"Chemistry" is the eighth episode of the second season of The New Batman Adventures. It originally aired on October 24, 1998.
Plot
Batman is distracted by some happier thoughts.
While attending Veronica Vreeland's (fourth) wedding, Bruce Wayne is the one to catch the garter, and is roped into posing for a photograph with the woman who caught the bouquet, Susan Maguire. Veronica introduces her as a friend of her new husband, Michael. As they dance during the reception, Bruce finds himself taken with Susan—so taken, in fact, that he is distracted during that evening's patrol as Batman, and Robin has to save him from a thug during a routine store robbery.
At the Batcave, Tim informs Alfred of Bruce's strange behaviour, Alfred then begins to where Bruce has went to and Tim believes that wherever he is, it must be important. Batman is on patrolling one of the buildings, where it is revealed that Batman is checking on Susan where he watches her from afar, watering her favourite flowers.
After a few weeks, Bruce and Susan are on his private yacht, where they both admit they have been thinking of each other ever since Veronica's wedding. Susan even admits that she thought that he wouldn't call her back since he's always so busy, Bruce however reveals that it's all about to change. Bruce then gives Susan a package revealing them to be her favourite flowers and soon he proposes to her, Susan and Bruce then share a kiss, happily accepting his proposal.
Bruce and Susan Maguire are married.
Later at the Batcave, Bruce breaks the news to his comrades that he has decided to finally give up being Batman. Revealing that he has finally found the perfect woman for him and that they can carry the job on without him. A few days later, Bruce and Susan are wed. Everyone is happy for Bruce, except for Dick Grayson, who bets that it will only be a few months before Bruce is back in costume again.
However, the wedding reception at Wayne Manor is interrupted by a phone call from Veronica, hysterically pleading for help and saying there is something "terribly wrong" with her new husband. When her call is cut off with a scream, Bruce's impulse is to charge out of the house to the rescue, but he remembers Susan. She says she understands that he needs to help a friend, and gives her blessing to his going.
At Veronica's mansion, Michael is advancing menacingly on Veronica. She backs into a security vault in her bedroom and activates a grid of laser security beams, hot enough to incinerate any thief. Michael smiles and walks straight through the beams, which burn holes in his skin that heal up within seconds. Gasping, Veronica screams again as she is knocked unconscious.
When Bruce arrives, the mansion is ablaze. He manages to enter the vault and rescue the unconscious Veronica just before the house collapses.
At the hospital, Michael runs in, saying he was in a business meeting and just heard the news. Bruce, suspicious, tells him that Veronica will regain consciousness in a few hours, and until then, he's taken the liberty of hiring security guards to watch her. As Michael leaves the hospital, Bruce orders Robin and Batgirl to tail him.
They follow Michael back to a greenhouse to report to his mistress, Poison Ivy. She scolds him for giving away her scheme too early, but he said it wasn't his fault: He bares his chest, revealing leaves sprouting from it, and says Veronica saw them. Deciding that Michael's disguise is no longer useful, Ivy rips off his outer skin like a dead leaf (causing Robin to retch and almost give away their position), revealing Michael to be a humanoid plant creature. Ivy remarks that they'll have to step up the timetable for their plan, the climax of which involves attacking a yacht cruise for newlyweds that Bruce and Susan are going on.
After Ivy and Michael leave, Robin and Batgirl are attacked by some plants in Ivy's garden, and accidentally find a chemical that disintegrates the plants. They take some of the remaining chemical to synthesize more as a weapon.
On the cruise, Bruce overhears his fellow passengers talking in glowing terms about their new husbands or wives: the passengers are all wealthy industrialists, while their new mates are all "perfect"—so understanding of their spouses' needs or preferences, so accommodating...
Realizing something is wrong, Bruce confronts Susan in their stateroom, and demands to know more about her past, which she has been mysteriously silent about. After a brief quarrel, green liquid starts to leak from Susan's head, and her legs turn into huge vines that lasso Bruce and slam him into the ceiling. Bruce realizes that she is one of Ivy's creations, and she snared him using a concoction of Ivy's famous pheromones. Susan corrects him on one small point: She did use the pheromones to catch his attention, but making him fall in love with her was just a matter of playing the "perfect" woman. Bruce grabs a nearby lamp and electrocutes the vines, allowing him to break free. Escaping the room, he slams the door and jams it shut with a ladder, trapping Susan inside.
On deck, the passengers and crew are panicking, as giant seaweed tendrils are reaching up from the ocean floor and have fouled the propellers, bringing the ship to a dead stop. Ivy and Michael board the boat from a motor launch and Ivy informs the hapless passengers that she has made their perfect mates, who, after their unfortunate deaths at sea, will become the natural heirs to their fortunes. The mates begin robbing their spouses, revealing their plant selves, until the spouses grow angry and fight back.
