Or perhaps I should say "Harvey Dent", since he's never actually called "Two-Face".
The restaurant Bruce takes Harvey to is called "Utterson's"; Utterson was the name of Dr. Jekyll's friend in "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll".
A point is made (by Alfred, the spokesman for Not Being a **** in this show) that Bruce is being a **** in having intentionally pushed the emotionally fragile Dent in an attempt to get to the people behind Dent's disfigurement. Batman points out that this is just the kind of tactic Harvey himself used to use as D.A., which prompts Alfred to note that catching the perpetrating may not be worth losing the victim and prompts us wonder whether Batman choosing to be a little less like his ****ish friend who's turning into a supervillain might be a good idea
They do a good job with Two-Face. He does not snap immediately, he goes mad bit by bit, as the result of his own reactions and decisions, which is one of the running themes of the series.
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| Not everyone has the resilience of Dawn Davenport. |
As mentioned in an earlier, the show's characterization is an interesting reversal on the traditional portrayal. His accident does render him emotionally unstable and bipolar, but rather than make him "evil", it just kicks his war against Rupert Thorne and corruption into extreme mode. He becomes both more supportive and understanding than he was before, but at the same time much more violent and ruthless. Two-Face certainly is no "super"-villain, but even in a short episode it's shown how his unpredictability and viciousness makes him unusually formidable. I mean, who throws a piano down a flight of stairs? Even a "simple" incident of him being "good" by saving someone from a mugger turns into a moral nightmare of him trying to make the victim complicit in the murdering the murder. It is not enough that his own worldview is tainted; he insists on tainting yours as well.
Once he is captured, they do a good job of showing you a Harvey Dent you might just believe could be reformed... and a good job of letting Harvey Dent himself convince you of why he should never be given that chance. He is sensitive enough to understand the other inmates in Arkham; and enough of **** to snark "Yes, I know how hearings work, Gordon," to his defense attorney. He is surprising down to the end... I certainly never expected [SPOILER ALERT}...
that they would KILL Harvey Dent.
The flip side is: they do a bad job with Two-Face. Despite frequent reference to a more elaborate and ambivalent view of justice and whether the end justifies the means (the very question Alfred is trying to help Bruce confront earlier) Harvey Dent still refers more than once to "The Other Guy" as if he is one person and (unnamed, extreme) Two-Face is another. This is a huge misstep, not merely because it is the one problem this interpretation held promise of correcting but also because it is inconsistent with Harvey's portrayal in the episode.
In the second part, Harvey is too much a pawn and not enough of a player. Despite masterfully manipulating Bullock and Flass against each other (another flash view of his "powers" that made him so promising as a potential returning villain), once he escapes from them and handcuffed to Barbara Gordon, it's all a Defiant Ones remake aimed at his final redemption.
On a more technical level, Dietrich Bader (as much as I love him for his brilliant work as Batman) botches the voice for Harvey Dent. His voice is nasal, whiny, and weak. Much of the time he sounds more like a teen girl having a meltdown than a Gotham madman. Two-Face is an high drama villain, an needs a more operatic presence. He needs a spine-shivering whisper and an intimidating shout; this one has neither.
And also....
they KILLED Harvey Dent. The other villain on this show with the most potential re-use value. Are they THAT convinced they aren't getting a second season or that convinced that they make something else amazing no matter how many classic characters they burn in their wake?
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P.S. There was a small epilog. I was happy to see that it concerned the ONLY ACTUAL FACT that we know about a certain Golden Age villain.
Wait, they killed off Harvey Dent, but they never called him Two-Face? Either there were issues of character rights, or someone else is going to become the show's actual Two-Face. Probably the former, like, they knew they couldn't follow through on their plans for Two-Face, so they tried to do a rushed version.
- HJF1
No, it's not either or those. They just went through their arc for him in two episodes. There was no time or reason for him to acquire a nom du crime.
I agree, killing Harvey was a mistake. Honestly, and I know how others feel about this, killing ANY comic character is a mistake. It simply reduces the number of available options and plotlines, and it's just shortsighted. (And, as an aside, the company will never let that IP slip away so you're pretty much guaranteed that any death will be undone, so just DON'T.) Have him fall into the bay after he gets shot (a classic). This Harvey had a lot of potential that I really wanted to see explored -- like you, I liked the fact that he didn't immediately default to good/bad and coin flipping.
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