Episode 25
- Dark Cupid - Tales of Kim the Romantic
It's Valentine's Day, so Mme. Bustier is giving a special lesson about fairy tales, asking her students if they know why so many have the prince breaking the spell with True Love's Kiss. Rose gushes that it's because "Only love can conquer hate!" Mme. Bustier agrees, only for Max to speak up, pointing out that "Only approximately 32% of those kisses were consensual." Not really wanting to get into that matter with her class, Mme. Bustier wishes them all a happy Valentine's Day.
As their own school day wraps up, Ondine asks Kagami if the holiday is any different in Japan. Kagami notes that it is, though she's never really participated in it before. She asks if Ondine has any plans, to which Ondine admits that she's really hoping Kim's ready to make things official by asking her to become his girlfriend. While she gushes, Kagami muses about how proud she is that her friend made the first move... and swears to herself that she'll maim Kim if he winds up breaking Ondine's heart.
Ambushing her poor "Adridarling," Chloé snatches away something he's been working on, asking if he's been writing a love letter for her. Upon reading it, however, she remarks that he got his description of her wrong: she has cornflower eyes and golden hair, thank you very much. Adrien bluntly replies that she's the one who's wrong since the letter isn't for her, but he stammers and flinches when she demands to know just whom he was writing about.
Not wanting to admit the truth—especially with the intended giftee standing right behind him—Adrien blurts out that he was writing it for Marigold. This sends shockwaves rippling through the whole class, with Alya immediately wanting to know how Nino didn't already know about this. Chloé runs off, going on an angry tirade against that "Stupid fool's gold-bumbling bee-Marimold!" and deciding to forge Adrien's signature on a poster so she can make herself Adrien's valentine. Tikki asks her to stop acting so pathetic and is told to shut up.
Retreating into the bathroom, Marinette discusses this development with Pollen. She'd never imagined that Adrien would develop a crush on her heroic alter ego; Pollen declares that her holder has left quite the impression and cheers her holder on as Marinette decides that she has to try and answer his feelings properly. Outside the bathroom, meanwhile, Alya is attempting to eavesdrop on the conversation. She can't hear what Marinette and Pollen are actually saying but assumes her bestie is talking to herself as her own odd way of dealing with bad news.
Back at the manor, Plagg mocks Adrien's misfortune: this is the first he's heard about any "crush" on Marigold! Adrien scolds him—he knows that the plan was for Chat Noir to give that poem to Marinette! But now everything thinks he's got a crush on Marigold instead... though it could be worse. At least he didn't blurt out Scarlet Lady.
Meanwhile, Max declares that Operation: Valentine's Day is underway, handing Kim a heart-shaped box while explaining how extensive online research has led him to the conclusion that this particular piece of jewelry is the most popular. Taking a peek, Alya playfully asks if the brooch inside is for her. Max starts to tell her who the intended recipient is, only for Kim to hastily cover his mouth—it's supposed to be a secret!
...Though not really much of one when both Alya and Marinette immediately peg that it's for Ondine. All three cheer him on as he hurries off; Alya then teases Max about playing Cupid. Max replies that it's not strange at all: Ondine is quite commendable, and Kim is clearly happy with her. So long as they keep the PDA to a minimum, he's more than happy to support his friend.
Several members of Adrien's fan club are gushing over a massive advertising poster plastered on a pillar; Mireille's even hugging the side of it, which Aurore calls "excessive." Chloé then barges in to demonstrate what true excessiveness is as she shows off a signed poster, declaring that Adrien is already hers. The other girls immediately recognize that his supposed signature is forged, however, asking her just who she thinks she's fooling with such a pathetic lie. Chloé can only clutch her rolled-up poster while lamely yelling at them to shut up.
Alya hands Marinette a heart-shaped card, declaring that the latter shouldn't give up so soon on her crush (whom Alya presumes in Adrien). Marinette thanks her for the sentiment but admits that she doesn't have any way of giving it to him (Chat Noir), much to Alya's confusion, spurring both girls to ask each other, "Who are you talking about?" Once she's brought up to speed, however, Alya's more than happy to help Marinette track down Chat Noir, dragging her off to start searching.
