Two-Face (Batman: The Animated Series)

Two-Face is a two-part episode of the first season of Batman: The Animated Series. Academy Award-winner Al Pacino turned down an offer to voice Two-Face, and Richard Moll took up the role.

Plot

Part 1

The episode starts with Harvey Dent running in the middle of nowhere, hearing someone close calling his name. When he stops running, he faces a siloette of himself flipping a coin, telling him he can't escape. Harvey is woken up by his campain manager, telling him that the recent sting is in motion.

Harvey arrives at the location only to find that the police are being shot at with no way of firing back. Luckily, Batman arrives and scares the thugs out of the building. It is revealed that Harvey had created a sting to take down one of Rupert Thorns top warehouses and find a way to get the men to testify against their boss as a motion for his re-election as Gotham's District Attorney. When one of the thugs kicks mud onto Harvey and taunts him, he snaps. Rushing over to him, Harvey grabs the thug and wrestles him to the ground before Commisioner Gordon snaps him out of it. Harvey brushes it off as the thug pressed a button but Gordon is still concerned. Rupert sees the stint on the news and tells Candace to find some dirt on Harvey Dent.

Durning an electorial fundraiser, held by best friend Bruce Wayne, Harvey learns that the Judge threw out the recent case due to a flaw in the warrant signed. Harvey loses it again, throwing the campain manager to the refreshment stand and nearly hitting Bruce when Grace, Harvey's fiance, calms him down. Bruce pushes Harvey to tell him what's going on when Grace finally tells him that he's seeing a theorapist about his episodes. Unfortunately, Candace overhears the conversation as well.

During his latest session, it is discovered that Harvey's other side is growing stronger due to the stress in his life. At first Harvey refuses to get further help, stating that it would ruin his chances of getting re-elected, but agrees to cut down on campaining and make more appointments.

On the night of the election, Bruce congratulates Harvey's most likely re-election and his ability to maintain control. Harvey adds that he may announce a wedding date to Grace, which makes her happy, but is inturrupted with a phone call. Rupert requests that Harvey see him about a situation which could ruin his career--alone. Bruce senses something and follows suit as Batman, losing the car but not before placing a tracking device on the rear bumper.

Rupert reads to everyone a page from Harvey's past (Harvey hit a bully in self-defense and felt guilty when he went to the hospital for appendicitis that Harvey vowed to never show he was angry again, resulting in Big, Bad Harv.) and threatened to reveal it to the world if he didn't ease up on his syndicate, unfortunately, Harvey reverted into Big, Bad Harv during the confrontation and attacks Thorn. Batman arrives to help fend off Thorns guards while Harvey goes after the folder with his history. Due to unforseen circumstances the thugs fires on the electric cables while aiming for Harvey. One of the cables land in the chemicals below and blows off half of Harvey's face.

Harvey is hospitalized, schedualed for surgery and worst of all, loses his reclaimed title as DA. Harvey finally sees his newly disfigured face then run out of the room and into Grace, who has dropped by for a visit. Upon seeing his face, Grace faints from shock. Harvey bids Grace farewell and escapes the hospital.

To be continued...

Part 2

The following episode opens six months later, with a building with the numbers "222", and a limousine parking just outside a seedy-looking building. Inside, a voice speaks to a man with half his body in darkness, identifying the building as Rupert Thorne's bookie joint. The man then proceeds to flip a coin (the same coin as seen before, only with one side scratched), saying: "Good heads, we leave 'em alone; bad heads, we hit 'em hard." Moments later, a set of identical twins wielding tommy guns — and Harvey Dent, now wearing a suit that's half white, half black, and calling himself Two-Face — rob the place. The twins take money from the cashiers, but when one of the twins is about to steal a ring, Two-Face flips his coin again. The coin's undamaged side comes up, so he decides to leave without the ring. Nevertheless, he destroys the bookie joint and warns everyone he wants to give a message to Thorne: he's going down.

Thorne puts a two-million dollar contract on Two-Face's head, "a million dollars a face". That night, Bruce Wayne has a nightmare of his friend and his metamorphosis into Two-Face, and how he was powerless to prevent it - and Dent demands to know why, if he was his friend, he didn't save him. Bruce's parents then appear, asking him why he didn't save them. Wayne awakes in a cold sweat, and vows to save Dent.

