Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is out now and tells the next chapter in Harley Quinn’s story - here are the movie’s biggest spoilers and DCEU reveals. Birds of Prey is the eighth film in the DCEU, an ersatz sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad, in which audiences were first introduced to Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. Despite the poor critical reception to the film, Robbie’s Harley Quinn was widely considered to be a well-acted interpretation of the character, leaving the door wide open for more appearances.

Ahead of the release of Suicide Squad in 2016, reports indicated that Warner Bros. had several spinoff projects in the works revolving around Harley Quinn, as well as several other female heroes and groups within Gotham City, including Birds of Prey and Gotham City Sirens. Margot Robbie was set to return as Harley Quinn as well as produce, pitching Birds of Prey back in 2015 as an “R-rated girl gang film including Harley,” as she felt that part of the draw of the character was her interactions with others. Christina Hodson was announced to be writing the film in November 2016, and Cathy Yan finalized a deal to direct the film two years later.

Birds of Prey is bombastic, energetic, and alive with the female gaze, something which hasn’t been explored in superhero films as much due to the lack of female directors. Now that the movie is out in theaters, let’s examine all the shocking and spoilery reveals from the film.

Harley Is Broken Up With By The Joker (And Destroys Ace Chemicals)

At the start of the movie, Harley isn’t exactly in the best place. Birds of Prey opens with a rather nasty breakup between Harley and Joker, who tosses her out and abandons her in the street. Harley takes the turn of events harshly until she decides to turn her life around completely: she’s taken in and sheltered by an elderly Chinese restaurant owner named Doc, adopts a pet hyena (which she names after Bruce Wayne), picks up a new hobby in the form of roller derbying, and finally blows up the Ace Chemicals plant, the same one where she swore her life to Joker. It’s a rough turnaround for Harley, but one that becomes integral to her liberation.

Jared Leto Doesn’t Appear

A reveal that’s both surprising and altogether not unexpected, Jared Leto does not appear in Birds of Prey as The Joker. In fact, viewers don’t see Joker at all, aside from the occasional contextual reference. This makes a ton of sense, as Leto was reportedly upset at the way he was treated in the aftermath of Suicide Squad. There are even rumors suggesting that the star attempted to have Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker standalone film cancelled, which probably means that there’s no chance of the Thirty Seconds to Mars performer returning to the role anytime soon.

Black Mask Wants A Diamond With A Key To Huntress’ Fortune

A much-discussed plot leak in the months leading up to Birds of Prey’s release implied that the story would revolve around Black Mask trying to retrieve a diamond with a USB-drive containing nude pictures of him. While this leak was absurd and, of course, not true, there was a bit of legitimacy to it as the story does indeed revolve around Black Mask trying to retrieve a diamond stolen from him by Cassandra Cain. However, the diamond actually contains an encrypted passkey to the off-shore banking accounts of the Bertinellis, a former crime family in Gotham who were slaughtered by a rival criminal organization (later discovered to be the work of Roman Sionis himself). The Huntress is also revealed to be the long lost Bertinelli daughter, Helena, who was whisked off to Sicily and trained in secret to hunt down her family’s killers.

Huntress Kills Victor Zsasz

Speaking of a quest for revenge to kill her family’s murderers, Huntress is officially brought into the fold when she trails Harley to an abandoned theme park, where she plans on trading off Cassandra (who’s swallowed the diamond) to Zsasz, in exchange for the bounty on her head to be called off. Zsasz, of course, double crosses Harley, and is moments away from cutting the diamond out of Cassandra himself before Huntress arrives and shoots him dead with her crossbow. It’s a totally unexpected moment, one that’s earned due to how sleazy this film’s version of Zsasz truly is and his culpability in the murder of Helena’s family.

Black Mask Is Killed By Cassandra Cain

In the aftermath of Zsasz’s death, Sionis forms a small army and brings them to the abandoned theme park where Harley, Cass, Huntress, Black Canary, and Renee Montoya are hiding out. The women are forced to work together for the first time, and gear up to take on Black Mask’s goons, with Cassandra discreetly snagging a grenade. A massive fight ensues, and Cass is kidnapped by Sionis amidst the chaos. Huntress and Harley give chase, tracking the crime lord down to a decrepit pier, where he’s holding Cassandra at gunpoint. However, Cassandra Cain has a trick of her own up her sleeve, and blows Black Mask apart with the grenade she slipped in his pocket. It’s one of the movie’s goriest moments, and ironically one of the funniest.

The Birds of Prey Superhero Team Form

In Birds of Prey’s epilogue, Harley narrates to the audience and reveals that she pawned the diamond Sionis had been after and gave a cut of the money to Renee Montoya, Dinah Lance, and Helena Bertinelli, before going her own separate way. After being undermined and underestimated by the GCPD for the entire film, Montoya decides to quit, and uses the money to fund a crime-fighting enterprise with the other two women known as the “Birds of Prey”. The turn of events is incredibly satisfying as the movie builds to it effortlessly, and we even get a glimpse at the Birds of Prey’s new costumes. With the implication that the three will continue to be a nuisance for Gotham’s criminal underworld, it’s hopefully only a matter of time before Montoya decides to don her own secret identity as The Question.

Harley Quinn and Cassandra Cain Work Together

In a surprising twist away from comic book canon, Birds of Prey ends with a shot of Harley and Cassandra riding off together, with Harley telling the audience that she’s decided to make Cass her protege. It’s a massive change from Cassandra Cain’s comic book lore, which sees her become the second Batgirl. Despite it being a big shake-up for the character, it’s one that feels right at home with the other liberties taken by the movie in terms of Cassandra’s character, who is ultimately nothing like the mute martial arts master she is in the comics.

The Post-Credits Scene Is A Batman Joke Cut Short

For dedicated fans who decide to stick around after the credits have rolled, Harley has one last surprise in store. Unlike the after-credits stingers that Marvel Studios have perfected, Birds of Prey simply has Harley Quinn address the audience over black, mocking them for staying in their seats for so long after the movie. However, she promises one last joke, and starts to tell one involving Batman, right before she’s cut silent. It’s actually a reference to the DC Universe Harley Quinn show, in which she talks about Batman f***ing bats. It’s a hilarious troll on the audience, one almost as notorious as the Captain America stinger in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and a totally fitting end to the absurdity of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).

More: Everything We Know About Birds of Prey 2

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