Kim is waiting for Ondine to arrive when Chloé walks by, placing an order for something "framed with 24-carat gold" to be delivered to Le Grand Paris on her Daddykins' dime. Noticing the box in Kim's hand, Chloé smirks evilly, asking if he's really trying to spring a love confession on her. Ignoring his protests to the contrary, she makes a big scene out of "rejecting" him—and when Ondine shows up, tells her to get lost because she's busy "trying to turn down this loser." Ondine runs off in tears, and Chloé laughs at both her and Kim's misery, mockingly asking, "Don't you hate how harsh love can be?"
Naturally, Hawk Moth exploits Kim's agony, akumatizing him into Dark Cupid, who declares that "No love affair or friendship will escape my fury! No one will ever love again!" Arrow after arrow finds their mark in various hapless bystanders. Rose gets sniped and immediately slaps Juleka away, yelling that she hates how tall and gorgeous her girlfriend is... leaving Juleka wondering if she's supposed to be insulted.
Alya gets hit as well while she and Marinette are taking a break from their search for Chat Noir. Sticking her novelty lollipop on Marinette's shirt, she sneers that the hero would never want a valentine from someone like her before running off. Marinette yells after her that she'll ignore that only because Alya looks good in black lipstick.
Outside the hotel, Chloé angrily berates the delivery team, blaming them for the mistake in her order: a mere 18-carat frame won't match her 24-carat bathtub. Marigold and Chat Noir arrive to protect her from getting sniped but get distracted by the gaudily framed poster. Chloé refuses to take cover, ordering Marigold to protect her poster while shoving the Bee heroine forward... which causes Marigold to get hit.
Ears folded back, Chat Noir asks, "Goldie-?" only for her to cut him off with a Big "SHUT UP!", declaring she hates that nickname almost as much as she hates both him and that blonde pest. Chloé then angrily yells before screaming in agony as Marigold's attack misses Chat Noir and shatters right through the frame, ripping up her precious poster (much to Chat Noir's delight). On the bright side, this finally convinces her to listen to Chat Noir's order to flee; as she runs off, Marigold orders Chat Noir to square up, declaring that she finds his kindness and friendliness insufferable. Chat Noir notes that she's not very good at the whole "being mean" thing, upsetting her further.
In her haste to escape, Chloé crashes into a display of potted plants, winding up sprawled on the ground and covered in dirt and scrapes. Lila and Sabrina come across her, snapping pictures of her misfortune while chuckling about how Alix will react when she sees this. Chloé berates them, assuming they're under Dark Cupid's influence, but both blankly ask, "What akuma?" as Dark Cupid bursts out laughing behind them.
Chat Noir struggles against Marigold, asking how he can overcome all this hatred inside of her. She declares that he can't—hate conquers all! This triggers a flashback as he recalls Mme. Bustier's lesson and Rose's insistence that "Only love can conquer hate!" Blushing, he muses out loud that he never expected his first kiss to turn out like this... causing Marigold to recoil and ask what he's talking about. Faced with an opponent who's dead-set on smooching her, Marigold turns tail and flees until she meets back up with Dark Cupid. Undeterred, Chat Noir declares he can take them both on... at least until Scarlet Lady shows up, upon which he laments his vanishing odds.
But Scarlet Lady is actually focused for once. Summoning her Lucky Charm, she brains Dark Cupid with the resulting novelty sweet, covering him with sticky goo as it wedges in his hair. She rants to Chat Noir about how awful her day was as he reminds her that this is not the time for such things—they've still got a fight to focus on.
Marigold manages to pin him down, but Scarlet Lady snares her arm, buying Chat Noir time to lean up and kiss his brainwashed partner. It's a lengthy kiss, too... one that both get lost in while Scarlet Lady and Dark Cupid look on, unimpressed. Scarlet Lady finally asks if they need to come back another time, jolting the highly confused Marigold back to reality. Taking advantage of the fact she already has her Venom stinger activated, Chat Noir throws her at Dark Cupid, knocking him over and paralyzing him. She then plucks off the broach at Scarlet Lady's urging, saving the day despite being completely at a loss at how they got here.
