Batman: The Animated Series Re-Watch: Episode Twenty Eight: Dreams in Darkness

Plot: Batman is locked up in Arkham. A flashback reveals he was exposed to fear gas, crashed the Batmobile and was imprisoned by the well-meaning Arkham staff. Now Batman must escape his straightjacket and stop the Scarecrow from infecting the whole city with fear.

Another psychologically interesting episode of Batman, one that lays his flaws on table, specifically his inability to trust others. As he did in Appointment in Crime Alley, Batman cannot see a crime about to be committed and not step in, even when leaving the problem for the police is probably the right thing to do.

After being exposed to the fear gas, Dr. Wu gives Batman a clear choice: he can take the antidote, recover for two days, and let ANYONE ELSE, specifically Robin or Commissioner Gordon, handle the Scarecrow in the meantime, or he can delay recovery and try to take care of the Scarecrow himself. And Batman makes the obviously wrong choice. In trying to ignore the problem, Batman nearly kills himself in a car crash and gets himself locked up, cut off from his allies, all while the Scarecrow comes closer to launching his attack.

Notably, in the narration that covers the first half of the episode, Batman admits to two mistakes (he's wrong about the nature of the robbery, and he's wrong about the effect of the gas), but he never admits it was a mistake to drive to Arkham while under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen.

The two major dream sequences: running through a twisted Crime Alley, impotent to stop his parents from literally walking into a gun, and fighting his greatest foes as they shift from one into another, and into Alfred and Robin, suggest why Batman is hesitant to trust others. First, no police saved his parents, and if he can't save them, no else even seems to try. And secondly, Batman seems to fear betrayal from those closest to him, that their attempt to drag him from the shadows will actually doom him.

Which makes the final image so psychologically interesting. After rejecting Alfred and Dr. Wu's offers of help earlier, Bruce has submitted to Wu's treatment, administered by Alfred, as he sleeps in the Batcave (and not, say, his very nice bed in this very nice room upstairs). Bruce actually thanks Alfred, saying "It's good to know I'm safe here," so Bruce is learning to accept that he needs help.

Then a very angelic looking bat casts a very Batman-like shadow on Bruce, which suggests that the Batman persona, like Alfred, is a shield that protects Bruce while he recovers. Just as it's the screech of a bat that wakes Bruce from his worst delusion of the episode, being Batman isn't a madness. Being Batman is what keeps Bruce sane and helps him recover from the trauma of the loss of his parents.

That one of Batman's greatest is his villains is new. We've seen his fear of the loss of his parents before, and we saw in The Forgotten that the Joker haunts Batman's thoughts, but now we see a fear of new villains, Poison Ivy and Two-Face, whom Batman has only fought once (and it's only implied that Batman has fought the Penguin before I've Got Batman in my Basement.) We are watching a transition from Batman encountering villains for the first time in the middle of schemes unrelated to him, to villains like the Scarecrow actually setting traps for Batman, targeting him directly. The Joker has been doing that since his first episode, but this episode (and The Clock King) implies more villains are going to act like the Joker, and Batman's job is only going to get harder from hear on out.

Certainly, the Scarecrow is much better here than he has been before. He's better motivated, without the circular reasoning of using fear attacks in revenge for not being able to use fear attacks, or using fear attacks to make money to afford to be able to use fear attacks. Here, he simply wants to panic everybody in Gotham, just to find out what would happen if he did. Perfect villainous motivation. In addition to that, he's clever about his plan. He baits Batman into a trap before trying to scare everyone. He throws off everybody's suspicion by NOT escaping from Arkham, merely running his scheme from its basement. And Henry Polic II seems to have gotten the Scarecrow's voice down to the right tone of erudite menace. He no longer sounds like an English professor playing a Batman rogue for Halloween, but rather a truly brilliant and sadistic man, who likes to wear a scary mask. He also has a fabulous pocket watch (which Batman breaks).

