Fans of the comic books are aware that Harley Quinn and the Joker have a dark, twisted history. In today's era of #MeToo and wanting to craft stories about women's agency, rather than using their abuse as a plot device, the animated series has a tricky needle to thread in that regard, but it's not something they're shying away from.
"That is something that we felt we needed to address in the show," producer Justin Halpern told POPSUGAR. "The idea was that we've all been in relationships with someone that we felt maybe wasn't right for us all the way to someone that was toxic for us, and how you extricate yourself from that is really what this show is about. How do you get out of that kind of relationship and then figure out what am I going to do now that I'm out of it? What do I want? I've been living someone else's life for a really long time. So that is something we really wanted to tackle, we didn't want to shy away from it."
Actor Alan Tudyk, who voices the Joker, added that the relationship is even more complex than a simple dysfunctional romance because the Joker essentially created the show's heroine.
"He made her, also, so there's that whole dynamic to it. The Joker made Harley, he created her as a villain from the doctor," said Tudyk. "He pushed her into some acid — as you do. [laughs] So there's that extra level."
Cuoco added, "Harley's iconic. She's a badass and she is a female empowerment to a T. Leaving this guy, leaving Joker, then falling back in — this is a real relationship, this stuff happens in real life. So she's just a badass and she always has been and she always will be and she just dances to the beat of her own drum."
