I have been reading a bunch of comments in other places and some people seem to think that Ecco was not Harley Quinn (or any other version after will only be a copy of Ecco, which might be true).
This all comes from the line “Other fish in the sea.”
This line was a pretty terrible line in general. I felt really sorry for Cameron playing J, because while he acted well the lines he had to say were terrible.
In my opinion the line means nothing, it’s a bad joke. It’s like saying. “Whatever!” Or “Who Cares!” Who knows if J even plans on getting another woman to be like Harley Quinn and really I have my doubts. So it doesn’t mean there will be a ‘real’ Harley Quinn. Also didn’t they do most of the Harley stuff with Ecco anyways?
Who would like J besides Ecco? She only liked him because of Jeremiah and she was so emotionally and physically damaged that J was able to manipulate her. No other character they bring in would be in this position for J to manipulate. No one with sense is going to like wrinkle face with no hair and no amount of manipulation will change that, unless this new character cannot see. I also think J is not a likeable character, so the new person would need to have something wrong with them in order to like him.
They killed Ecco off for effect, that’s all and because they couldn’t commit to killing off anyone else from the main cast or a kid. So in the end they killed the character the writers had no emotional investment in that was still there. They killed her off to make the show dark and to make the stakes higher. There was no other character to kill off without introducing a new character, or killing off the main cast.
Just because Ecco died doesn’t mean there is a Harley lurking in the shadows. There probably isn’t and I don’t know why people are invested in a ‘idea’ when they actually had the real thing (or an aspect of it). I think a lot of people want the cartoon or comics Harley, but Gotham is a show that does not always follow the comics or animation. To be honest I was happy with what I got. I am only disappointed that there was no room for more development.
Some people say she was not an important character, probably not in a main cast sort of way (she was introduced rather late). Though she kind of was essential to Jeremiah as she was the only person he talked to in season 5. Jeremiah did not interact with very many characters besides her and only talked to Bruce in episode 5x07 (not including latter half of the 4th season). If she was not there, who would Jeremiah have talked to before 5x07? She was there for him to interact with and play off of, as the writers never gave Jeremiah much character interaction until he talked to Alfred. If Ecco was not there Jeremiah would have ended up chatting to the wall, as I don’t think he valued his minions enough to make individual small talk, he also trusted Ecco to be more independent than them. I think she even made Jeremiah more instresting and even different from Jerome (no insult to Jerome, but there needed to be differences).
I am not a person that is super knowledgeable of Batman canon and I was never invested in the Harley Quinn character before. I had no idea this character existed until the movie Suicide Squad and I didn’t care for that version. I liked Ecco for who the character was, if other people want a different version well sadly they are not going to get it now. “Other fish in the sea.” doesn’t mean a ‘real’ Harley will show up, it means “Who cares?” Which reflects the writers attitude more than anything else.
This is not meant to be a rant, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don’t take episode 5x12 to be canon anyways as I disliked everything in it and it was odd overall. I just feel like my opinion is an unpopular one, or one that has not been expressed much. I am appreciative to the character Ecco, as she added character to Jeremiah. The actress that played her (Francesca) made her unique that a person like myself, who was never involved with Batman canon before Gotham (besides the Nolan movies) could appreciate her.
