"Big Pasta Dinner" is the fifth episode of the fifth season of Harley Quinn, and the fifty-second episode overall. It was released on February 13, 2025, on Max.
Synopsis[]
Old wounds and fears bubble to the surface when Harley and Ivy are invited to a meet and greet for their condo building.
Plot[]
Even though her memories were erased in the previous episode, an anxious Harley's subconscious still remembers Brainiac's giant skull ship. It continues to haunt her dreams, and she tries to deal with it by uncharacteristically cleaning the apartment, but it does not help much. Suddenly, King Shark's son Shaun appears after running away from home to be with his godmothers, and Harley agrees to babysit until his dad can pick him up.
After Shaun breaks a very expensive showerhead, Harley calls Bruce to ask for a replacement and invites her and Ivy to a pasta dinner party at his penthouse. That night, Harley and Ivy show up with Shaun and Frank (Who is going through a late-life crisis after realizing he's 90 in plant years), and they are greeted by Lois who shares an apartment in the building with Superman who got it as a birthday present from Bruce. Suddenly, Joker makes a fashionable entrance with his stepdaughter Sophia. Bruce is taken aback to see him, and Joker explains that his lady Bethany has a place here for Sophia, who has an internship at Wayne Industries. Bruce steps aside for a phone call, only to reveal that Lena won’t join them for the night and is disappointed. Damian adds that Raven isn’t coming either but won’t elaborate. Alfred, who is out on parole, arrives and tells everyone dinner is served.
During dinner, while Harley and Alfred are arguing about the broken showerhead, the lights go out and then come back on, and Alfred is seemingly murdered by Harley, who is holding a bloody knife. After Harley flees, Bruce tells everyone that Alfred is alive, and he does this sort of thing when he is upset. When Bruce decides the group should split up to find Harley, he initially tries to go with Damian, but the teenage boy struggles. After looking at his son's phone, Bruce finds out Damian and Raven broke up. When he asks Damian why he didn't tell him, Damian reveals that he is upset that his father left him alone when he went to prison and then moved to Metropolis without telling him. Meanwhile, Harley and Ivy are trying to figure out who would frame the Maid of Mischief when Shaun says he saw in the dark that a skull-headed intruder put the murder knife in Harley's hand.
Harley and Ivy begin hypothesizing, but in her frustration, Harley begins to clean. When she does, she discovers a secret passage behind a framed portrait. The couple and Shaun enter and walk into the passageway, discovering entrances to many of the rooms. As they walk through, Harley admits to Ivy that their relationship has become stale since moving to Metropolis. They open a door to a bathroom and spa and leave just before Bruce walks in with Joker. The Clown Prince of Crime tells Bruce they must go to the sauna to talk, and Joker opens up about how he can see Bruce’s pain. He tells Wayne to open up to his son because it will not hurt. Ivy and Harley find their way out of the tunnels and tell everyone to meet them in the living room. Harley reveals the paths led from Damian’s room to Alfred, and she accuses him of murder. Damian denies his involvement, and Bruce finally realizes that Alfred is not dead. Just then, a man with a skull mask enters the room and tries to kill Quinn.
As the fight ensues the intruder starts attacking everyone, as Lois, Shaun and Frank are trap by red X shaped restraints, Joker protects Sophia with exploding chattering teeth while Ivy, Bruce and Damian help Harley fight the intruder who starts using razor sharp X shaped weaponry. When the fight leads to the kitchen, the intruder removes his skull mask and reveals himself to be Dick Grayson who was resurrected by the power of the Lazarus Pits and now wanted revenge on Harley for sleep killing him. As Dick is about to stab Harley, Bruce yells out he is sorry for not being there for him and Damian and not opening up until now. After a heartfelt conversation, Dick lets go of his rage and agrees to start fresh with Bruce and Damian, then all three embrace.
Just as everything calms down, Alfred appears in his Macaroni costume, and the revelation amuses Joker. Alfred reprimands Dick as he hires him to kill Harley, Ivy, and the Joker. Bruce is confused, so Alfred explains this was all part of his plot for revenge not only for the villainous antics he got tired of cleaning up after but also on Bruce for all the years his boss took him for granted, even when he went to prison for him and to add insult to injury Bruce doesn’t even know Alfred's last name. Bruce tries apologizing, but it falls flat as Alfred decides to finish the job and injects himself with Bane’s venom, turning into a muscular monstrosity.
- Dick Grayson
He's too strong with venom! How do we get it out of his body!?
- Poison Ivy
Sweat! that's why Bane never used the Legion of Doom company gym.
- Joker
Oh, I thought it was because he looked silly when he squatted. (laughs)
— The party strategizing on how to defeat Alfred.
As Alfred rampages through the penthouse, Bruce tells Lois to take the kids somewhere safe using the secret passageway. As Dick wonders how to defeat the enhanced Alfred, Ivy remembers to get the venom out of one’s system, they need to get the user to sweat, so the group lures Alfred to the sauna, but when they arrive, the crazed butler destroys it, putting the kibosh on their plan. However, in all the chaos, Harley managed to save Dick, so they both agreed to call it even. Just then, Shaun arrives because he mistakenly took the wrong secret tunnel. Harley uses this to the group’s advantage and tells the shark kid to eat everything. As he does just as Harley requested, all the devastation to the bathroom causes the dual showers to spray Alfred, causing his ankle monitor to short-circuit and electrocute him, rendering Alfred completely incapacitated.
After Alfred is arrested, Bruce and Damian have a tender father-son moment as they make plans for Thanksgiving with the two of them and the reunited Dick. (As well as Alfred, who Bruce plans to get out early again so he can clean up the mess he caused.) Damian then reveals that he and Sophia are now a couple. Upon hearing this, the Joker laughs and comments that he and Bruce will be spending a lot more time together, leaving Bruce stunned because of the awkwardness of the whole situation. As the guests leave, Lois offers Harley an assistant job at the Daily Planet to help her uncover the source of the recent oddities in Metropolis, including their shared nightmares about Brainiac's Skull Ship.
Cast and Characters[]
Main Cast[]
Recurring Cast[]
- Diedrich Bader as Bruce Wayne, Sven
- Harvey Guillén as Red X/Dick Grayson
- Tom Hollander as Alfred Pennyworth/The Macaroni Man
- Natalie Morales as Lois Lane
- J.B. Smoove as Frank the Plant
- Jacob Tremblay as Damian Wayne
- Alan Tudyk as The Joker
Guest Cast[]
Cameos[]
- King Shark (pictured)
- Lena Luthor (pictured)
- Thomas Wayne (pictured)
- Martha Wayne (pictured)
- Jason Todd (pictured)
- Thomas and Martha the Cats (pictured)
- Talia al Ghul (pictured)
Trivia[]
- Clips from "Potato-Based Cloning Incident" are seen when Harley remembers killing Nightwing.
- Alfred claims he was the one who resurrected Nightwing when it was shown to be Talia al Ghul in "Killer's Block" less he has Talia resurrect Nightwing for him. Still, it was never made clear as to when Alfred associated himself with Talia herself.
- Alfred makes a call back to all disasters Harley, Ivy, and Joker have caused over the series thus far.
- Joker's Tower from season 1
- The Parademon invasion in season 2
- The events in season 3 episode "Climax at Jazzapajizza".
- Joker seems to have forgotten Bruce is Batman, this could imply that not all his memories returned when he got rebleached in season 2.
Gallery[]
- See also: All images from "Big Pasta Dinner"