Once the Cure is cast, Kim is just as confused about what happened. Scarlet Lady accuses him of not being able to handle rejection, spurring him to angrily defend himself—he wasn't trying to ask Chloé out in the first place! But thanks to her, there's no way he'll be able to ask Ondine to be his girlfriend now.
...Or maybe it's not so hopeless after all. It turns out Ondine saw the flying bird-man with a faux hawk and thought it might be Kim, so she followed Dark Cupid around and overheard the whole thing. She shyly asks if she can be his valentine after all, and Kim agrees: "Valentine, girlfriend, whichever means I get to kiss you!"
Marigold tries to ask about what happened, but Chat Noir hastily shoos both her and Scarlet Lady away, pointing out how both their timers have started beeping. No time to explain, just get going—! After all that excitement, Adrien's eager to get home and collapse into his bed, hoping that there won't be any more akumas to deal with for a while; he's going to have trouble looking Marigold in the eye after all that drama.
But wait! Who's that knocking on his window? Why, it's none other than Marigold herself! It seems she's heard a rumor that he might have written her a valentine (which she definitely didn't hear at his school)? Blushing, Adrien claims he just wanted to express his appreciation for the new heroine and that he definitely doesn't have a crush on her... only to feel a bit stung when she sighs in relief.
She explains that the whole reason she became a hero was to help protect Paris and make things easier for Chat Noir. So having Adrien's support, even when he saw her at her newest and clumsiest, makes her happy. She's also relieved that he doesn't have a crush on her since there's somebody else she has feelings for, meaning she doesn't have to let him down. Adrien admits that he's also got someone else he's interested in, leaving both sides curious and blissfully unaware of the truth.
With a chaste kiss on the cheek, Marigold thanks Adrien for being her first fan, wishing him a happy Valentine's Day before heading off. Watching her go, Adrien feels his heart skip a few beats and frantically scolds it: "No 'doki-doki!' You're in love with Marinette!"
Meanwhile, Ondine and Kim update their best friends on how things went, with Ondine gushing to Kagami on her phone while Kim embraces Max and cheers over how Operation: Valentine's Day was a total success.
This episode contains examples of:
- As You Know: Adrien sulkily reminds Plagg that the plan was for Chat Noir to give Marinette the poem the Adrien was writing in class.
- Attack Backfire: A corrupted Marigold strikes at Chat Noir with her top, only to miss and ruin Chloé's framed poster of Adrien instead. To Marigold's frustration, Chat Noir is very happy that the poster was destroyed due to being quite disturbed that Chloé had it.
- Believing Their Own Lies: Chloé attempts to trick Adrien's fan club into thinking she's his Valentine by forging his signature on a perfume ad poster of him, then showing the poster off in front of them. They immediately recognize it isn't Adrien's signature and call her out on her lie, and the poster is next shown to have had the signed bottom portion torn off. Nevertheless, Chloé seems to have genuinely started believing the ripped poster was autographed by Adrien, even to describing it as such to Chat Noir and Marigold when they are standing right in front of it and can clearly see there's no signature. She even has the ripped poster put in a 24-carat gold frame and cries over it when it gets destroyed.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Chat Noir's attempt to cure Marigold with his First Kiss takes up nearly a full page's worth of panels. Both Scarlet Lady and Dark Cupid are sadly unimpressed.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Marigold ends up as one of Dark Cupid's victims after Chloé shoves her into the line of fire.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: When Max bluntly points out how most fairy tales that involve True Love's Kiss ignore the matter of consent, Mme. Bustier stammers and wishes her class a happy Valentine's Day.
- Chekhov's Classroom: Mme. Buster's special lesson about how fairy tales employ The Power of Love helps Adrien realize how to defeat Dark Cupid and the brainwashed Marigold.
