- Manipula, I am Monarch. Do you mourn the demise of the superheroes? Well I am giving you the power to bring them back to life, along with all their powers.Why would you do that, you're the reason they disappeared! You stole their Miraculous!I didn't steal anything, Ladybug is the one who lost them. She's the one responsible for everything that is happening today. If Paris had another superhero leader, the other superheroes would still be here, and your museum wouldn't be threatened with closure. If you bring me Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous, I promise to stop Akumatizing people. I'm offering you the chance to give real hope to the people of Paris; isn't that what you wanted?
Luka and Kagami bring Marinette and Adrien to the Grévin museum, determined to bring their friends closer to each other, with mixed results. Meanwhile, Mayor Bourgeois bars museum director Véronique from showing statues of the now inactive superheroes, causing her to get akumatized into Manipula, a supervillain armed with the power of the Ox Miraculous and the power to bring wax staues to life.
Tropes:
- Acting Unnatural: Marinette tries to answer casually to Adrien calling her. The result is anything but that.Marinette: Hola, ¿cómo estás, amigo?
- Almost Kiss: Discussed about the kiss in "Puppeteer 2". Adrien counts it as a real kiss and says that it made him think of Marinette as more than a good friend, while Marinette argues that technically it wasn't a real kiss because there were still a few millimeters between their lips and Adrien jumped away from her before she could seal the deal, so to speak. Kagami and Luka watch on in amusement.
- Anti-Villain: Manipula actually likes Paris's heroes, and only agrees to help Monarch when he tells her he'll stop akumatizing people once he has the Miraculouses...which may very well even be true, but of course it'd still definitely be best for the world to avoid the ramifications of Gabriel wishing that his wife never died.
- Battle Discretion Shot: Most of the wax copies are destroyed off-screen.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: For four seasons, Ladybug has been trying to get Cat Noir to let go of his crush on her. Now that she's succeeded and Cat has fallen for someone else (or so they both think), she realizes that she's starting to fall in love with him.
- Blackmail: Because Chloé wants the Hall of Heroes to never be opened, her father threatens to close the whole museum due to hygiene problems.
- Call-Back:
- Both Marinette and Adrien mention the last time they visited the Grévin Museum together in "Puppeteer 2". Adrien recalls the events of that day with some fondness, while Marinette is mortified and tries to shush him before he can mention the kiss. Indeed, Adrien tells Kagami that he thought of meeting Marinette there by implying that Marinette's "prank" on him there might be when his feelings toward Marinette became unclear to him.
- Wax Ladybug uses a BFS as her Lucky Charm, just like fellow false Ladybugs Antibug, Sandboy's Nightmare Ladybug, Miraculer, and Christmaster's Toy Ladybug before her. The exact same sword in the cases of the latter three.
- Double-Meaning Title: Luka and Kagami are quite determined to get Marinette and Adrien to admit their feelings for each other. Later, Manipula receives the power of determination — and has Minotaurox's statue as the last one left, with the same power.
- Dramatic Irony: Adrien/Cat Noir has finally gotten over his crush on Ladybug and fallen in love with someone else: Marinette. On the flipside, Marinette is trying to distance herself from Adrien, who is at long last reciprocating her feelings, and realizes that she's starting to fall in love with Cat Noir — i.e. the boy whose affections she's been rejecting for months.
- Entitled Bitch: When confronting Manipula, Ladybug asks why the Mayor won't authorize the Hall of Heroes at the museum. Chloé responds with a tear about how Ladybug's lameness lost all the Miraculous after denying her being Queen Bee. She caps her rant off gloating that as the superhero, Ladybug has no choice but to try to rescue her anyway.
- Everyone Can See It: It takes Kagami one look to know that Adrien is in love with Marinette. She immediately demands that he call to ask her out, not buying Adrien's unconvincing claim that she's just a friend.
- Evil Is Petty: Chloé causes Manipula’s akumatisation because her Hall of Heroes doesn’t include Queen Bee.
- Exact Words: Resistance provides protection against superpowers from the Miraculous. But Ladybug can still harm Manipula using everyday items
- Facepalm: Kagami and Luka both do so at different points in response to Marinette and Adrien's clumsiness around each other.
- Falling Chandelier of Doom: Ladybug defeats Manipula by causing the chandelier in the mayor's office to fall right on top of her.
- Foreshadowing: Before the date begins, Marinette and Kitty Section discuss the record deal Bob Roth promised them, which comes to the fore in “Migration”.
- Gaussian Girl: This effect happens to Marinette when Adrien sees her with her hair down. It's then gender-inverted when Ladybug sees Cat Noir as such after he saves her from his wax double.
- Glass Cannon: The superhero wax statues have the same powers as the originals, but they are still made of wax and are thus easily broken and sliced apart.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany: Discussed. Upon seeing Luka hug Marinette (platonically, to help her calm down), Kagami asks Adrien whether seeing the two of them like this makes him feel jealous. Adrien admits that he doesn't know, but adds that he wishes he could trade places with Luka. It takes being Locked in a Room with Marinette and an attack by a supervillain for Adrien to figure out his own feelings.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Chloé is still jealous over not being allowed to be a hero, and tries to get the new superhero statues at the Grévin Museum removed.
- Hidden Depths: Kagami guides Adrien through a date with Marinette and offers him some pretty good relationship advice.
