If you need to lie to the person you love, it's not love. Let them go and save the lies.
"Lies, I am Shadow Moth. I bestow upon you the power to rid the world of liars! All I ask in return are Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous."
— Shadow Moth
Adrien has his own trouble juggling his two lives. Unfortunately, this leads to Kagami being yet another test monkey of Shadow Moth.
Tropes:
- Acting Unnatural: Kagami asks Adrien to pose naturally for his portrait, leading to him striking his goofy Ass Kicking Pose that he makes when he becomes Cat Noir. Kagami scolds him for goofing around and "acting stupid", unaware that Adrien actually considers himself a goofy person.
- Advancing Wall of Doom: Lies's power creates a dome around her which paralyzes everyone who's ever told a lie, growing larger the more people it consumes. And since people lie all the time, she leaves a trail of paralyzed bodies behind her wherever she goes.
- Almost Kiss: Several times, Adrien and Kagami come close to sharing a kiss, only for some distraction to interrupt, usually a villain Adrien has to help fight.
- Anger Born of Worry: After Lies is defeated, Ladybug is furious that Cat Noir once again sacrificed himself to buy her more time, yelling at him to stop doing that to her. Cat playfully replies that it's worth it for the the angry look on her face — and besides, he had complete faith in her ability to save him.
- Artistic License – Biology: The crocodile awakens Cat Noir by licking him with its tongue. In reality, crocodiles are unable to move their tongues.
- Be Yourself: Kagami asks Adrien to pose naturally instead of as a model so she can draw him as he truly is, but is put off by the goofy action pose he strikes (his transformation pose) and tells him to stop acting like a clown. Adrien is confused and troubled by this, since he considers his hero persona more natural.
- Big "NO!": Shadow Moth gives one of these when Lies is defeated. He came so close to getting the Cat Miraculous.
- Bittersweet Ending: Adrien and Kagami break up and their friendship is extremely strained. The only bright spot is that they both are willing to try and save it. And while Ladybug and Cat Noir are hurt by the day's event and their breakups with their respective partners, they affirm their trust in each other.
- Blatant Lies: Weaponized by Cat Noir to draw Lies's attention; he claims, among other things, that his name is not Cat Noir, he is not a superhero, and he does not love Ladybug.
- Book Ends: Adrien and Kagami break up in the locker room, the same place where they first fell in love.
- Call-Back:
- When Marinette has a hard time figuring out Master Fu's encrypted message, Tikki encourages her by reminding that it was her who helped Master Fu discover the Aqua power-up.
- In "Truth", Ladybug said that Cat Noir's goofy personality is part of why she likes him — since Ladybug cares for him for his true self, this is why he fell in love with her. Here, Kagami is unamused when Adrien shows his goofy side to her, as she doesn't believe that's really who he is.
- The lucky charm Marinette gave Adrien reappears. Once again, he loses it and it gets picked up by someone who ends up being akumatized.
- This isn't the first time Cat Noir has allowed himself to be taken out by an akumatized villain's attack in order to buy Ladybug enough time to save the day.
- Delicious Distraction: Ladybug lures Fang into Lies's paralyzing field using several slices of cake carried by a drone, since neither can be affected by her power.
- Description Cut: Marinette gushes about Adrien's amazing life while watching a documentary about him. Cut to Adrien complaining about the same events.
- Didn't Think This Through: Ladybug has to stop Cat Noir from trying to attack Lies, as he would be paralyzed by her power. He assumes that they would be fine as honest people, but she points out that they lie about their secret identities every day, just to start.
- Drowning My Sorrows: G-rated version. After dealing with a day of boredom alone, Cat Noir finds himself at the hotel dealing with his problems with milk. When Chloé and Sabrina nearly provide some excitement from a potential akuma only to defuse the situation almost immediately, the bartender pours him an entire pitcher of milk.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Cat Noir throws himself into Lies's dome, which paralyzes him, in order to distract the villain and buy Ladybug enough time to guide Fang to Lies's location and destroy the akuma.
