Today's guest star....
Morgan arrives at Arkham Asylum, which has "Crazy" by Patsy Cline playing over the sequence. Some nice soundwork here as the song goes from the original as she drives up, to a muzak version while she's in the lobby, to eerie silence once she's in the cells. She's here to see Harley, of course, but she swings by Harvey's cell first, who seems genial and relaxed. She introduces herself to Harvey - apparently, Two-Face is still away and they have an awkward conversation over what he's writing in his cell. Donovan gives Dent an interesting edge - you're waiting for the moment for Two-Face to show up, but he never does.
We arrive at Quinn's cell and she's in a great mood. The Burton Museum of Modern Art is holding a Decade of Knight, a modern art exhibit about the ten years Batman has been around. Quinn secretly submitted a painting to the show and was accepted. She wants to go and Morgan, who Quinn calls "Morg" in one of those great delayed-pun-grenade moments, wants her to convince Warden Sharp to make it happen. Morgan wants it to happen, but she can't quite bring herself to promise Harley. She sets off to the Warden's office formulating an argument that she's not sure she can win.
Her brother Jack is working out at the gym, under the naturally suspicious eye of Detective Yung-Li. Most shows would make a point of "Jack is scrabbling to get by" but he receives like three paydays this episode, so now we know how he can keep the bar open even if it's an empty set whenever we go there. The first some from a mysterious older woman who makes a drop at the gym. This catches Lisa's eye, but she's soon distracted by some text flirting with Bruce Wayne. Bruce wants her to go to the reception tonight and he promises he'll try to make it for a drink.
Jack gets away from Lisa, but runs into Selina Kyle in the parking lot. Tricia Helfer looks great as always, and her Catwoman is definitely the "glamourous high profile thief" Catwoman. She wants some info on the Burton's security systems and gives Jack an awkward moment when Lisa catches them chatting in the parking lot. Jack gets a text from Frankie Fixx that pulls him away from the girls, who have a nice little tense staredown. I'm guessing the cops know Kyle is Catwoman but don't have enough evidence to connect her to anything in her regular ID.
Jack's text? Payday #2 - Franke Fixx wants him to open the bar because he just got paid. Kyle takes her leave with a lovely line after Lisa talks about her awesome WayneTech leg.
"You know one area WayneTech could probably improve? Security systems."
Lisa talks to Jack for a bit and asks him to come along to the gallery show. JAck thinks it might be a date, but I think Lisa just wants to keep JAck close. If Catwoman shows up, she'll have an informant within arms reach.
We come back from the commercial break inside Warden Sharp's office. Sharp is a bureaucrat rather than a medical professional, and he watches Morgan make her case with the same bleary-eyed expression you'd expect from someone at the DMV. Morgan's main points are that she should be accompanied by asylum staff, they can get a WayneTech tracking device and she has approval from Quinn's doctor. Sharp cuts each point down in turn. Attaching asylum staff is too dangerous and risky, WayneTech doesn't just give away state-of-the-art technology, and Patient DB-171 (which he refers to Quinn as in every sentence, much to Morgan's frustration) has a new doctor, because the Joker killed the old one in his last escape from Arkham. Joker's at large? Shit, they should start every game with an extra D12 in the Trouble pool while that's the case.
But Sharp agrees that Quinn asserting herself is a step towards recovery and will sign off on a day pass on one condition - she must be accompanied by a law enforcement officer at all times. Morgan heads outside to call Lisa and asks for two favors,
We get to meet Becca in the elevators of Goodspeed & Loeb where she's sharing an elevator with Tommy. Tommy is charming but clearly flirting - Becca seems oblivious. She also gets invited to the reception at the Burton.
Jack is in a tux at the bar. Don't these people have homes? I mean, sure the bar set is already built, but how often have you gotten dressed at your place of employment. Fixx and his crew arrive. Frankie is played by Idris Elba and he makes Fixx a great contrast to Jack. Jack is ruggedly handsome, Fixx is more slick and put together. Jack is excitable, Fixx is stoic. Fixx pays our man and tells him it's a celebration for a gun deal he just made. This is a great scene where we watch how Jack makes his money - he asks just the right questions and Fixx lays out what happened. A crew from Hub City is making the move to Gotham and wants to make a splash by hitting the Burton tonight.
Morgan gets one favor - Lisa agrees to accompany Harley. She does call Bruce to ask about the WayneTech but he's busy. They arrive at the bar to pick up Jack and there's an awkward moment when Lisa walks into a bar filled with Fixx's crew. Jack has to take a moment to smooth things over with Frankie, but they are out the door.
At the reception, Becca realizes something about Tommy - he's an awful drunk. He's like Archer drunk, and she has to follow him around putting out fires. She's getting a chance to network, but it's tough to make a first impression when you're cleaning up spilled drinks and saying "I'm sorry."
The limo ride to the event has a great moment where Harley breaks down - she wishes Mister J could be there for her moment of triumph. The girls bond together and give her a little pep talk and Jack gloms on, putting up a bit of a sham of a date. Harley says -
"You're cute together. But try any funny business and I'll cut your balls off."
Mike (Jack's player) put it best. "We're all surrounding the most delicate little landmine..."