Susan Maguire meets her end.
Announcing that it is time for them to go, Ivy commands the seaweed to tear a hole in the hull, sinking the ship. Robin and Batgirl then show up in the Batwing and use a chemical sprayer to disintegrate the plant-people. They also slip Bruce a Batsuit in a backpack and Bruce sneaks off for a minute to change. An enraged Poison Ivy grapples with Batman. Robin loads the innocent passengers onto Ivy's speedboat, 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 sinking ship, but is unable to grasp Poison Ivy's hand in time. Ivy apparently drowns in the water.
As the Batwing flies away, Batman catches a glimpse of Susan, looking plaintively out of their cabin's porthole before it submerges. Expressionless, Batman flicks his wedding ring into the ocean.
Continuity
- In Batman: The Animated Series, "House & Garden", Poison Ivy was able to merge human DNA with growing plants to create "plant clones" of the respective person. Since then, she seems to have figured out how to make plants in human form with a personality of their own without using someone's DNA.
- 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".
- This is the fifth time Bruce has tangled with Ivy merely because he is Bruce Wayne, not because she has suspected him of being Batman. First in Batman: The Animated Series, "Pretty Poison", she targeted Harvey Dent and Bruce for destroying the Wild Thorny Rose; next in "Eternal Youth", she targets him because of an environmental crime done without his knowledge from Wayne Enterprises; in "House & Garden" one of her plant creatures kidnaps Dick Grayson and demands a ransom from Bruce; and in "Holiday Knights", Ivy and Harley Quinn kidnap and take control of his mind so he will treat them to a Christmas shopping spree.
Background information
Home video releases
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 Carmine's Taxidermy Studio explodes and splinters fly about.
- The design for Ivy's plant henchmen was re-used in the video game Batman: Vengeance.
Production inconsistencies
- Michael is credited as "Michael Vreeland", when, logically, Veronica would have adopted his last name, not the other way around.
- Bruce Locke is erroneously credited as "Bruce Gilbert".
Trivia
- This episode marks the second time Poison Ivy has created plant-based artificial humans. She previously used a similar subterfuge in the BTAS episode "House & Garden".
- Last appearances of Nightwing, Batgirl, and Veronica Vreeland on The New Batman Adventures.
- This and "Sins of the Father" are the only episodes of The New Batman Adventures to feature all four members of the Bat-team (not including Alfred) in the same place at the same time, though Nightwing appears out of costume on both occasions.
- 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 another femme fatale, Dr. Stephanie Lake, in Batman Beyond's, "Meltdown", only this time she began a fake relationship with Mister Freeze rather than Batman.
- The guest list at Bruce's wedding includes
- Curiously, only Clark Kent (as Superman), Lois Lane and maybe Selina Kyle (as Catwoman) were not invited to the wedding, so who knew Bruce Wayne.
- One of the plant creatures resembles Pierce Chapman from the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Birds of a Feather".
- Batman and his allies apparently don't consider Ivy's creations to be sentient lifeforms, since they exterminate them without compunction.
- This episode marks the final time Loren Lester provides the voice of Dick Grayson in the DCAU.
- It is left unexplained why Veronica's state-of-the-art laser gate, which can cut through anything, can be deflected by a simple mirror.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Kevin Conroy | Batman/Bruce Wayne |
| Tara Charendoff | Batgirl/Barbara Gordon Christine (uncredited) |
| Loren Lester | Dick Grayson |
| Mathew Valencia | Robin/Tim Drake |
| Diane Pershing | Poison Ivy |
| Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. | Alfred Pennyworth Business man (uncredited) |
| Mel Winkler | Lucius Fox |
| Marilu Henner | Veronica Vreeland |
| Tim Matheson | Michael Vreeland |
| Linda Hamilton | Susan Maguire |
| Ed Gilbert | Photographer |
| Bruce Locke | Mr. Liu |
Uncredited appearances
- Bambi
- Marie
- Leslie Thompkins
- Dr. Joan Leland
- Kirk Langstrom
- Francine Langstrom
- Summer Gleeson
- Jack Ryder
- Zatanna
- Jason Blood
Quotes
Bruce: Everything's changed for me in the past few weeks. The pain of my parents' deaths... It's still there, but it seems smaller. And there's a new feeling now. |
(at Bruce's wedding) |
Bruce: I should have known. It was too easy. |
Robin: Eat trichloroethane, Broccoli Boy! |
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