Unfortunately, in order for the episode to work, Dr. Bartholomew, head of Arkham, has to be completely negligently incompetent. The Animated Series has a dim view of psychology, and psychiatrists and psychologists on the show range from merely ineffective, like Harvey Dent's therapist, to the outright evil, like Professor Jonathan Crane himself, and while not malicious, Dr. Bartholomew totally misdiagnoses Batman while he ignores everything Batman has to say.

The episode shows Batman DOES have problems trusting people and probably could use therapy, but that would require a psychiatrist who actually listens to him. Instead, Bartholomew diagnoses Batman off just the fact that Batman came to Arkham as someone who cannot tell reality from delusion, when in fact, being Batman, being a detective, is exactly what allows him to see through his hallucinations. But Bartholomew refuses to believe that Batman's hallucinations are gas-induced, calling it "supposed gas", as if the Scarecrow hasn't been using fear gas from the beginning. He refuses to contact Gordon or Dr. Wu like Batman asks, and even after discovering the Scarecrow missing, which proves Batman is right, insists on keeping Batman locked up.

The worst moments is when he chides Batman for not using the villains' real names, which is doubly stupid. I don't think Batman has yet referred to Two-Face or Poison Ivy as anything other than "Harvey" and "Isley", and NO ONE calls the Joker anything but the Joker. His reference to "Jack Napier" is the Joker's real name from the Burton film, but it's never mentioned again in this cartoon. Also, who is Bartholomew to talk? He's the one who leaves them in their costumes, reinforcing their villainous personas over their civilian ones.

Similarly, his explanation that the orderly cannot remove Batman's mask because Batman might become catatonic is utterly ridiculous. How are you supposed contact his loved ones if you don't know who he is? How do you know it's really Batman and not some idiot in a Batman costume? And how could it hurt to take off his mask while he's out of it, if you put it back on before he wakes up? Maybe Batman would learn to trust people, if he wasn't surrounded by idiots.

The other problem this episode has, though no fault of its own, is airing after the inferior Fear of Victory. All of talk about who could have used fear gas is silly, it's obviously the Scarecrow, who we've seen is the only one who uses that weapon. And Bartholomew's claims that Scarecrow couldn't have escaped seem hollow since we've already seen that he can. (If they wouldn't have seemed hollow before, since the first time we see Arkham is watching the Joker escape from it on the back of a rocket Christmas tree). Plus, this episode could have been the first time we see inside Arkham, but that was already used in the best scene in Fear of Victory. This episode almost feels like the head writers saw that scene, realized that should be an entire episode and decided to make this one, only they forgot to tell the guys behind Fear of Victory to stop work.

(Strangely, the interior of Arkham in Fear of Victory, with glass enclosed cells of concrete, looks very different from the one in Dreams in Darkness, where cells are made of stone and closed by iron doors. Considering we also don't see any other famous Arkham inmates, except in dreams, it's possible that Batman was thrown into the arcane practices wing, while the costumed villains are kept somewhere else.)

That said, once you get past those problems, this is a pretty great episode designed to get us inside Batman's head. The noirish narration, the superb dream sequences, the flawed hero, and the comforting image of the bat protecting Batman, closes out the season with style.

Batman: The Animated Series Re-Watch: Episode Twenty Four: Fear of Victory

Plot: The Scarecrow is poisoning athletes with fear, and accidentally gets Robin as well. Now Robin must overcome his fear before the Scarecrow causes a mass panic at a Gotham Knights game.

Design-wise, the return of the Scarecrow is great. The score brings back the high string theme from Nothing to Fear throughout, and the use of shadows and light create a real horror movie atmosphere. Also like Nothing to Fear, the animators have fun with the fear induced hallucinations, the athletes turning into the monsters and the street spiraling away from Robin as he dangles on a rope. And they've greatly improved the Scarecrow design, giving him a crooked smile and crazy eyes, so his head looks like a Jack-O-Lantern rather than sock.

