Episode Gallery: "Fleurs du Mal" (Season 3, Episode 8)

Original broadcast date: November 26, 2005

It's late night at Gotham City Hall, and Mayor Grange is having a heated debate over the phone about tearing down Gotham Park in order to build a hospital. Grange is all for the medical building going into the area, but a few members of the city council are firmly against the plan. The call is interrupted by a knock at the office door, to which Grange gets up to answer. Though there is nobody on the other side of the threshold, a basket of pink flowers has been left on a nearby pedestal. As Grange reads the attached card, he notices one of the flowers moving, only for it to suddenly jump up from the basket and wrap around his face.

The following day, an ecstatic Grange is speaking at a rally in Gotham Park, telling the crowd that the plans for the hospital have been scrapped in favor of a more extreme renovation of the city, such as tearing up the sidewalks and replacing them with more grass and flowers.

Later that afternoon, Barbara Gordon arrives at Gotham City Police Headquarters to talk to her father, just in time to see him receive a delivery from Baudelaires floral shop. She muses that perhaps it is from some secret admirer.

In the Batcave, Bruce Wayne is going over reports about a heist committed by The Penguin the previous night. The heist in question was over a truck full of Silver Iodide, a non-toxic chemical that can create rain clouds. 

Minuets later in Gotham Park, the stolen truck of Silver Iodide pulls up to a gazebo outfitted with a hidden panel which The Penguin opens. He begins to transfer the Silver Iodide from the truck into the building, only for Batman to arrive. Quickly, The Penguin activates a hidden hot-air balloon built underneath the gazebo, revealing the strange machine which the Silver Iodide was flowing into. After a short skirmish, The Penguin hops onto the machine as it begins to take flight, and Batman pulls himself aboard with his grappling gun. During a fight between the two, the machine is damaged, and crashes back into the park. An injured Penguin is thrown from the machine, and begins to writhe in pain on the ground. The Caped Crusader watches in shock as Penguin's whole body turns green before quickly melting into a brown gooey pile of mulch.

The GCPD arrive on scene, and Commissioner Gordon slaps a set of handcuffs on Batman's wrist, telling The Dark Knight he's under arrest for homicide, and pulls out a crumpled pink flower that was crushed during the fight with Penguin. Gordon leaves, and as the officers prepare to put Batman in the back of their van, he begins to fight back against the green-skinned cops. After the battle, Batman takes off in the Batmobile, learning from Alfred that the city council have been passing strange laws regarding plants all afternoon.

In the Gordon residence, Barbara is preparing dinner when he father arrives home with a present: one of the pink flowers he had been gifted earlier. The plant jumps from it's pot towards Barbara's face, but she manages to evade it. The duplicate Jim Gordon is then quickly dealt with by Batman, who swings in from the balcony just in time to save Barbara. Batman and Barbara realize this is the work of Poison Ivy, and decide to investigate the floral shop where all the pink flowers have been sent from: Baudelaires.

At Baudelaires, Batman and Batgirl discover a large underground cavern below the building, where many of Gotham's influential figures (Mayor Grange, city council members, Commissioner Gordon, all of the GCPD, and even The Penguin) are being held inside pink egg-like cocoons.

Poison Ivy herself then appears, telling the two that while the plant duplicates are changing Gotham's laws, the real people have been plugged into the "Green Mindset" via tiny toxins that allow them to appreciate nature.

Batgirl goes to attack Ivy, but the duo are swiftly ensnared by two massive vines. Ivy then attaches two pink flowers to Batman and Batgirl's faces, creating plant duplicates of the vigilantes.

With the real Batman and Batgirl out of commission, Ivy and the doppelgangers head to Gotham Park, where millions of seeds for the clone-creating flowers have already been planted.

Some time after Ivy has departed, an alert is sent out to the Batcomputer in the Batcave, indicating that there has been a change in Batman's life support system in his costume. An electronic pulse shoots out from the suit, releasing Batman from the "Green Mindset" and the cocoon prison. He then releases Batgirl and Commissioner Gordon, bringing him up to speed on Ivy's plot.

In Gotham Park, Ivy has gotten the weather machine attached to The Penguin's hot air balloon up and running again, planning to use the device to create Silver Iodide clouds to speed up the growth of the seeds.

Nearby, Batman and Batgirl confront and destroy their plant doppelgangers using a variety of gadgets and a riding lawnmower.

Meanwhile, the machine's rain clouds begin to pour, and the flowers begin to pop-up all over the park.

Suddenly, Batman and Batgirl arrive, and Ivy sends her plant people to attack them. Before any of the shambling clones can do anything, Batman fires a small missile up to the hot air balloon, one which was filled with a powerful herbicide. Ivy is horrified as the plant people and the pink flowers begin to melt. She makes one last ditch attempt to create massive vine monsters, but those also quickly disintegrate. Ivy cries in anguish as she's taken into custody by the duo.

All images are copyright Warner Bros. Animation/DC Comics. THE BATMAN and all related characters are the trademarks of DC Comics. Presented under Fair Use.