The 25 Days of Christmas Episodes – Day 15 – Batman “Holiday Knights”
The department store scene is pretty hilarious, especially Wayne’s reactions. He’s so angry about being mind controlled that you have to laugh. Once Ivy’s power starts to wear off, he fakes his own death by falling down an elevator shaft. This of course gives him the opportunity to get into costume, and while the ladies put up a good fight, Batman wins when he hits them with a fully decorated Christmas tree. Yeah. Make a list of things that Batman can use as a weapon. If your list doesn’t include “everything”, then you forgot something.
On December 24th, Barbara Gordon’s doing her Christmas shopping while some cops are undercover to bust a shoplifting ring. Seems there’s a group of kids cleaning out the store. Since this is Gotham City, the kids just turn out to be individual hunks of the shapeshifting mud monster, Clayface. It’s Batgirl vs. Clayface in a fight that spills out of the store and onto an ice skating rink. Batgirl manages, with the help of the police, to electrocute the villain using some Christmas decorations.
Then, we get to New Year’s Eve. The Joker sends a video to Commissioner Gordon wherein he resolves not to kill anybody in the New Year. Thus, he has to kill as many people as possible before then. Long story short, Batman discovers that he has a sonic bomb that he’ll activate at the stroke of midnight and kill everybody in Gotham Square. Making things more complicated is that he’s distributed Joker masks to the crowd, so there are hundreds of Jokers. (You have to admire the mindset of the average Gothamite. “Sure, it’s the face of a psychotic mass murderer. On the other hand, free mask!”)
In the ensuing rumble, Joker actually manages to shoot Batman in the arm, but Batman drops a giant bell on him, 
so that’s a pretty easy win. I love this fight scene, because there’s a great bit with tiny little Robin basically riding around on a thug’s back and absolutely pounding his head, as well as Joker faceplanting on a piano.
so that’s a pretty easy win. I love this fight scene, because there’s a great bit with tiny little Robin basically riding around on a thug’s back and absolutely pounding his head, as well as Joker faceplanting on a piano. There’s a short segment at the end, with Batman meeting Gordon for a cup of coffee at 2 AM on New Year’s Day. It’s their holiday tradition, one which Batman observes even though he still has a bullet in his arm. I’m a big fan of the Gordon / Batman friendship, so this scene makes me very happy.
Best Line – Poison Ivy: “A Christmas tree? And support the mad campaign of botanical genocide that grips this country every December?” Ivy is not a fan of certain traditions.
Christmas Tropes:
Santa Claus – On a stakeout to bust the shoplifting ring, Detective Harvey Bullock goes undercover as the worst Santa Claus ever. Also, his partner, Renee Montoya, sports with the most inappropriately hot elf costume since Zooey Deschanel.
References to other seasonal holidays – Part of the episode takes place on New Year’s. Of course, Batman kicks just as much ass on the holidays as he does during the working week.
Learning a lesson – Christmas decorations make for a wider variety of things that you can hit people with – make the best of it!
Cheer-o-meter Score: While nobody learns a lesson about the meaning of Christmas or anything like that, this is a good episode with holiday-specific plotting. And since the addition of Batman to anything automatically makes it better, it’s an insult to give this anything less than a 9.