- Hypocrisy Nod: When confronting Adrien over his lies, Kagami acknowledges she's just as much a liar as him.
- Innocently Insensitive: When Kagami asks Adrien to pose naturally, he makes Cat Noir's Ass Kicking Pose. Kagami scolds him for not listening to her, believing he's Acting Unnatural. Adrien is hurt by this, since he considers his goofy personality as Cat Noir as more true to himself than the obedient and calm persona he puts on as Adrien.
- Irony:
- Adrien's lucky charm seems to work only for him; everyone else who's ever held it ended up akumatized.
- Kagami isn't allowed to draw as a hobby because her mother thinks she isn't a good enough artist. Kagami's mother is blind.
- Liar Revealed: Adrien accidentally drops the lucky charm Marinette gave him, which Kagami picks up. He then uses it as an excuse to ditch her so he can fight Truth, unaware she has it. When he comes back later claiming to have found it, she calls him out.
- Logical Weakness: Lies's field paralyzes anyone who has ever told a lie. This includes basically every human ever because even white lies count, but things that by their nature cannot lie, such as a drone and Fang (an animal who can't speak), are absolutely fine.
- Loving a Shadow: Discussed when Adrien tries to tell Kagami that maybe his goofier side is who he truly is. Kagami refutes it and insists that she already knows who he is; pressing close to Adrien and calling him "perfect". As in, he's perfect for her.
- The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Adrien constantly having to run off to deal with Shadow Moth's villains while keeping lying to Kagami causes his potential relationship with her to fracture.
- Never My Fault: Chloé accuses Sabrina of losing her purse when Chloé is actually wearing it and not only doesn't realize but won't allow Sabrina to explain. When Chloé does realize she still has the purse, she blames Sabrina for not telling her.
- One True Love: In the end, Adrien admits that although he likes Kagami, it's Ladybug that he truly loves. Plagg, who has repeatedly urged Adrien to let go of his feeling for Ladybug in the past, says that he finally understands Adrien and compares the latter's feelings to his own love for Camembert: there may be many cheeses on the platter, some of them truly appetizing, but he'll always be drawn to the one he loves most.
- Out of Focus: Surprisingly, Ladybug herself. Most of her scenes are just repeats from "Truth" except for the episode's opening (which is also her only scene without Cat Noir), ending and fight with Lies which is one of the shortest in the series, taking only 5 minutes.
- Rule of Symbolism:
- During lunch, Adrien is looking at a cheese platter holding two types of cheese: one with a red rind and one with a brown rind, showing how he feels conflicted between Ladybug and Kagami. And in the end, when he reaffirms his love for Ladybug, Plagg uses a cheese metaphor to praise him for finally making that choice for himself.note
- Also, the break-up was provoked by an argument initiated by the loss of the lucky charm Marinette gave to Adrien in season 1. Thus the object is a strong symbol of the Adrienette ship. Sooner or later, effectively, this bond would have broken Kagami and Adrien.
- Secret Test of Character: Kagami puts Adrien to one when he returns from fighting Truth. He claims that he has found the lucky charm he was supposed to look for. Since Kagami had it the whole time he failed the test.
- Stock Animal Diet: Cat Noir drowns his sorrows in milk.
- Stop Poking Me!: A non-video game variant; Cat Noir checking his voice-mail on his staff gives him a message in Plagg's voice that tells him there are no messages and not to forget his cheese. As he checks it more when Ladybug stands him up, Plagg's voice begins to sound more annoyed, eventually shouting at his last check.
- Synchronous Episodes: The first half of this episode takes place during the events of "Truth", but from Adrien/Cat Noir's perspective.
- Tempting Fate: While waiting for a supervillain to show up, Cat Noir asks Mr. Ramier if there is any chance he will become Mr. Pigeon again, only to be assured that he's been doing great lately. Give it a few episodes, Adrien.
- Worth It: Cat jokes that throwing himself in harm's way is worth it just for seeing Ladybug's angry face.