Later, two police officers visit Grace, and leave her a beeper with instructions to activate it just as Dent contacts or meets her. As the policemen leave, it is shown one of them is actually Candice, who says she's sure Two-Face will return to Grace sooner or later. In Two-Face's hideout, Two-Face starts sharing out the profits from the robbery, but grows somber when he finds a photo of Grace. One of the twins suggests that Two-Face visit her; Two-Face responds to this by flipping his coin, which lands in bad heads. He then says he is through with humiliating Thorne - and that he's ready to do to him exactly what he did to him.

In the Batcave, Batman deduces that all the places Two-Face has robbed, aside from making a mention to the number two in some way, are also connected as Thorne's illegitimate businesses. He also deducts that Two-Face no longer wants to embarrass Thorne, but rather destroy him, and guesses his next target. At the office of Thorne's attorney, a man with the surname Doubleday, Two-Face finds a record implicating Thorne in several crimes. Batman tries to stop them by pleading with Two-Face to surrender, but Two-Face knocks Batman unconscious and escapes.

Later, Two-Face calls Grace, and tells her to come and meet him by stepping into a limousine waiting for her outside. Grace does so, and activates the beeper in her way. At that moment, Candace tells Thorne that the beeper's been activated. The limousine stops at a derelict club called "Wild Deuce 2", where she enters a large room — half of it carefully groomed, the other half chaotic. Two-Face stands in the middle of it, half his face covered by a cloth. When Grace tries to reason with him, he tells her that he now believes that life is only a game of chance in which notions of good and evil don't apply. Grace doesn't believe him, and begs him to regain control of his life. She then removes the cloth covering his injuries, and says she still loves him. Moved by her declarations of love, he starts to relent.

A moment later, however, Thorne enters the club, and kills Two-Face's twin bodyguards. He then demands the stolen data, but Two-Face refuses. Thorne taunts Two-Face by revealing that Grace who led them to him, under the pretense of a police chase. By threatening Grace's life, Thorne convinces Two-Face to tell him where the file is. Revealing it to be under the club's roulette, Two-Face reluctantly gives up the file. Nevertheless, Thorne gives the order to execute both Grace and Two-Face. Batman, however, saves their lives, disables the gang and traps Thorne under a massive chandelier. Two-Face prepares to kill Thorne, but Grace begs him not to; conflicted, Two-Face flips his coin to decide. Batman, however, dumps a large crate of silver dollars nearby, leaving him unable to discern which is his coin. Panicked and confused, Two-Face collapses, sobbing.

As police lead Two-Face away to Arkham Asylum, Commissioner Gordon wonders aloud whether there is hope for Dent. Batman replies, "wherever there is love, there's hope", and throws a coin in a nearby fountain; it turns heads up.

Cast

Actor	Role
Kevin Conroy	Bruce Wayne / Batman
Bob Hastings	Commissioner James Gordon
Richard Moll	Harvey Dent/Big Bad Harv/Two-Face
Murphy Cross	Grace Lamont
Mari Devon	Summer Gleeson
Bob Doqui	Doctor
Matt Landers	Frankie
Diane Michelle	Candace
Linda Gary	Dr. Nora Crest
Marc Tubert	Carlos
John Vernon	Rupert Thorne
Micky Dolenz	Min & Max

Notes

Grace Lamont, Harvey Dent's fiancée, is played by Murphy Cross, who also played a love interest of Richard Moll's character on the TV series Night Court.
The scene where Harvey Dent first sees his new appearance in the hospital was intended to be similar to the scene in Batman where Jack Nicholson's character discovers the disfigurements that transform him into The Joker.
During the beginning of the bank robbery at the start of the second part, Two-Face tells everyone "For the next five minutes, I'm in control!" This was spoken by Al Pacino, whom the producers wanted to voice the character, in Dog Day Afternoon.
When Harvey Dent opens his wallet to give the goons their cut of the money they stole from Thorne's shop, you can see the #666 on his credit card in his wallet.
The idea of Two-Face wearing a half white half black suit has been copied by the comics since the episode.
During Harvey's hospital stay after his accident, the right side of his chin and neck are not scaled like Two-Face; but after the bandages are removed the entire right side of his body appears scale-like. The same applies to his hand.

External links