Paths converge in front of city hall. Knox is there with some other reporters interviewing the various crime bosses who are taking over Grissom's estate. Bruce shows up to watch events unfold, and Vicki is of course tailing Bruce. Also converging on the location is a band of suspicious mimes (is there any other kind of mime?).
Right after the Joker's joke, the mimes begin opening fire with automatic weapons. Bob the goon is lurking behind a corner snapping pictures of the whole proceedings, because Joker is so vain that he needs every moment of his exploits captured for posterity. Bruce watches, stunned, as the chaos unfolds. He seems to recognize something in the Joker, even if he's not exactly sure what it is.
A bullet hits Bruce's jacket and he remains unaffected due to his bulletproof armor underneath (a touch that I always thought was really cool when I was a kid... heck, I still do). Joker gets in a car and drives away, but not before waving a snide toodle-loo to Bruce. Joker likes to leave the scene of a crime with a few traumatized witnesses to remember his name.
Vicki runs up to Bruce, who looks at her with a mixture of confusion and sorrow, as if he doesn't even know her name. These events have reminded him of his parents, dead in that alley, and at the moment he's not the adult Bruce Wayne, he's that small child again screaming in the dark.
Alfred says Vicki has called and is quite worried about him. He suggests that a certain weight lifts when she's around Bruce, another indication of the fact that she has a humanizing effect on the loner. Bruce momentarily ignores this, wanting information on Grissom's gang and telling Alfred that Jack Napier is still alive. Then Alfred's words sink through Bruce's focus and determination, and he remarks somewhat wistfully, "she is great, isn't she?" Alfred replies "she is." Here there's a little element of hope springing forth for both Alfred and the viewer - Bruce might not be trapped in this darkness forever after all.
Bruce is watching the ad on TV. Alfred informs him that Vicki has called about their date this evening at the Gotham art museum. Bruce is confused. He doesn't have a date with Vicki tonight. Then who does?
Joker and his gang set about vandalizing art pieces, which means they are taking items of beauty and "Jokerizing them." Joker's face, again, is the new standard of beauty in this town.
There's one art piece that doesn't get vandalized: Francis Bacon's (1909-1992) ghastly Figura la Carne. Bacon, like Joker, took some previous works of art and reinterpreted them in a rather frightening way. Consider the following two paintings. The first is Diego Velázquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X. The second is Bacon's version of Velázquez's portrait.
Vicki, like Batman and Joker, has witnessed horrific tragedy. The difference is that she hasn't been transformed by it. She witnessed it from a sort of personal distance, i.e. from behind the lens of a camera. It didn't sink past her eyes and into her soul. She bears incredible sympathy for those who have undergone tragedy, but she hasn't been scarred by it herself.
Its precisely that which makes her appealing to Batman and Joker. To the former, because he wishes at times that he too could break away from the tragedy that shaped him; to the latter, because Vicki is a clean slate on which new tragedies can be written, as well as someone who just might find Joker beautiful despite his own tragi-comic appearance. In short, Joker is looking for his Harley Quinn, in a film that occurred before Harley was invented. He's looking for someone he can manipulate into feeding his narcissist fantasy and into believing that his distorted features are actually beautiful.
Vicki splashes water in Joker's face, which up 'till now had been disguised in flesh-colored makeup. This act reveals the true Joker underneath. The colors of his makeup run streaks across his permawhite face, not unlike the streaks of paint which he sloshed onto the art pieces moments earlier.
Joker is about to kill Vicki, who he seems not to like after all now that she's reacted in fear to his appearance. But then Batman swoops in and rescues her. There's a brilliant shot of Batman breaking through a skylight. He grabs up Vicki and then uses a sort of impromptu zip-line to descend the balcony and escape. Joker marvels: "Where does he get such wonderful toys?"
The ensuing car chase isn't particularly exciting, but it doesn't have to be - its fun just watching this beauty drive around, with Elfman's score blaring. Its a car chase that strangely (and wonderfully) is more about the atmosphere of the moment than the destruction of vehicles.
The goons marvel that he's "just a guy in a suit." They decide to take off his mask, which apparently he has no defenses against. Batman is saved only (conveniently) by Vicki snapping pictures from above, as the goons are distracted by the flash. This gives Batman a moment to recover (or stop playing dead?) in order to start a brawl with the goons. Its just not clear what the point of this scene is, as it undermines Batman's mythical presence (heretofore a running theme in the film) and seems like something that occurs by scriptwriting rather than naturally. There are too many aspects of the scene that seem staged. It all comes off as a failed attempt at creating suspense, rather than something that contributes to the story as a whole.
Vicki tries to sneak some peeks at Batman's face to discern his identity, but its too dark for her to tell who he is.
Vicki comments on the bats, and Batman remarks that they are great survivors. He leads the way to the heart of the batcave, where the batcomputer awaits.