"The enemies of my friends are my enemies, Hoaxer! You have an innate talent of lying to people. Sure, there are a few people who still escape your power. But thanks to the one I'm about to give you, all your lies, no matter how absurd, will irresistibly taken as the truth. Trixx! Your power is mine! Transfer! And because a fake picture is worth a thousand lies, I am transferring to you the essence of the Miraculous of Illusion. It will give you the power to illustrate your words. Anyone who sees your images will be convinced immediately."
— Monarch
After being faced with Gabriel replacing her as the face of his company in favor of Kagami in response to Adrien and Marinette’s growing romance, Lila swears revenge against him with a plot of her own. But the plot may end up resulting in something she could have never expected…
Tropes:
- Aesop Amnesia: Averted. Gabriel initially refuses to Akumatize Lila again, as while her newfound hatred for him is tempting, entrusting powers to someone who hates him so much wouldn't be a good idea, seeming to have learned his lesson from "Simon Says" and "Style Queen".
- Played straight later on when Lila tricks him into Akumatizing her by pretending to focus her hatred on Marinette, not assuming or realizing she might have ulterior motives.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Lila's plan goes off without a hitch. She successfully uncovers all of Gabriel's secrets and gets herself elected as the new class representative. However, Marinette plans to wait for Lila to make a false move that would expose her.
- The Bait: Since the heroes can't deakumatize Hoaxer when she’s inside the Alliance Rings, Marinette detransforms and asks to talk to her since she's Hoaxer's main target. Scarabella and Cat Noir prepare to ambush her when she confronts Marinette. However, Lila ends up pretending to be moved by Marinette's words and deakumatizes herself.
- Batman Gambit: Lila stages a class representative election to trick Gabriel (as Monarch) into akumatizing her, distracting him by spectating her fight against Ladybug and Cat Noir. She used that moment to covertly brainwash Nathalie and use her to obtain dirt on Gabriel, with orders not to be seen and forget while erasing all evidence of her actions, deakumatizing herself once her plan succeeds.
- Beyond Redemption: Marinette claims Chloé is this, since many people tried to reach out and make her better including the entire class, the teacher, and Ladybug herself, yet she still remains the same.
- Beyond the Impossible: Exploited. In order to dupe everyone into making her the new class representative, Lila convinces Chloé to pretend that she's following her lead and making an effort to change. This is enough to convince everyone that Lila is more effective as a class rep over Marinette. Marinette takes a Third Option and drops out so one day, everyone will see who Lila really is.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Hoaxer brainwashes a good portion of Paris' civilians by presenting fake information about her targets through the Alliance rings. The ones who don't wear an Alliance ring—Adrien, Ivan, and Mylène—escape the brainwashing and are able to tell that it's a trap.
- Bridal Carry: Ladybug does this to Alya after freeing her from Hoaxer's control.
- Call-Back: Harry Clown was fond of calling Gabriel "Gabi", here we learn it was more than a nickname, but his actual original name. And the silly costume Harry said Gabriel made is shown.
- The Cameo: Audrey and André are seen in a photo Nathalie sends to Lila.
- Cassandra Truth: Alya and Nino still don't believe Marinette when she proclaims that Lila is a manipulative and talented liar. Even when Adrien backs her up by saying that Lila is highly skilled at lying, the Beta Couple assumes that he's just saying that because he's her boyfriend. This proves Adrien's point about how they can't prove that Lila lies since she's really good at it.
- Didn't Think This Through: Gabriel/Monarch senses Lila's rage after firing her and decides not to risk akumatizing her when her ire is directed at him, only changing his mind when he senses she's now focused on Marinette. He then gives Lila the power to brainwash anyone wearing an Alliance Ring, and quite sensibly removes his own prior to doing so. He fails to consider that Lila still bears a grudge against him and thus doesn't think to warn Nathalie to remove her ring, playing right into Lila's hands.
- Double-Meaning Title: Hoaxer presents fake revelations, like Marinette being Monarch, Ladybug and Cat Noir being from Saturn, and Gabriel being an alien. Several real revelations take place as well: the audience learns about Lila's alternate lives, Ms. Bustier discovers that Sabrina had been doing Chloé's homework, Adrien realizes that his approach to Lila was too soft, and Lila gets all of Gabriel's secrets from a brainwashed Nathalie.
- Evil Feels Good: After Gabriel snubs Lila, he takes a brief whiff at her "intense hate" as though it were a fine wine and has to remind himself that akumatizing someone whose hatred is directed at him would be a bad idea.
- Evil Plan: Gabriel decides to replace Lila with Kagami as an Alliance Avatar in order to make the Parisian public believe that she and Adrien are a couple. Shoving it in everyone's faces will make them all believe that it's true which in time will ruin his son's current relationship with Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
- Evil Versus Evil: As Hoaxer, Lila goes behind Monarch's back and steals all of his secrets, with the ultimate goal of taking his Miraculous for herself.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Marinette refers to Hoaxer as "Lila", Hoaxer doesn't invoke That Man Is Dead like pretty much every other Akuma; this is a hint that Lila is Not Brainwashed, which allows her moments later to throw off Akumatization by faking Heroic Willpower.
- Foreshadowing: During lunch, Alya brings up how Ladybug can always rely on Scarabella for help. In the akuma fight, Marinette lets her become Scarabella again to help her undo Hoaxer's madness.
