YMMV / Batman: The Animated Series E27 "Mad as a Hatter"

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • How much of a Mean Boss is Dr. Cates, deep down? She's hard on Jervis, but gives Alice a shoulder to cry on. When she smiles after Bruce praises Jervis and agrees to give him more time to work on his project, is she just being a Professional Butt-Kisser or does she want to help Jervis in a Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand dynamic way? Finally, Jervis is lying about how far his work has progressed and is wasting lots of time on his own sinister hobbies, so Cates's frustration about how he's behind schedule is somewhat justified.
  • Also, was Alice legitimately oblivious to how Jervis felt about her? Or did she know the entire time and was playing him? The fact that we don't see her argument and breakup with Billy could set up the possibility that they were setting him up. Alice knows that Dr. Cates regularly gives Jervis crap, so she could be pretending to be nice and was secretly laughing at him behind his back. If the latter interpretation is true, then it adds another layer to her last glance at Jervis at the end of the episode.
    • There’s absolutely no indication anywhere in the episode that either Billy or Alice were playing Jervis. That makes no sense whatsoever.
    • However, it could be equally possible that Alice could not have noticed Jervis's feelings for her because she was simply too naive and simple to notice. Jervis would tell Alice how she is the only one that understands him, and later when her boyfriend breaks up with her, Jervis clearly takes her out on an evening that is supposed to be a romantic date; despite all of this, Alice clearly does not get the hint that Jervis is interested in her and assumed that Jervis would be OK with her going back together with her boyfriend implying that she just saw him as a friend and thought that he was trying to cheer her up with no interest in getting together with her.
    • Another theory is that Alice always knew about Jervis's feelings towards her but was just ignoring them both because she had a boyfriend and because of a lack of romantic interest in him; even after breaking up with her boyfriend, she just did not want to get together with Jervis and might have thought that if she ignored his feelings and just treated him as a friend, he would get over her which backfired on her in the worst way possible since Jervis could not accept Alice’s decision to reunite with her boyfriend and get engaged to him.
  • Was Billy much better a boyfriend than Jervis? Sure, he may not have done anything as brazen as mind control, but he does seemingly break up with her early on, only to suddenly apologize with flowers and an engagement ring in hand, which can be read as Love Bombing, a common emotional abuse tactic.
    • As mentioned above, the breakup could have possibly been just them giving Jervis false hope and setting him up for a humiliating heartbreak. Nobody breaks up and then apologizes the next day with a proposal, what sane boyfriend/girlfriend/partner would do that anyway? For that matter, what sane person would instantly accept such an apology when it was apparently very bad? Alice was bawling and said they were both yelling at each other for crying out loud! This is clearly too spontaneous to be considered normal, this clearly has a number of suspicious implications already.
    • The argument was sparked by Alice asking Billy where their relationship was going and Billy getting defensive. Obviously after having had a night to think Billy realized he did in fact love Alice and decided to show he was willing to fully commit to her by proposing.