Did Frank the Plant die in Harley Quinn Season 5? Details explored

Six episodes of Harley Quinn Season 5, out of the scheduled ten, are presently available to stream. The latest and sixth episode of the fifth season, titled Bottle My Heart, ended on a shocking note as we saw the sentient Frank the Plant, which Poison Ivy gave life to, die in Ivy's arms. Frank was a fan favorite, and it was heartbreaking for the viewers to see him exit the show.

Frank has been a part of the storyline since the start, and he was a character created exclusively for the show. Frank the Plant has been with Ivy and Harley through thick and thin over five seasons. Therefore, his death at the hands of a mysterious character (for now) in Harley Quinn Season 5 was shocking.

---

How did Frank the Plant die in Harley Quinn Season 5?

Lena finally reveals Brainiac's sinister plans to our heroes while leaving out her own involvement in them. The Coluan supervillain has been revealed to be the central antagonist for the past five episodes of Harley Quinn Season 5. In fact, he abducts Harley and Ivy in the closing moments of Episode 3, titled Floronic Man. However, his fellow collaborator Lena convinces Brainiac to let the two go in the next episode, and wipe their minds.

After learning about Brainiac's plans to "perfect" Earth in the latest episode, Harley, Bane, and Clayface come up with the idea of a stage musical to inform the people of Metropolis about Brainiac's plans. People watching the play end up sympathizing with Brainiac instead of being scared of him, much to Lena's chagrin. The curtains are down, and the audience is seated in their seats when we hear a scream.

It is Harley who screams because Frank's condition is mysteriously critical and she asks for Ivy's help to save his life. Ivy is unable to save him, and in his dying breath, Frank the Plant calls Ivy "mom". Ivy sheds tears for her child, and the screen goes black. This moment from Harley Quinn Season 5 is a serious one in the show.

Showrunner Dean Lorey recently explained the decision to kill off the fan-favorite Frank the Plant in Harley Quinn Season 5.

---

What did Dean Lorey say?

ScreenRant interviewed Dean Lorey, who is the showrunner for Season 5 in which he explained the decision to kill off Frank. Lorey said he and the writers of the show,

"wanted to tell the story of Poison Ivy's origin, and we knew that Frank, at least internally, we knew that Frank was part of that origin. It was what we had sort of created and what we always wanted to do. And really that gave us an opportunity to show the deep love between Ivy and Frank."

He continued:

"And as we talked about where that might go, we thought maybe we need to take that away from Ivy. Maybe we need to let Ivy feel the loss that would come — basically he's her child. So we sacrificed Frank on the altar of storytelling. However, as we see as the season progresses, Frank may be dead, but there are places to see dead people. So I hope we've not said goodbye to him forever."

In the same interview, Dean Lorey also touched on how he and his colleagues came up with this new sympathetic version of Brainiac:

"We began to talk about what is his backstory for us in our world, we were gravitating to that he had gone through a family tragedy and that's what led him to this desire to try to make everything perfect, to try to make everything orderly." But as they got further into building this take of Brainiac, Lorey said that "we started seeing him more as a tragic villain and that reminded me of how we dealt with Mr. Freeze in season 2. Even though we used his actual comic book origins, as we started thinking about Brainiac, we fell in love with him, and we decided that we would try to play that thread honestly and truthfully and let it take us where it was going to take us throughout the season."

---

What will happen now that Frank the Plant is dead? Find out by watching Harley Quinn Season 5 on Max.