Poison Ivy Might Be Getting an HBO Series, and Gotham Could Use the Pruning

Poison Ivy might be getting her own HBO series, and apparently Gotham’s botanical menace has found someone worth taking a meeting with. Lauren LeFranc, creator of The Penguin, is in talks to produce the project, according to TheWrap. Pamela Isley carrying a show sounds promising. Having someone behind it who understands that a Batman villain needs an actual personality helps considerably.

The project is still in development, with no series order, cast or attached writer announced. LeFranc’s potential job would be producing, so calling her the show’s writer or showrunner would be getting ahead of the report. The fan casting spreadsheets can breathe for a minute. Nobody has booked the greenhouse yet.

There’s another detail worth keeping straight: TheWrap reports that the proposed series would sit outside Matt Reeves’ The Batman universe. LeFranc’s involvement doesn’t automatically bring Robert Pattinson’s Gotham along for the ride. Its precise relationship to James Gunn’s DCU remains unconfirmed, which means we’re still waiting on someone with actual authority to draw that particular family tree.

LeFranc makes this interesting because The Penguin gave its characters room to be awful, vulnerable and painfully human, sometimes within the same conversation. Ivy deserves that kind of attention. Her anger, her relationship with humanity and her willingness to hurt people for a cause could carry something much messier than another villain waiting politely for Batman to enter the scene.

Personally, I’d want a series that lets Pamela be difficult. Give her convictions, consequences and people who can challenge her without reducing every argument to whether plants are nice. There is plenty to work with in a woman who thinks humanity is the problem. Gotham’s residents aren’t exactly helping their case.

For now, the news is a promising project and a potential producer, with the major creative decisions still ahead. A Poison Ivy series could be deliciously uncomfortable television if the people making it commit to her contradictions. First, HBO needs to order the thing. Even Ivy has to survive development hell, and that place could kill a cactus.