- Former Teen Rebel: If his old photographs are anything to go by, Gabriel used to have a mohawk, spiked collar, leather jacket and ripped jeans when he was a teenager.
- Frame-Up: Hoaxer uses an edited video of Marinette turning into Monarch in order to turn all of Paris against her.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Gabriel hopes to spark Marinette's envy by presenting the Adrien and Kagami avatars as a couple on the Alliance Rings. Unfortunately for him, Marinette isn't so gullible as to believe such an obvious lie when she personally knows both of them.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Some people won't change no matter how much you try, and sometimes you only see good in people because that's what you want to see.
- Heroic Willpower: Faked. Lila rejects the Megakuma, which is the final thing that convinces the whole class to vote for her. In actuality, Lila was Not Brainwashed, and thus could undo her transformation anytime she wanted.
- Hidden Depths: It's revealed Lila is fluent in sign language, being able to communicate with a deaf woman she convinced she's the daughter of.
- Hypocrite: In the past, Gabriel looked down on Marinette believing that her humble and un-prestigious roots made her unfit to be with his elite son. He says this despite being a Former Teen Rebel who used to work at a French Fry stand.
- Idle Rich: Chloé gloats that she doesn’t need to learn because she’s rich and she’ll never need to work.
- I'm Standing Right Here: Marinette argues with Lila that none of the teachers are willing to discipline Chloé out of fear of losing their school careers. Miss Bustier can't help but turn her head in embarrassment over the truth of the matter.
- Insane Troll Logic: Lila argues that Chloé resorting to cheating is proof that Marinette has not been performing her duties as class representative and helping her. The rest of the class believes this despite knowing how immoral and lazy Chloé is.
- Internal Reveal:
- Miss Bustier realizes that Sabrina has always done Chloé's homework for her.
- Lila learns all about Gabriel's past and his deal with Tomoe.
- Irony: In "The Bubbler", when asked if his father ever knew what it was like to party as a teenager, Adrien guesses that his father was just as cold-hearted and depressed as he is now as a teen. However, the pictures of Gabriel's youth imply the opposite...
- I Resemble That Remark!: Chloé's response to Marinette saying that she thinks she's better than everyone else is to nod with a proud expression on her face.
- Karma Houdini: Chloé is not at all punished for having Sabrina do all her work for years. As she points out, her father could ruin the career of any teacher that tries to punish her. Marinette is certainly not happy that Chloé always gets away with things like this, though Ms. Bustier insists that Chloé having fallen the entirety of her school life behind is punishment enough.
- Kick the Dog: While this has always been a staple for Lila, the mere fact that she's manipulating a deaf woman into thinking she's her daughter is pretty low.
- Lazy Bum: It is revealed that Chloé has been making Sabrina do her schoolwork for her not just since the beginning of the show, but for her entire life, and Chloé brags that because she’s rich, she doesn’t need to learn and she’ll never need to work.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Upon the reveal of Adrien and Kagami as the new Alliance avatars, one person can be heard saying "They look so cute[,] I want to write a fanfic about them", obviously channeling the attitude of certain fans.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Adrien manages to ditch Mylene and Ivan by getting them to look for Marinette in the nurse's office so he can go the other way and transform.
- Living a Double Life: For reasons unknown, Lila has been living other lives. One of which involves posing as the daughter of a deaf woman.
- Mass Hypnosis: Through the Alliance Rings, Hoaxer is able to brainwash any ring bearer into believing anything she says.
- Properly Paranoid: Gabriel notes that Lila's anger is tempting, but that making an Akuma from someone who hates him isn't very wise. Sure enough, when he does eventually evilize her, believing she cares more about hurting Marinette at the moment, she takes the opportunity to compel Nathalie to email all his secrets to her.
- Rags to Riches: It's revealed that before Gabriel was a world-renowned fashion designer, he was selling french fries in his small family restaurant.
- The Reveal: From the photos Nathalie takes of Gabriel's past, we learn:
- Gabriel's real name is Gabi Grassette.
- His family used to own and work in a small french fry restaurant called Friterie Grassette.
- The Stinger: The last scene has Lila crushing her Alliance ring before going to her smartphone looking at the photos which contain all of Gabriel's dirty secrets.
- The Un-Smile: Chloé gives her best "I'm going to kill Batman" smile when she presents herself by Lila's side for everyone to see.
- Villain Protagonist: The episode mostly focuses on Lila and her missions to become class representative and get revenge on Gabriel. She ends up accomplishing both through her Akumatization.
- Wham Line: Lila reveals that she plans to steal Monarch's Miraculous, which ties in with the foreshadowing about her becoming the future Hawk Moth from "Timetagger".
- The Worsening Curse Mark: Gabriel's Cataclysm scarring has now fully encompassed his left hand, save for two finger tips. He is understandably disgusted and horrified at the sight.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Lila (temporarily) withdraws her candidacy and cries about being fired by Gabriel and Marinette supposedly calling her an idiot (she didn't, but as is usual with Lila, once she suggests it, other people simply accept it). This earns her a great deal of sympathy points with the class.
- You Have Failed Me: Gabriel fires Lila for failing to keep Marinette away from Adrien.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Along with wanting to pair up his son with Tsurugi's daughter, Gabriel decides that he has no further use for Lila and takes away her position as his brand's leading model.