The highlight is our first real visit inside Arkham Asylum. We've seen it briefly, usually at the ends of episodes to let us know where Mr. Freeze ended up. But here we actually see inside, with its long corridors of deep shadows and its policy of allowing patients to wear their costumes in their cells. It's no wonder no one seems to recover here. The scene of Batman walking along the row of cells, each one filled with a villain we've previously seen, The Joker playing solitaire with a deck of Jokers, Two-Face flipping a coin, Poison Ivy, reasonably moved from Stonegate Prison, protecting her plant, builds tension and dread before the reveal that the Scarecrow has, in fact, escaped.

Otherwise, this episode is kinda lousy. It's just so low stakes. Fixing sporting events feels beneath the Scarecrow, a step down from his terrorist campaign against the University in his first episode. C'mon, master of fear, you can do better than this.

And his plan is full of holes. Why didn't any of the Scarecrow's doctors notice he was missing before? Why is Batman the only one who suspects the athletes are being drugged? Wouldn't doctors test for that? Why didn't the Scarecrow use a lower dose, or less often, or bet at different bookies, to not draw attention? Why does he have to be at the game to drug the player or make the bet, and why does he have to be there in costume? Why does he need money in the first place? Can't he just steal chemicals like a respectable Man-Bat does?

Also, Batman acts like a dick in the entire episode. He's entirely unsympathetic to Robin's suffering, despite going through his own fear drug induced trauma a few episodes back. And instead of giving Robin the "I am so proud of you" speech Alfred gave, he's constantly telling Robin to "get it together" and "shake it off," or he's teasing him by promising to "drive real slow." He's also a dick to Commissioner Gordon, condescendingly telling him to "put two and two together." The only person he shows even the slightest kindness towards is the lady in the bathrobe who gives him an admiring, breathy "oh my." Batman stops long enough to give her a half smile, before running out again to, oh yeah, rescue Robin from falling to his death.

In contrast, Robin is SO WHINY. Yeah, he's recovering from a fear gas attack, but he's being pretty wimpy about it. Batman had nightsweats, and dreams of his dead father as a giant skeleton, and he still managed to leap onto an attack zeppelin. Robin has trouble walking across a bridge without complaining about it. This could have been for Robin what Nothing to Fear was for Batman, a chance to show what drive Robin, what makes him tick. But the only thing we see him afraid of is heights, which we know is the opposite of how he usually behaves. So all we learn is that Robin does not take being poisoned as well as Batman does.

Batman: The Animated Series Re-Watch: Episode Three: Nothing to Fear

The Plot: before he can stop the Scarecrow's terror campaign against Gotham University, Batman must overcome his own fear of failure and horrifying visions of his late father.

As a psychological study on Batman and what makes him tick, Nothing to Fear is a great episode. When dosed with the Scarecrow's fear toxin, Batman sees his worst fear, that being Batman is a disgrace, a failure in someway to live up to his father's example. It puts into question the premise of the character, that maybe it's a mistake to respond to personal tragedy with vigilante justice.

The show resolves this internal conflict with two moments of catharsis. The first is when Alfred reassures Bruce that of course Thomas Wayne would be proud of him, because "I'm so very proud of you." This, in a line, both cements being Batman as a morally responsible choice (as Alfred is the voice of sanity in the show) and establishes Alfred relationship to Bruce: Alfred is Bruce's surrogate father. Once again, the point is made that Batman, Robin, and Alfred are not just partners in crime, but a real family.

The other moment of catharsis comes when, hanging from the edge of a burning zeppelin, in the face of a giant, skeletal vision of his father, Batman recites lines that would forever be burned into the hearts of young Batman fans (and forever be parodied by Darkwing Duck), "I am vengeance. I am the night. I AM BATMAN!" Alfred may have given Bruce the perspective and support he needed, but Bruce is still plagued by his fears until he accepts his mission, "vengeance," his method, "the night," and his true identity, "Batman."

