History Recap / MiraculousLadybugS04E22Ephemeral

* WhamEpisode:
** Adrien reveals his identity to Ladybug. Adrien discovers the repository where his mother is and that his father is Shadow Moth. He is then Akumatized and forced to ally himself with his father and give his Cat Miraculous to him. Gabriel discovers Ladybug's identity. [[ResetButton None of this sticks, however]].
** We finally get some more concrete details on what would happen if someone combined the powers of the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous and made their wish: in order for the wish to be granted, the entire universe would be destroyed and a new one created in its place. Also, judging by the Kwamis' [[OhNoNotAgain reactions]] to this happening, this has happened before.

* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: When Shadow Noir confronts Marinette in the movie theater, the latter doesn't even try and deny she's Ladybug. She just transforms right in front of her enemy, because if he has the Cat Miraculous, then denying it won't help anyone. Unbeknownst to her at that moment, transforming into Ladybug was exactly what Shadow Noir wanted her to do.

* TheReveal:
** Shadow Moth reveals that more than two Miraculouses can be unified, which he does with the Cat Miraculous and (offscreen) the Ladybug Miraculous not long after.
** Sass, upon seeing the wish being granted and knowing how bad the effects are, reveals that he can use Second Chance to go back in time to any pre-established Second Chance point. He uses the picture of the watch Marinette texted Luka to return to the Eiffel Tower several days ago, before Ladybug and Cat Noir revealed their identities to each other.
** For the first time since they were introduced in ''Miraculous New York'', we get to see the full transformation sequence for the Space upgrades.
** Sass explains how the wish power of the Black Cat and Ladybug Miraculouses works: First the current universe must be destroyed, then a new one must be created where whatever the user wished for is true. Presumably, this is why those Miraculouses in particular are necessary: Black Cat is destruction and Ladybug is creation.

* InternalReveal:

* CallBack:
** This is the third time Ladybug ended up with a vehicle for a Lucky Charm. The first was a Vespa ("[[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS04E08QueenBanana Queen Banana]]") and the second was a Lamborghini ("Recap/MiraculousLadybugS04E15Glaciator2 Glaciator 2]]").
** In "[[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS03E24Ladybug Ladybug]]," when Marinette was nearly Akumatized, she prepared to remove her earrings. When Shadow Moth Akumatizes Adrien, he takes off his ring and hands it over to him.
** The scene that has Marinette finally see Cat Noir as Adrien was him extending his umbrella to him, calling back to the moment in "Origins" when she first fell in love with him.

* PhlebotinumAnalogy: Sass explains how the wish works: Imagine the world is a notepad where everything is written in blue, but you want it to be red. You have to erase everything there to make room. Using wish destroys the current universe to replace it with a universe that complies with the wish.

* ApologeticAttacker: Ephemeral is forced to ambush Ladybug and apologies as he does so.

* AbusiveParents: Not quite as horrible to Adrien emotionally before akumatizing him as in "Cat Blanc", but again Gabriel shows no hesitation in akumatizing his son while Adrien very clearly expresses he doesn't want to help him get the Miraculouses.
* AllOfTimeAtOnce: When Sass uses Second Chance without a wielder, he causes various things in the past to appear in the then present, from previous akuma villains to dinosaurs and Joan of Arc appearing. Fixing the official clock and applying a [[WorldHealingWave Miraculous Cure]] resets this problem.

* BlatantLies: Originally, Ladybug comes with a plan to convince Cat Noir that both will reveal their identities to each other, when she had no intention to follow through with her end of it. In the second timeline, when Cat Noir asks Ladybug what she wanted to talk to him about, she says it's not important. His expression makes it clear that [[LockedOutOfTheLoop he didn't buy her excuse one bit]].

** This is the third time Ladybug ended up with a vehicle for a Lucky Charm. The first was a vespa ("Queen Banana") and the second was a Lamborghini ("Glaciator 2").
** In "Ladybug", when Marinette was nearly akumatized, she prepared to remove her earrings. When Shadow Moth akumatizes Adrien, he takes off his ring and hands it over to him.