- Implausible Deniability: When Marinette sees Adrien with Kagami, she says that he must have been talking about her when he said his feelings have changed. This is despite the fact that Adrien clearly stated that his feelings for Marinette are what have changed.
- Ironic Echo Cut: At the end of the episode, Adrien comes to terms with his feelings for Marinette and says "I think I'm in love" with a wistful expression. Cut to Marinette, tearfully coming to terms with her feelings for Cat Noir, and she says "I think I'm falling in love" with an anguished expression.
- Irony:
- In "Psychomedian", Marinette remembers her conversation with Adrien in "Puppeteer 2" as an example of her making no progress with him. Here, Adrien says that "Puppeteer 2" is when he started feeling differently about Marinette.
- When Ladybug tells Cat Noir that she feels differently about him now, he assumes she just means that they're a better team. He then says that he's glad there aren't any more misunderstandings between them while misunderstanding her.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Marinette has her hair down when she drops off Kagami, allowing Adrien to see her with that look (having previously complimented it in "Heart Hunter"), which he is frankly transfixed by. She's redone her pigtails by the time she reaches the band.
- Living Statue: Manipula has the power to bring wax statues to life by placing akumatized cards on their heads. She does this to all the superhero statues at the museum. Unlike the statues in "The Puppeteer 2", these can actually talk, as they need to be able to do so in order to use their voice-activated powers.
- Logical Weakness: The power of Resistance causes Manipula and the statues to be immune to superpowers like Cataclysm...but as it quickly turns out, it's not also immune to getting beat up by sheer brute force. Ladybug ends up defeating Manipula by getting a Falling Chandelier of Doom to drop on her.
- Locked in a Room: Luka and Kagami lead Marinette and Adrien in the Hall of Heroes and lock them inside the room so they can figure out their feelings for each other. Unfortunately, they get a bit more than half a minute of screentime in this state before Manipula barges in to bring the superhero statues to life.
- Love Epiphany: Adrien spends most of the episode trying to understand his changing feelings for Marinette. At the very end, he says that he's in love. At the same time, Marinette realizes that she's falling in love with Cat Noir.
- Love Makes You Stupid: Ladybug hesitates to destroy the wax copy of Cat Noir when he tries to appeal to her feelings even though she knows he's a fake with a black pamphlet stuck to his forehead. This is a strong hint she's starting to fall for him.
- Moment Killer: Adrien calmly and gently assures Marinette that she can tell him everything as she panics about being Locked in a Room alone with him...then Manipula breaks into the room.
- No-Sell: Monarch gives Manipula the power of the Ox Miraculous, allowing her to resist all magical attacks. She intentionally makes Cat Noir use Cataclysm on her to neutralize it and render him vulnerable. However, she is still vulnerable to damage from ordinary sources, leading to her defeat with Ladybug drops a chandelier on her.
- Not So Above It All: Kagami has a huge trolling grin as she and Luka lock Marinette and Adrien in the Hall of Heroes.
- Obligatory Earpiece Touch: Manipula does this when she's communicating with wax Cat Noir. Since neither of them is actually wearing an earpiece this borders on Pstandard Psychic Pstance.
- Oblivious to Love: Ladybug tells Cat Noir that her feelings for him have changed. Despite that being the same thing he told Marinette earlier, he assumes she means it platonically. When Kagami lampshades this, Luka explains that Adrien is used to being loved by everyone and thus can't see the signals from Marinette, who isn't very good at communicating herself.
- Plot Hole: Even though it's demonstrated that Manipula's akuma is spread across all of her pamphlets and she can only be stopped if all of them are destroyed, at the end she's deakumatized while Minotaurox's pamphlet is still intact.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Mayor Bougeois is quite willing to open the Hall of Heroes once Cholé stops breathing down his neck about it.
- Shipper on Deck:
- Kagami notices that Adrien has fallen in love with Marinette and encourages him, in her own blunt manner, to tell her how he feels. She tags along on Adrien's date with Marinette to make sure that Adrien doesn't chicken out before telling Marinette how he feels about her.
- Meanwhile, Luka encourages Marinette to accept Adrien's date proposal and get to know the real him behind his Purity Personified public mask. Marinette drags him along on her date with Adrien because she's too nervous to be alone with him.
- At the Grévin museum, both Luka and Kagami realize that they're here as wingmen/chaperons, so they join forces in trying to get Marinette and Adrien together.
- When Marinette gets a call from Adrien asking her out she turns around to find the entire Kitty Section hanging on their every word.
- Marinette herself tried to be one to deny her feelings for Adrien. When she sees him with Kagami she immediately assumes (or possibly just hopes) they're back together.
- Took a Level in Badass: Downplayed; the Ladybug and Cat Noir statues in "Puppeteer 2" couldn't talk and therefore couldn't use their powers, but this time they can.
- Trauma Button: Anytime someone brings up Ladybug losing Miraculous to Monarch she starts panicking. It gets bad enough that she can't use her Lucky Charm until Cat Noir's speech makes her snap out of it.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Zigzagged. Adrien realizes that he's in love with Marinette while she insists she no longer has feelings for him. At the same time, Ladybug shows more affection for Cat Noir while he shows less romantic interest in her. However, this trope arguably doesn't apply because they're still the same two people who love each other.
- Verbal Backpedaling: When Adrien calls Marinette beautiful he tries to correct himself that he's simply referring to Kagami's watercolor of her. Kagami isn't fooled.