- Comically Missing the Point: Chloé declares that Adrien's poem isn't describing her "properly"; she doesn't realize that it's not describing her period.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- After deciding that Chat Noir should give Marinette a poem, Adrien works on it in his classroom, without considering how any of his peers might take a peek... or snatch it away like Chloé does.
- Chloé forges Adrien's signature on an advertising poster, then shows off her prize to a group of Adrien's fans... who all immediately recognize the forgery for what it is, much to her humiliation.
- Dramatic Irony: Marigold and Adrien admit to each other that they each have a crush on somebody else, with both idly wondering whom the other might have feelings for. Both are completely unaware that they're talking about the other's alter ego.
- "Eureka!" Moment: During their fight, the corrupted Marigold declaring that "Hate conquers all!" makes Chat Noir recall Mme. Bustier's lecture on the power of True Love's Kiss and how Rose had proclaimed during class that "Only love can conquer hate!"
- Eyelid Pull Taunt: The corrupted Marigold does this while clinging to Dark Cupid's side.
- Fastball Special: After she's cured, Chat Noir throws the still confused Marigold at Dark Cupid so that she can sting him with Venom.
- First Kiss: Chat Noir references this after realizing that kissing Marigold might break the spell.
- Flat "What": Marigold reacts this way when Chloé refuses to take cover, claiming that there's no way Kim could have a grudge against her.
- Foreshadowing: Caline Bustier teaching her students about fairy tales underscores how she sees and treats her students as though they're much younger than they actually are. Her awkwardly side-stepping any discussion about Questionable Consent also hints at how she refuses to acknowledge anything that doesn't fit nicely into her overly rosy perspective, as well as how she behaves as Zombizou.
- Humiliation Conga: Chloé does not have a good day. She learns the hard way that Adrien is writing poetry for somebody else; defaces her own Adrien poster with a forged signature, only to get called out on it; wastes a chunk of her father's money on a frame for said poster only to get the wrong type of gold; sees it smashed and ripped to pieces before her eyes; then crashes into a flower stand and has humiliating pictures taken of her.
- I Reject Your Reality: Upon learning that Adrien apparently wrote a Valentine's Day poem for Marigold, Chloé declares she'll make herself his valentine and proceeds to forge his signature on a perfume ad poster of him. She then tries to show off her poster in front of Adrien's fan club, only for them to immediately recognize the forgery and call her out on her lie. The poster later seemingly has had its bottom signed portion torn off, yet she continues to treat it as if it really were autographed by Adrien, even buying a 24-carat gold frame for her ripped poster and crying over the poster when it gets destroyed.
- Kick the Dog: When they see Chloé sprawled on the sidewalk after crashing into a display of potted plants, both Lila and Sabrina snap pictures while laughing at their class bully's misfortune.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Marigold has no memory of anything that happened while she was under Dark Cupid's control.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Chloé pushes Marigold into harm's way while ordering the heroine to protect her poster of Adrien's latest perfume ad. Marigold is promptly corrupted and then proceeds to destroy it in her enraged attack against Chat Noir.
- Chloé also gets a taste of what it's like to be humiliated just for the sheer hell of it when Lila and Sabrina come across her and mock her misfortune right after she's wiped out.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Chloé is so immensely pissed off by the horrible day she's been having that she actually shows some competency as Scarlet Lady, even intervening to save Chat Noir from being stung just in the nick of time.
- Love Freak: Rose and Mme. Bustier both give off hints of this, gushing about the Power of Love and how in fairy tales, the prince often breaks the spell put on the princess with True Love's Kiss. The latter even works this into a lecture she gives to a class of teenagers while ignoring how most examples of True Love's Kiss in fairy tales aren't consensual when Max brings it up.
- Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Mme. Bustier's special Valentine's Day lesson amounts to gushing about The Power of Love in fairy tales while she sidesteps the prospect of any serious discussion of the material (including how True Love's Kiss often involves Questionable Consent).
- Never My Fault: Chloé denies the notion that she's responsible for Kim's akumatization, deciding that the only reason he might possibly be targeting her is because he's jealous of her Adrien poster.
