‘Harley Quinn’ Trailer: Harley and Ivy Are Back for Raunchy, Bloody Season 3

Everybody’s favorite queer supervillain couple is finally back. The first trailer for “Harley Quinn” Season 3 has been released, with the popular adult animated series set to make its debut as an HBO Max Original on July 28.

“Harley Quinn” follows the misadventures of its title character, a Batman villain first created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini for 1992’s “Batman: The Animated Series.” The series begins with Harley (voiced by Kaley Cuoco), long defined by her abusive relationship with the Joker (Alan Tudyk), striking out on her own to become Gotham City’s No. 1 supervillain. Over the course of the first two seasons, Harley develops a dysfunctional, but loyal team of misfit criminals — including her best friend Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), aspiring thespian Clayface (Tudyk), expert hacker King Shark (Ron Funches), Ivy’s landlord Sy Borgman (Jason Alexander) and venus flytrap Frank the Plant (J. B. Smoove) — and slowly but surely grows from her obsession with the Joker into a better, more responsible person.

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Season 2 of “Harley Quinn” followed Harley and Ivy as they began to develop romantic feelings toward each other, with the finale seeing Ivy fleeing her wedding with Kite Man (Matt Oberg) to escape Gotham with Harley. Season 3 of the series will follow the two as they navigate their newfound romantic relationship, while continuing to rule Gotham’s criminal underworld.

The new trailer shows Harley and Ivy causing bloody mayhem together as a couple, and, yes, they’ve been “doin’ a ton of bangin'” as Harley says. They kidnap Amanda Waller, who’s the head of the Suicide Squad, and real-life director James Gunn, who made 2021’s “The Suicide Squad,” has a cameo as he sits on Clayface, who’s molded into a chair. The new season will also introduce DC characters like Swamp Thing and the Court of Owls (which seems a lot like a sex cult) and it features an intimate moment between Batman and Catwoman — but, as Variety reported last year, it won’t get too explicit.

The first two seasons of “Harley Quinn” debuted on streaming service DC Universe, which produced TV shows starring classic DC Comics characters. Following the debut of HBO Max, DC Universe was relaunched as a digital comics subscription service. Various DC Universe shows, such as “Titans” and “Doom Patrol,” have migrated to HBO Max, with Season 3 of “Harley Quinn” soon to follow. In addition, HBO Max recently ordered a spinoff series following Kite Man as he operates the Gotham City dive bar Noonan’s.

“Harley Quinn” has received critical acclaim, with reviewers praising the series’ writing, humor and voice acting. In a column following the Season 2 finale, Variety chief TV critic Caroline Framke wrote that the show “gives this character an actual chance to figure out who she is and what she wants when she’s not standing at the Joker’s side. And as it turns out, Harley is plenty funny, smart, wild and brave enough on her own terms, ‘Mr J’ be damned.” The series was developed for TV by Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker and Dean Lorey, who executive produce with Cuoco and Sam Register.

Watch the full trailer for “Harley Quinn” below.

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