Chemistry
From the DCAU Wiki, working on 1,928 articles
| The New Batman Adventures episode | |
|---|---|
| File:Chemistry.jpg | |
| "Chemistry" | |
| Airdate: | October 31th, 1998 |
| Production Number: | 21 |
| Airdate Order: | 24 |
| Animation Services by: | Koko/Dong Yang |
| Written by: | Rich Fogel and Alan Burnett |
| Directed by: | Curt Geda |
| Episode images (4) | |
"Chemistry" is the eighth episode of the second season of The New Batman Adventures. It originally aired on October 24, 1998.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
At Veronica Vreeland's fourth wedding, Bruce Wayne meets and falls for a woman named Susan Maguire. After dating for a few months, Bruce proposes to Susan, and breaks the news to his comrades that he has decided to finally give up being Batman.
A few days later, Bruce and Susan are wed. However, the wedding reception at Bruce's house is interrupted by a phone call from Veronica, pleading for help and mentioning a problem with her new husband, Michael, before being suddenly cut off. Bruce leaves an understanding Susan, and arrives at Veronica's house, which is afire. Bruce manages to find his way through and rescue an unconscious Veronica just as the house explodes. After taking Veronica to the hospital, Bruce is visited by Veronica's husband, Michael, who was apparently absent when the house exploded.
However, Michael, tailed secretly by Robin and Batgirl, pays a visit to Poison Ivy, his employer. Here, it is revealed that Michael is actually a plant-human disguised by human tissue. Poison Ivy then reveals her plan to attack a sea cruise where the rest of her plant henchmen are – ironically, the same cruise Bruce and Susan plan to go on for their honeymoon. Ivy and Michael then leave to carry out their plan. Robin and Batgirl are attacked after this discussion by some plants in Ivy's garden, and accidentally find a chemical that disentegrates the plants. They take some of the remaining chemical to synthesize more as a weapon against Ivy's plant people.
On the cruise, Bruce demands to know more about Susan, and after a brief quarrel over Susan's mysterious discretion, green liquid starts to leak from her head. Infuriated, Susan turns her legs into vines and tries to squeeze Bruce to death, after revealing that she works for Poison Ivy, who is after Bruce's money. Bruce manages to use a nearby lamp to electrocute Susan and escape, using a ladder to trap Susan in the bedroom.
However, just then, Poison Ivy and Michael arrive on a speedboat, and many of the passengers reveal their plant-selves and start robbing their spouses, until the spouses grow angry and fight back. Seaweed from the ocean floor, under Ivy's command, also binds up the engines and starts tearing into the hull, threatening to spill cold water on the rapidly overheating boiler and cause a chain reaction that will explode and destroy the ship. Robin and Batgirl then show up in the Batwing and use a backpack tank of the chemical found at Ivy's lair to disintegrate the plant-people, including Michael. Bruce manages to sneak off for a minute and slip into his Batman attire. An enraged Poison Ivy grapples with Batman. Robin manages to board Ivy's speedboat with the innocent passengers, and Batman tells them to leave without him. Eventually, Batman is able to throw Poison Ivy aside just as the yacht's engines overload and explode, breaking the yacht into two parts. The Batwing, piloted by Batgirl, flies by and dangles a ladder, and Batman grabs hold and is pulled free of the rubble, but is unable to grasp Poison Ivy's hand in time. Ivy apparently drowns in the water, and Batman manages to get a glimpse of Susan looking out of the cruiser's window before it completely submerges.
Batman then throws his wedding ring into the ocean.
[edit] Continuity
- In Batman: The Animated Series, "House & Garden," Poison Ivy first revealed her ability to create human replicas from plants, but could only create copies of already existing people; she seems to have overcome this impediment.
- The fact that Zatanna is in attendance at Bruce's wedding indicates that she has somehow learned his true identity, though at their last meeting, in "Zatanna," she knew Batman only as her childhood friend, "John Smith." Zatanna's knowledge of Bruce's secret identity is later confirmed in the Justice League Unlimited episode "This Little Piggy."
[edit] Background Information
[edit] Production Notes
- When Bruce is knocking at Veronica's door, the mansion explodes and there's a frame from the explosion of Ivy's greenhouse that comes up only later in this episode.
- When the cruiser blows up from inside, the first explosion features footage from the Batman Beyond episode "Splicers," specifically the scene where Carmin's Taxidermy Studio explodes and splinters fly about.
[edit] Trivia
- Last appearance of Poison Ivy on The New Batman Adventures.
- Elements of the instrumental score "The Promise" from the feature film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm can be heard when Bruce announces his intention to give up being Batman.
- Linda Hamilton later played fellow femme fatale, Dr. Stephanie Lake, in Batman Beyond's, "Meltdown."
- Ironically, this is the third time Bruce has tangled with Ivy merely because he is Bruce Wayne, not because she has suspected him of being Batman; in Batman: The Animated Series, "Eternal Youth," she targets him because of an environmental crime done without his knowledge by Wayne Enterprises, and in "Holiday Knights," she and Harley Quinn kidnap him to treat them to a Christmas shopping spree.
- Lucius Fox appears to have been Bruce's best man.
- The guest list at Bruce's wedding includes
- In the Justice League Unlimited episode A Better World, Flash discovers that Poison Ivy is a gardener at Arkham Asylum, apparently lobotomized by Justice Lord Superman. It is unclear whether she actually survived this event in the alternate universe, or that the events were different altogether.
- This is the first and only time in DCAU continuity where Bruce Wayne has been married (although he was engaged to Selina Kyle in his dream during Perchance to Dream and was engaged to Andrea Beaumont in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm). However, given that Susan was secretly a plant-being made by Poison Ivy, it isn't exactly what could be called an "official" wedding.
[edit] Cast
[edit] Uncredited Appearances
- Leslie Thompkins
- Dr. Joan Leland
- Kirk Langstrom
- Francine Langstrom
- Summer Gleeson
- Jack Ryder
- Zatanna
- Jason Blood
| Previously produced episode: "Mad Love" | Episodes of The New Batman Adventures | Next produced episode: "Beware the Creeper" |
| Previously aired episode: "Girl's Night Out" | Next aired episode: "Judgment Day" |
