut by DC. The quote in the story was “heroes don’t do that.” I’m really curious what your reaction was when Zack Snyder then tweeted out NSFW artwork showing just that. Were you guys shocked and did he reach out to you guys at all?

Schumacker: We never heard from him.

Halpern: I remember seeing that come up and the first thing I did — ’cause Pat is a huge, huge comics fan — I sent it to Pat and I’m like, “Is this from a comic? And Pat was like, “No. This is not from a comic.” And I’m like, “Does this mean that Zack Snyder commissioned someone to draw this?” And Pat was like, “I’m almost 100% certain.”

It’s so funny ’cause I have kids. At the time, they were probably like 4 and 7, or 5 and 8, and my phone is just nonstop people sending me this picture of Batman going down on Catwoman that Zack Snyder commissioned and my kids will be picking up my phone looking and I’m like, “No.” [Laughs.]

It was like a solid day. Somebody sends it to me like 12 hours after it happened — “Did you see this?” I’m like, “Yeah, you think I didn’t fucking see? You think somebody didn’t send me this thing a thousand times before?” [Laughs.]

We never talked to Zack Snyder and also we were feeling a little bit like, “God, this turned into a huge thing. Maybe it’ll just go away on its own.”

Schumacker: It did not.

Halpern: It did not.

Schumacker: Every time we thought it was over a new late-night show would pick it up. All of a sudden it’s on John Oliver. [Laughs.] Oh, my God. Every late-night show had a bit about it. It was wild. I mean, it ended up being excellent press for the show albeit in a messy way. And then we were able to do a little bit of a riff on it this season.

 

HBO Max

I was going to ask if it was episode three when Batman asks Catwoman, “Shall I continue?” But we only see him rubbing her feet. Was that a nod to how you guys originally wanted to show the more intimate scene or is that now also kind of a nod to all of this craziness that happened?

Schumacker: It was in there from the beginning. We had the animatic. There’s not much that changed. I think the thing that changed is that now her foot is in the foreground and it’s in Batman’s hands. It’s still the same framing, the same general blocking.

So yeah, that wasn’t so much of a response to what happened online. We were sort of past the point of no return in terms of animation. Obviously, we can make tweaks up to the last minute, but we did not overhaul that scene at all.

WB didn’t allow Batman to go down on Catwoman on season 3 of “Harley Quinn,” but they did allow them to add an orgy

 

 

 

Harley Quinn and Ivy are surprised to see the Court of Owls participate in a giant orgy.

Courtesy of HBO Max

Was there anywhere else where you two tried to really push the bar this season and WB asked you to dial it back or do you guys just do things and then ask for forgiveness later?

Halpern: Us and the writing staff write it the way we want it and then we sort of send it up the flag pole and I honestly don’t think there was anywhere else in this season that they said, no. I mean, we did a whole orgy episode.

I was just going to say, I can’t believe they wouldn’t let you do the Batman/Catwoman scene, but then, in the next episode, there’s a giant orgy.

Halpern: They were very supportive, by the way, of that orgy episode. I thought, “Oh, I’m sure we’ll get some pushback from somebody.” But they liked it. That’s the thing I really like about DC. They obviously are protective of their IP as Marvel is, as anyone is, but DC will let you take swings. I know people don’t necessarily think this, but I do.

DC does have a sense of humor about themselves in a way that a lot of places do not. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t let us make the show that we make.

For us, DC has been so incredibly supportive of this show and it was just funny ’cause that Batman thing went viral and in a way, it’s not indicative at all of the general support that comes from DC to make our show. We do what you saw. We do crazy shit.

Schumacker: It’s also really cool seeing comics creators who are fully embracing the show, despite it being such a deviation from the publishing side. I was down at Comic-Con and I got to meet a bunch of DC writers. My friend Joshua Williamson introduced me to Scott Snyder.

I said to him, ‘We’ve got an episode coming up with Court of Owls, his invention along with Greg Capullo. And I was like, “It’s a big swing. I don’t know what you’re gonna think of it.” And he was like, “Oh, I’m gonna watch it.”

Scott’s, at least the little I know of him, he’s this very earnest dude. He’s a stand-up guy and family man. And he’s like, “Oh man, I love seeing other people take the seed of what I created or co-created and really run with it.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I think you might hate this.”

We’ll see if he says anything about it. I’ll be very curious. He’s been a good sport about it so far, but I don’t know that he knows what’s coming.

They had a lot of fun making the Joker the mayor of Gotham City

 

 

 

Joker decides he’s going to run for mayor of Gotham City on season three of “Harley Quinn.”

Courtesy of HBO Max

Episode six is centered around the Joker and how it seems like he’s a changed man as a stepdad running for mayor of Gotham City. By the end of the episode, he becomes the mayor. Is Joker someone who can really change and does he deserve redemption?

Halpern: The thing that we wanted to play with in that episode was — and he says it — he’s like, “I can be for universal healthcare and also killing people.” Right? It seems like it’s impossible. Those two things don’t reconcile.

We wanted to play the idea of: What if the historically worst, most evil person in all of Gotham City had some really helpful, progressive policies that were gonna make… and really, truly wanted to make Gotham a better place to live? How do you reconcile that?

In terms of our third season, yes, he seems to have redeemed himself some, but if we were to go forward — Joker is such a manic character in a different way than Harley that I feel like he’s one of those characters that you can kind of whiplash. You can go in a lot of different directions pretty quickly and it will pass the smell test for the character.

We’re all kind of open to seeing what’s the next interesting step for him, but we really like that idea of, he’s a really good mayor who also is a murderer.

 

 

Courtesy of HBO Max

Schumacker: I think those make for the best characters and most interesting villains, as well. Maybe some of their ideas aren’t that crazy, or at least to a large faction of people they aren’t that crazy, like Killmonger or Thanos.

There’s a lot of support for those characters and their ideals and that makes them really fascinating. I think the same thing goes with Joker.

It’s hard to argue with Joker when he robs a bank and literally throws the money out at people in Gotham.

Halpern: Gotham is a really fucked up place. Whoever was in charge of Gotham before, this is one of the worst mayors that’s ever been. So, if I’m a citizen of Gotham — that’s what we talked about in the writer’s room — I get fired up if somebody was like, “Yeah! Let’s do something different.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

New episodes of “Harley Quinn” debut on HBO Max on Thursdays.