- Not Brainwashed: After fleeing from the hate-filled Marigold, Chloé runs into a potted plant display and faceplants on the ground, covered in dirt. Lila and Sabrina then come across her and proceed to take pictures of the class bully as souvenirs, with Sabrina planning to show the photos to Alix. Chloé immediately assumes they've been corrupted by Dark Cupid, only for them to respond in unison, "What akuma?"; they both hate the class bully without any need for an arrow from Dark Cupid, who rolls over in the air laughing behind them.
- Not What It Looks Like: Chloé sees Kim holding a present as she's crossing the bridge and mistakenly assumes it's for her. She proceeds to "reject" him just as Ondine arrives, causing the latter to misunderstand the situation as well.
- Oblivious to His Own Description: Inverted; Chloé can immediately tell that Adrien's love letter "got [her] description wrong" and tries to correct him, only to be blindsided by the news that it's not about her.
- Operation: [Blank]: Max refers to his plan to help Kim make things official with Ondine as "Operation: Valentine's Day."
- Poke the Poodle: While Dark Cupid's arrows turn positive feelings into negative ones, several of his victims seem to have trouble seriously insulting those they've turned upon, instead listing off positive qualities they supposedly hate or, in Alya's case, committing what amounts to a small prank.
- Relationship Upgrade: After their movie date in the last episode, Kim and Ondine officially become a couple here.
- Saying Too Much:
- After flashing back to Mme. Bustier's lesson, Chat Noir remarks that he "never imagined [his] first kiss would be like this," unintentionally alerting Marigold to his plan and causing her to run away.
- During the fight against Dark Cupid, Scarlet Lady blurts out a lot of details about her private life and the various misfortunes she'd encountered all day that would likely have allowed Chat Noir to figure out her civilian identity. However, he's too distracted fighting a brainwashed Marigold to pay any attention to what the Ladybug heroine is saying.
- Shout-Out: Chloé dismisses Ondine as "Hulk girl"; an author's note states that
she would have had Chloé call Ondine "She-Hulk" but didn't want to accidentally imply that Chloé was cultured enough to be aware of the latter's existence. - Spanner in the Works: Kim's plan to ask Ondine to be his girlfriend goes wrong simply because Chloé just happened to cross the bridge and run into him as he was waiting for Ondine. Seeing him holding a present, Chloé wrongly assumes that Kim was attempting to confess to her and "rejects" him, unwittingly causing a misunderstanding when Ondine arrives moments later. Kim is subsequently akumatized as a result.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial:
- Played With; Chloé legitimately doesn't think that Kim could have any kind of grudge against her after the stunt she pulled on the bridge, assuming that he's only attacking out of jealousy over her "signed Adrien poster."
- When Marigold visits Adrien to ask about the valentine, she hastily claims that she didn't hear about it at his school.
- Take That!: Max points out the Questionable Consent that can come into play with most examples of True Love's Kiss in fairy tales at the start of the episode.
- Tempting Fate:
- Chat Noir is confident he can take on both Dark Cupid and a corrupted Marigold. Then Scarlet Lady shows up. Subverted when the Ladybug heroine turns out to be quite helpful this time due to having a personal vendetta against the akuma for putting her through a day-long Humiliation Conga.
- After dealing with Dark Cupid, Adrien expresses hope that there won't be any akumas for a while so he has time to process what happened and work up the courage to look Marigold in the eyes again... right before she knocks on his bedroom window.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Chat Noir sighs with dismay when Scarlet Lady shows up, declaring that she's just ruined his odds of being able to handle Dark Cupid and the corrupted Marigold at the same time. Surprisingly, he turns out to be wrong this time: Scarlet Lady actually ends up pulling her weight due to the Humiliation Conga she's received all day on account of the akuma.
- True Love's Kiss: The episode opens with Caline giving a lesson about how frequently this comes up in fairy tales, foreshadowing how Chat Noir ends up using a kiss to break Dark Cupid's spell on Marigold.
- Verbal Backspace: While placing her order, Chloé requests that they bill her Daddykins before correcting herself to Mayor Bourgeois.