* ADayInTheLimelight: Luka once again has a good amount of focus this episode through how him knowing Ladybug and Cat Noir's secret identities would help save the world. His miraculous and Kwami are shed light on a bit more on how powerful it can really be when necessary.

** To the above Luka replies that he did in fact encounter a situation like that and while he was confused at first, it allowed him to understand them better and love them even more. To Marinette he's seemingly talking about the recent reveal of Jagged Stone being his father and while that could very well be part of it, he's obviously talking about Marinette herself and him finding out she was Ladybug and how that helped him understand why she was distant and wouldn't tell him about the obvious problems it was causing her.

* EvilIsPetty: In what must be the pettiest akumatization in the whole show, Bob Roth ends up turned into a supervillain after losing a penny. But seeing as he's a money obsessed rich man, this makes a lot of sense.

* {{Foil}}: Marinette and Adrien have very different reactions about learning each other's secrets. While Marinette needs time to process that Adrien and Cat are the same person, Adrien is overjoyed to learn that Ladybug is also one of his best friends.

** Adrien discovers the secret repository under his house and finds his mother inside the cryogenic pod. Unfortunately it causes his akumatization into Ephemeral. Sass's Second Chance ensures it doesn't stick.

** After so much time spent making sure she doesn’t know who Cat Noir is under the mask, Marinette is now forced to finally learn his identity, when ''Tikki'' and other kwamis under her care already know that he's Adrien but can't tell her.

* OhNoNotAgain: The Kwamis' reaction to the lights indicating the universe's upcoming destruction and recreation. That means the wish was made at least once before the current time.

* ProperlyParanoid: As Ladybug explains to Viperion, Ladybug or Cat Noir actually learning each other identities means that both can be easily compromised if one of them was akumatized. That's exactly what happens in the episode.

* StatusQuoIsGod: Just like in "Cat Blanc", our heroes learning each other's identities results in Gabriel learning them soon after, Adrien is akumatized, and everything just goes straight to Hell from there. In other words, [[StarCrossedLovers even if they love each other, they can't be together]] while Gabriel is around and preying on Miraculouses.

* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: Unlike the others time-related akumatized villains, Ephemeral's powers to accelerate time appear to be relatively harmless (unless he held back [[RapidAging more powerful applications of his powers]]). However, this gives him the ability to completely capitalize on the 5 minutes time-limit and allows him to debilitate Ladybug, leaving her vulnerable to Shadow Moth's whims.

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Just like "Wishmaker" before it, Gloob released a trailer for this episode which revealed several major spoilers -- all the reveals and Adrien's akumatization were shown, though [[NeverTrustATrailer some key context was left out]].

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Long story short, due to Su-Han’s paranoia and demands for an identity reveal, Shadow Moth would have ''won and would had destroyed the current universe'' if it weren’t for Sass and Luka. And even then Ladybug and Cat Noir had to clean up the resultant mess of Sass using his powers alone.
* WakeUpFighting: When Shadow Moth puts on the Black Cat ring, Plagg materializes ready to use Cataclysm on him. Plagg gets halfway through saying the word before Shadow Moth stops him by reminding him that he is his master now, so the kwami ''has'' to obey him.

** Adrien reveals his identity to Ladybug. Adrien discovers the repository where his mother is and that his father is Shadow Moth. He is then akumatized and forced to ally himself with his father and give his Cat Miraculous to him. Gabriel discovers Ladybug's identity. [[ResetButton None of this sticks, however.]]

* WhatIf: According to Thomas Astruc, this is what the episode is meant to be. Downplayed as the events of this episode do have an impact to the main plot to some extent, such as TheReveal that the price of making a wish using both the Ladybug and the Cat Miraculouses is [[EquivalentExchange the entire universe being destroyed and a new one being created to suit the desires of the wisher]].
* WhatTheHellHero: When Su-Han started to chastise her for not getting Cat Noir's identity, Ladybug gives one to Grandmaster Su-Han for letting his judgement be based on his fears instead of their actions.