Back at the Burton, Becca has networked into someone of note - Selina Kyle. They hit it off over an appreciation of modern art, and make fun of local media blowhard Dexter Swanbeck's painting of himself fighting alongside Batman. This girls seems to get along with villains quite well, so she's one to watch. She notices Tommy being obnoxious and offers to help. Becca accepts, and Selina lures Tommy into the restroom, but all he gets for his troubles is a sleeper hold.
The other leads arrive and they view Harley's painting. Entitled "A World Without Batman." It's a bright, shiny painting - everyone is smiling, the sun is in the sky, the birds are chirping. Morgan is the first to notice it - all the faces in the painting are victims of the Joker's last rampage.
Before the others notice, the Hub City crew makes it's move. One of the guns is pointed directly at Jack, who ran off for some drinks. Both Becca and Lisa launch into action. Lisa suddenly realizes she forgot her WayneTech armored vest but moves to take out the thug. Becca does something...crazy. She walks up to the thug, points the gun at her face, and says, coldly:
"No, no. Put the gun on me. I don't mind."
Becaa and Lisa both want to save Jack, so we roll a contest. Lisa rolls Duty + Batman (since he inspires her to be a hero) plus her WayneTech leg with a Kung-Fu grip. Becca rolls Power (since she's Fearless, she doesn't mind having a gun on her) + Jack + Fearless. Lisa wins, so she takes out the thug, but Becca takes Afraid stress. Her fear doesn't show up, but her Telepathy lets Lisa's fear wash over her and she doesn't like it one bit.Bt she gets an important piece of info from the now down thug - there's a second crew in the vault downstairs.
Morgan turns to Harley to make sure she hasn't run, which she hasn't. Harley says - "Oh! I didn't know it was this kind of party!" and starts taking out the Hub City crew. Morgan lets her, which is messed up, because the whole point of the exercise was to try to encourage normalcy rather than let her be a Petite Murder Machine. But Morg follows behind, trying to keep the bleeding from getting too bad. This puts her in danger of a thug that was faking. Lisa decides to play hero, challenging her relationship with Bruce (if he was here, none of this would happen) and using her leg to climb the wall and ambush the thug. She fails the roll - she takes out the thug, but takes a slug in her chest. Morgan makes an instant relief test and succeeds in patching her up right away.
Jack and Becca run into Catwoman. They tell her about the second team in the vault and she tells them they're after the same thing she is - The Demon's Head Dagger. Catwoman says it's worth seven figures easy and tempts JAck to go back into The Life with her if she helps him....but he refuses. He's a better man than I.
(Suddenly, Morgan realized Harley's been quiet. Has she made a run for it? I decide on a test - Harley won;t get away, but if she fails the Test, she will take Stress as she loosk for her. Lisa's player chimes in - "I want the Bat to catch her." Morgan's player says "No! I want to catch her!" I say "Sounds like a Contest to me!"
As Morgan and Lisa gather their dice, Jack chimes in. "I don't want the Bat to show up! Can I aid my sister?" "Sure."
As soon as I say that, Becca's player asks "My character really wants to see the Bat in person, can I aid Lisa?" "Sure."
The dice hit the table, and the pro-Bat tag team wins. Exactly how I wanted to handle The Bat....)
We make it to the vault where the Bat already is. Harley is down there to, pinned to the wall by him. Morgan gets in his grill (cowl?) about it.
BATMAN: You're lucky those people upstairs aren't dead when you let her loose.
MORGAN: No, you are.
It's a thankless job to be the Batman hater on a Batman show, but Morgan does have a point. Batman probably knew something was going down upstairs and trusted Lisa to handle it. The clue is in his response to Morgan saying how she will return Quinn safely to Arkham.
BATMAN: I'm sure Detective Yung-Li will get Quinn back to Arkham safely.
Subtle, but there it is - the Bat no-likey Morgan and Morgan no-likey the Bat. The Bat starts mentioning who the Hub Crew was armed and Jack rolls a Test to try and get his sister away from the scene before Batman reveals his connection to the Hub Crew. Interestingly, he challenges his "Protective of my sister" Relationship - it's selfish move on his part but he's okay with it. He succeeds and Catwoman makes a play for The Demon's Head Dagger inside the vault. Smoke oozes out from under the door and Batman says "Everybody out! Now!"
Tag scenes -
Becca improves her Fearless distinction, so we see her on the roof of the Kane library, right at the edge, smiling, as she watches the Bat swing through the night.
Morgan improves her Rogue's Knowledge asset, arranging for one of Jack's shady pals to acquire Quinn's painting for her and deliver it to the bar.
Jack redefines Truth as "dangerous", which is why he is hiding away just how much money he has from his sister, who he is also a little less protective of.
Lisa challenged her Bruce Relationship and re-wrote it but then improved it via Growth. I don;t know if that's really legal, but it seemed to fit. Bruce visits her in the hospital, and they flirt a little bit.
BRUCE: And I'll take you to dinner. I think I can spare an hour.
LISA: Ow! My wound...hurts so bad.
BRUCE: Okay, two.
LISA: I'm so lightheaded from the pain.
BRUCE:...and dessert.
LISA: Deal. But I should warn you - If you can't find the time for dinner, Batman does have a very strong jawline...
BRUCE: I'm sure you two will have wonderful robo-legged Bat-babies together.
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