Recap/Review: Gotham Girls "Pave Paradise"

Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT. Because Poison Ivy's going to straight up attack you.

The lyrics they wish they wrote for "Big Yellow Taxi."

The pre-load game is the same as lats time. See my comments in "Precious Birthstones."

This webisode begins with a headline about the mayor planning to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. And you better believe that Poison Ivy ain't happy.

Poison Ivy: "Har-ley! I've got a job for you, girl."

We cut to the conveniently labeled Mayoral Residence, where the lawn care guy is hard at work caring for the lawn. While he mows, Harley replaces his numerous bags of grass seed with "Ivy's Overnight Seeding Formula." You know, this raises all sorts of questions, and I'm not just referring to the fact that Ivy has custom-labeled bags for her instruments of ecoterrorism.

I like to think that Ivy only wrote that on there so Harley would stop confusing it for oatmeal.

Poison Ivy is an absolute genius to be able to do what she does simply by breeding plants together with the odd bit of generic splicing. If she patented a few of these plants a la Monsanto, she could make a fortune. I mean, overnight growth? Overnight. Growth. If you apply that to crops, you've ended world hunger. You could regrow the rainforest! Create oxygen farms to combat global warming! At the very most, you could save humanity from one of the ways it's been trying to kill itself. At the very least, Miracle-Gro would pay out the nose for that and you could use that money to start up some kind of pro-plant charity, Ivy! You could still fight for your cause legally. Heck, you might actually succeed that way.  But alas, Ivy's fruitier than a nutcake. What're you gonna do?

Anyway, sometime later, Ivy prepares to make her move. Step one: tell Harley to wait in the car and not move.

Poison Ivy: "No matter what."

Well, between this and "The Vault," you can't say she doesn't follow directions to the letter.

Poison Ivy sneaks into the Mayor's mansion and wakes him up. Naturally, he's terrified. He zips out of bed (revealing Batgirl pajamas) and calls for his guards. Unfortunately for him, Ivy knocked them out with a kiss.

She and River Song must get their lipstick from the same place.

There's no escape for the Mayor. The door's locked and the window is guarded by Ivy's overnight monster vines. With the Mayor trapped, Ivy makes her demands. She hands him the official proposal for demolishing the wetlands and building a mall.

Poison Ivy: "Veto the bill."
Mayor: "It'll cost jobs!"
Poison Ivy: "It'll cost votes, you mean."

Yeah, because taxpayers hate parks and love urban sprawl.

Actually, I can't help but kind of side with the Mayor. I mean, he's got a good point. Gotham's a cesspool of crime. Maybe getting some people some much-needed employment could help. Get some businesses in there, create commerce. Of course, the fact that the mall would be replacing a wetland (a surprisingly necessary part of any ecosystem) is a huge issue that would need to be figured out. Clearly, studies would have to be done and someone involved in this land deal is going to end up with the short end of the stick.

Welcome to politics! It's harder than it looks.

The game of politics isn't just made of mansions and Batgirl pajamas

Anyway, her vines wreck his house a bit and he capitulates. Of course, any legal document signed while being threatened like this isn't legally binding. There's all these laws in place so this exact thing doesn't happen in real life.

Well, this exact thing minus the mutant vines, I mean.

Ivy calls off her vines, but decides to enact a little... insurance. She throws some "Pinocchio Berries" at him which burrow into his skin. As she explains, the seeds will react to tiny changes in his biochemistry, blah blah blah, if he lies, the vine on his head grows bigger. We should set this guy up with Daisy-Head Mayzie.
The next day, Harley and Ivy watch TV and laugh as the Mayor not only goes through on what Ivy forced him to do, but also resigns from politics, owing to a new "medical condition." Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen, ecoterrorist bullies.

Where's Batman when you need him?

And if you didn't get enough of the Mayor's Batgirl pajamas, you can see the rest of his collection after the cartoon.

He looks like a pink nightmare.

Review
I joked about the problems inherent in Ivy's plan, politically, economically, and otherwise, but when it comes down to it, she's a supervillain. Of course her goals are reprehensible. I have to admit that this is a cute little one-shot story with some charm to it. For an internet cartoon that debuted the same month as "Homestarloween Party," this is pretty good. Of course, these days, this is a piece of crap compared to say, a Game Grumps fanimation, but I've got to be fair to the time. I won't complain about the lack of color in the old black and white Superman show, and I won't complain about how this web animation from the year 2000 isn't up to our modern standards.

All in all, it's harmless, cute, and a little charming. We'll see if this can keep up next time. See you then.