* WritersCannotDoMath: Gabriel states that he's tried to steal Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses 100 times. Seems like an appropriate thing to say, considering it's the [=100th=] episode, but then you would have to ignore a ''lot'' of akumatizations that were not the main villain of an episode as well as any that occurred offscreen (such as the vast majority of [[RunningGagged Mr. Pigeon's 72 akumatizations]]). Hell, earlier in ''this'' episode there was a montage of villains being beaten, which would have put the total above 100 even if you had only counted one per episode up to this point. However, if Gabriel is only counting unique akumatizations, that number would be in the mid-80s-to-early-90s range depending on how you count it, which could reasonably be dialed up to 100 with some offscreen akumatizations.

* TheCameo: None other than Creator/JoanOfArc appears (Ladybug Miraculous and all) for a brief moment on the Eiffel Tower when Sass uses Second Chance to save the future.

* TheCameo: None other than Jeanne d'Arc appears (Ladybug Miraculous and all) for a brief moment on the Eiffel Tower when Sass uses Second Chance to save the future.

* AbsenteeActor: Despite the episode's high-stakes premise ultimately culminating in a TimeTravel-based resolution, Bunnyx doesn't appear and isn't even mentioned. One can imagine up some plausible reasons like since the timeline was rewritten instantaneously at the end so Bunnyx would have no knowledge of these events. But ultimately it seems she was absent simply because it wasn't a Bunnyx episode.

** Sass explains how the wish power of the Black Cat and Ladybug Miraculouses work: First the current universe must be destroyed, then a new one must be created where whatever the user wished for is true. Presumably, this is why those Miraculouses in particular are necessary: Black Cat is destruction and Ladybug is creation.

* FastballSpecial: Pigella and Ryuko toss Vesperia up in the air so she can get on top of Moolak's vault and paralyze him.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Ladybug and Cat Noir revealing their true identities to each other. Ladybug tells him that it's time, only for Cat Noir to quietly ask her if she's sure. Then, when she gets cold feet and says she changed her mind after he detransforms in front of her (i.e. removes his costume), he assures her that he can wait until she's ready. A few days later, she stops him and tells him that she's ready now, and detransforms as well.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Ladybug and Cat Noir revealing their true identities to each other. Ladybug tells him that it's time, only for Cat Noir to quietly ask her if she's sure. Then, when she gets cold feet and says she changed her mind after he detransforms in front of her (i.e. removes his costume), he assures her that he can wait until she's ready. A few days later, she stops him and tells him that she's ready now, and detransforms as well. Out of context, this heralds to a much more intimate situation two people would have together. Need we say more?

* OutsideContextProblem: Prior to this episode, all instances of Unification were limited to two Miraculouses at a time, as Master Fu had warned Marinette that wielding multiple Miraculous posed an inherent danger to the user's mind. Even when "Kwamibuster" had Marinette (as Multimouse) wearing every single Miraculous she had access to at that point, she used [[SelfDuplication Multiplication]] to share the load across her copies and never fused more than two with any one copy. This episode has Shadow Moth, already wielding the Peacock and Butterfly, unify again with the Cat Miraculous to become Shadow Noir for his confrontation with Ladybug, and he then unifies with the Ladybug Miraculous offscreen (though he may have discarded the Peacock and Butterfly before doing that). Of course, even if Gabriel is aware of the risk, he's the type of person to do it anyway if it materially benefits him. Presumably, Shadow Noir doesn't appear outwardly affected fine because [[InsanityImmunity he wasn't all there to begin with]].

** We finally get some more concrete details on what would happen if someone combined the powers of the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous and made their wish: in order for the wish to be granted, the entire universe would be destroyed and a new one created in its place. Also, judging by the Kwamis' [[OhNoNotAgain reactions]] to this happening, ''this has happened before!!!!''