The TV Addict 

Be warned: SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD

Still recovering from the awesomeness of THE DARK KNIGHT that is still lingering in my system like an unshakable hangover, I realized that the one major flaw of the movie was that it may result in the franchise becoming a victim of its own success.

How could a third Batman movie possibly top THE DARK KNIGHT?

I’m not just talking about quality, but rather how can any Batman villain be a more suitable and amazing adversary than the Joker? Most of all, how could any potential sequel raise the stakes any higher than they were in THE DARK KNIGHT?

There were times in the film were I endured sucker-punch upon sucker-punch, wondering how much bleaker, darker, despairing the film could get. Repeatedly I wondered how what The Joker was doing to Gotham could get any worse. Then he just upped himself again and again in exponentially escalating acts of anarchy. All I could do was hope for a brighter turn of events. They rarely came. I felt about as hopeless and terrorized as I imagine any Gotham citizen would have been feeling during The Joker’s rampage. It seemed like nobody could get a break, nobody could win. In the end, I’m not sure anyone really did. Actually, I think the only person who did was The Joker. There were little victories perhaps (the ferry people, Batman doesn’t kill The Joker), but in the end Gotham’s white knight - Harvey Dent - has been destroyed (at least to those in the know) and Batman has become a wanted man.

The Joker in his final conversation with Batman mentions that the two of them are engaged in a “battle for Gotham’s soul.” What greater stakes could there be than an entire city being pushed to the brink of anarchy and a chaos, where the very status quo of civilized society is perpetually being violently undermined? Where a world teeters on going to hell in a hand basket? Where people keep on dying and nobody seems safe?Admittedly, BATMAN BEGINS also featured a villain threatening the entire city, but it fell within typical super villain territory. The Joker’s rampage feels so palpable in no small part because it’s a city-wide attack both on its citizens’ bodies and psyches. It’s especially the psychological terrorism involved that makes these stakes seem so high and frighteningly real, to the point where I became so invested in the events that I actually cared as if it was all real and I was there.

So, honestly. How do you top that?