So Rachel is the one who is visited by Commissioner Gordon, who apologizes. She faces him full on and says, “Take it back.”

“Heads I go first, tails it’s you.”

Because this is what Rachel Dawes was. She was the two-sided coin that landed on heads, on goodness, no matter what her choices were. She was the one who believed in the justice system, who worked tirelessly to protect people and who was crushed every time she failed. She was the one truly moral character. 

And that is why her fall from morality is so much more terrifying than the charismatic and driven-by-glory Harvey Dent, who cared, but differently. He wanted Rachel and all the other good people to love him, so that’s who he became, while Rachel--Rachel was just good. It didn’t matter what everyone else thought of her, as long as she did good, as long as she was good--

Until she wasn’t.

Losing someone like this, it can twist you and make your insides rot. Because how can the man who murdered the love of your life walk free? Everyone knows he did it. Everyone knows he’s the one blowing up hospitals--the one blowing up this hospital that you’re sitting in, and you in it, if you don’t stand up and walk away. 

Everyone knows the man--the monster--sitting by your bed and whispering to you about how it’s not his fault that Harvey is dead, how it’s the mob and the corrupt police and batman for making the wrong decision--everyone knows he’s guilty and here he his. Here. And she can’t do a thing.

But she feels that rush of power when he presses the gun to his head and presses the burnt coin into her hands.

“Chaos is fair.”

And then we don’t see Rachel for a while. We see the joker burn down the hospital, but we don’t know if Rachel’s morality won out or if the coin landed in the Joker’s favor. 

We don’t see Rachel again, in fact, until the close of the movie, after Bruce has left the Joker dangling upside down while he laughs about corrupting Rachel (and Bruce doesn’t believe it, because Rachel is incorruptible--)

And then there’s Michael Wuertz, standing behind the bar looking scared, and Rachel’s voice, hardened by loss. “If the coin lands on heads, you live. If it’s black, you die.” The coin flips, through the air, arching gracefully, and then the screen goes black with a gun shot. The credits roll.

(I love Tom Hardy as much as anyone but let’s be real and admit that the third movie just didn’t fit??? So no bane. Instead Rachel!Two-face gets a whole movie to herself, (throw in catwoman, if you like) with many parallels drawn between herself and Batman, except that she’ll kill people or set them free, regardless of any sense of morality, culminating, possibly, in her death, or in her capture. And there’s no 8 year time gap because. really???)