It gets at the heart of why Batman fears he's disgracing his parents. In order to be their vengeance, he has to be Batman, and he has to stop being Bruce Wayne. Wayne becomes a shell, a mask, the petty playboy so despised by Dr. Long. The vision of his father calls him both "Bruce" and "a disgrace," and in order to do his job, Batman has to reject both of those titles.

The weakness of this episode is the Scarecrow himself. There are a lot of good interpretations of the character out there, from his first appearance in 1941 to Cillian Murphy's portrayal in Batman Begins. A villain who uses fear as a weapon should make an excellent foil to Batman, who preys on "a superstitious and cowardly lot." And this episode makes a couple of nods at that, a dry remark from Alfred and Batman's use of the fear gas on Crane at the end. But mostly, the Scarecrow's pretty boring.

His motivation is mundane. When he explains to his two dim-witted thugs, incongruously named Nigel and Anthony, why he's attacking the school, we hope that there's some complicating factor. But, in fact, the Scarecrow likes to scare people, he got as a job that allowed him to scare people, Dr. Long fired him for scaring people, and now he's going to scare people until they allow him to scare more people. Dr. Long, played by professional cranky old man Kevin McCarthy (who recently passed), may be a jerk, telling Bruce Wayne "I don't like you and your dead father wouldn't like you either," but he hardly deserves to have his university destroyed for firing a sadist.

And the Scarecrow's plan is pretty boring too, a terror campaign to cripple the school and scare people away from attending. There's hints of how much more interesting the Scarecrow could be.In one scene, he uses fear to drive a crowd of people to mob Batman. The idea that he could use fear to manipulate people presents a lot more interesting plot and character potential, which the writers will play with in later episodes. But here, he mostly uses the gas to incapacitate his victims.

The Scarecrow's visual design is uninspired, like a cheap Muppet knock-off, and Henry Polic II just isn't an engaging voice actor. In the end, he's not as much of challenge for Batman as the fear gas itself is. Once Batman overcomes the gas, the Scarecrow himself goes down easy.

The fear gas allows the animators a lot more room for creative moments, from a great representation of claustrophobia as a shrinking jail cell, to the face in the flames, the Fantasia-inspired winged demon at the end. A lot of the mood is also set by Shirley Walker's score, who pull out allusions to Psycho and Night on Bald Mountain to move the audience.

Special attention should also be paid to the voicework of Richard Moll, aka Bull from Night Court. He'll get a lot more attention later, as he voices Harvey Dent, but in this episode, he's doing fantastic yeoman's work as the Scarecrow's two hoods, the Bat-Computer, and especially the haunting, chilling voice of the late Thomas Wayne. Again, it's the vision of Thomas Wayne who's the real antagonist here, and Moll captures that character perfectly.

Other things to note:

We finally learn Summer Gleeson's name and occupation in this episode, though she does little else than deliver some exposition and call Batman a loser (in a vision).

Two episode after sending the SWAT Team after him, the police have eased up on Batman. Only Bullock is still openly antagonistic, but without any support, he moves from being Batman's Javier to being his Lestrade. Not that Batman has earned their trust, really, since he totally withholds evidence from them (that maybe they could have used to track down the Scarecrow faster) and for the first time, pull off his signature move of disappearing from a conversation the moment Bullock turns his back.

When Scarecrow sets a trap for Batman by releasing his fear gas at the door, Batman enters already wearing his gas mask. Thus establishing that Batman isn't just smart, he's usually a step ahead of his opponents.

Both thugs fall from the zeppelin and Batman fails to save either of them. Fortunately, Gotham seems to be full of soft landing zones.

And finally, while the memory of his dead parents is a driving theme of the episode, it is NEVER said how they died or how their deaths were directly responsible for Bruce becoming Batman. Maybe it's because everyone in America knows what happened, and maybe it's because how they died isn't as important in this episode as the fact that they are gone, and Bruce Wayne can't get them back.