If you break my wand, I'll just turn them into real wax statues!
"Puppeteer. Glad to see you again. So no-one wants to play with you, huh? I'm giving you the power to play with them!"
—Hawk Moth
Adrien goes to the Musée Grévin (a wax museum in Paris) to make a mold for a new wax figure of himself. Nino, Alya, and Marinette come too, along with Manon Chamack, who gets akumatized into The Puppeteer once again.
Tropes:
- Almost Kiss: Marinette almost kisses Adrien pretending to be a statue as a friendly prank until he interrupts her. Adrien himself ends up in a similar but reversed situation: as Cat Noir he is almost kissed by a statue pretending to be Ladybug to steal his ring but he manages to Spot the Impostor and stop her.
- Animating Artifact: While Puppeteer's wand was an Instant Allegiance Artifact that controlled other people with dolls in her first episode, here it brings all of the wax statues to life.
- Attention Whore: Manon ends up akumatized because she feels that no one is paying attention to her. Justified because she is a little child and she is not wrong: Alya and Nino said they would play with her and instead they irresponsibly abandoned her in the museum to flirt with each other.
- Blatant Lies: Marinette lies again and again about her feelings for Adrien, until he gets the impression she is angry at him. She even claims the hearts she drew around pictures of him in her room are upside-down spades, because she is thinking about a fashion idea based on playing cards.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Ladybug and Cat Noir defeat numerous villains all on their own. It definitely helps that they're made out of wax and it's OK for heroes to smash them apart, instead of using non-lethal violence.
- Continuity Nod: Plagg plays the piano with Adrien just like he did before in "Feast".
- Creepy Souvenir: Marinette plucks a hair from the supposed statue of Adrien and puts it in her purse.
- Cringe Comedy: Marinette making a fool of herself with Adrien when he's pretending to be a statue is just as awkward to the audience as it is to Adrien.
- Discard and Draw: The Puppetteer has a new power, to make wax figures into living statues, much weaker than her original power of mind-control through puppets. It's a good thing for the heroes, because she had immediate access to figures of them in the museum.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Ladybug asks Cat Noir, of all people, how can he be so sincere about his feelings. Think about that, she asks romantic advice from the boy she rejected two to three times, who, by the way, is the same boy she loves!
- Marinette learns Adrien already likes a girl, finding herself in the same situation Cat Noir was in Glaciator.
- Everyone trying to keep Marinette's crush on Adrien a secret from him makes him think that she doesn't like him even as a friend.
- Exact Words: Alya tells Nino to "deny" whatever Adrien asks him. While it is obvious that she meant "say nothing about their plan to get him and Marinette together", Nino interprets this as "deny every assumption Adrien has", further confusing Adrien in the process while Alya watches in frustration.
- Failed a Spot Check: Marinette falls for Adrien's statue act, after she got close enough to repeatedly touch and even smell him.
- Friendly Tickle Torture: Nino playfully tickles Alya while pretending to be Akumatized into Tickle Man.
- Glass Cannon: The statues under Puppeteer's control have the same powers as their original forms, but are still made of wax so they are easily destroyed.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After Puppeteer almost defeats Ladybug by replacing Cat Noir with wax copy, Ladybug later reverses tables by having Cat Noir pretend to be be a living statue which fools Puppeteer long enough to steal her wand.
- Hypocrite: Gabriel's terminal lack of self-awareness regarding his own neglectful parenting has reached Running Gag status.Hawk Moth: A little girl who feels all alone... Children cannot be disregarded!
- Losing Your Head: The disembodied wax head of Thomas Astruc and a set of living glass eyeballs play a part in temporarily taking down Cat Noir. The Astruc head almost takes off his ring with its mouth.
- Love Hurts: Marinette finally gets the bad news that Adrien loves another girl. Heartbroken, she nearly takes down Adrien's pictures from the shrine in her room. Tikki encourages her to keep hoping, since Tikki knows the truth about who Adrien loves.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: Several times people pose as wax figures, including Adrien in front of Marinette. She embarrasses herself by flirting in front of what she thinks is his statue.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Cat Noir is dogpiled by many statues, with Astruc's head trying to take his Miraculous. When next we see the real him, he's escaped all of them and is talking to wax Ladybug.
- Once More, with Clarity: After Nino and Adrien have their conversation, the tape rewinds and we see Alya and Marinette's conversation. Both involved Alya giving non-verbal hints to Nino.
- Out-of-Character Alert: The impostor Ladybug gives herself away by acting lovey-dovey to Cat Noir. (She also smells like wax.)
- Perverted Sniffing: While checking out "Adrien's statue", Marinette checks that it smells exactly like Adrien. It's the first moment when Adrien starts getting nervous.
- Sacred First Kiss: Marinette states that kissing Adrien accidentally would've been one very silly first kiss.
- Shout-Out:
- The villain's threat to dip a hostage in boiling wax recalls horror movies like "House of Wax".
- Adrien's pose while he's pretending to be a wax statue is taken from Michelangelo's David.
- Simultaneous Arcs: Alya tells Nino to deny everything if Adrien asks him anything (about Marinette), confusing her instructions to deny everything period. The scene then rewinds and replays itself, but from Alya and Marinette's perspective, Alya watching him in frustration while Marinette continues to freak out.
- The Speechless: None of the living wax figures are able to speak.
- Spot the Impostor:
- Both Ladybug and Cat Noir are confronted by figures impersonating their partners. Cat Noir does a better job of catching on and Cataclysms the Ladybug impostor before she can steal his ring. Ladybug is blindsided by the copy of Cat Noir.
- Puppeteer realises that the Cat Noir that "captured" Ladybug isn't a wax statue when his timer starts ringing.
- Twitchy Eye: When Marinette pulls a hair from Adrien's head as he's trying to stay frozen, this is his only response.
