You've been very naughty, Chloékins. And Despair Bear is not proud of you. The time has come to make you pay!
"Hello, Despair Bear. I am Hawk Moth. You've always been such a good influence on Chloé... but now you get to be a bad influence for everyone — and a very evil one at that!"
—Hawk Moth
Chloé has to try to be nice after her latest jerk move causes Adrien to insist they can't be friends if she continues behaving as such.
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Chloé calls her butler "Jean-X", where X is something different every time. None of which are his actual name.
- All Cloth Unravels: Despair Bear's defeat comes when Ladybug ties a loose thread of his fur to a fork and has Chloé spin it around a nearby umbrella, unraveling his entire body and leaving him helpless.
- Batman Gambit: Hawk Moth sends an akuma to Chloé's party before any suitable victim has even revealed themselves to him. He knows it's only a matter of time before Chloé pisses someone off.
- Body Surf: The biggest problem with defeating Despair Bear is that he keeps moving, at least until he takes over Cat Noir.
- Bookends: Marinette's dad appears at the beginning of the episode showing the class how to make macaroons. Chloé interrupts his presentation by calling the fire department, but Tom gets to finish it when she invites him to her party by the end of episode.
- Character Development: Following up on the earlier episode "Antibug", Ladybug is now willing to accept help from Chloé.
- Comfort Food: Chloé's butler offers her a tray of chocolates when she is sulking in her room after her fall out with Adrien. She gulps down the candy and then resumes crying.
- The Conscience: Chloé's butler invokes this through Mr. Cuddly; he tries to get her to act nicer by telling her it's what Mr. Cuddly would do.
- Continuity Nod: Max is seen playing Ultimate Mecha Strike again.
- Death Glare: After Chloé's been rejected by Adrien, she finally notices all of her classmates coldly glaring at her, furious that they're being punished for her actions.
- The Dog Bites Back: Chloé's butler has been loyal to her since childhood, but becomes akumatized after she fires him despite his best attempts to push her to niceness.
- Face Fault: Several party-goers do it when Chloé brags about her niceness after saving Ladybug's life.
- Fire Alarm Distraction: Chloé pulls the fire alarm to interrupt a baking class taught by her arch-rival Marinette's father. She then attempts to blame Marinette herself for the incident, and ends up getting the whole class (except for herself, as the mayor's daughter) punished by not coming forward. This causes even her ever-patient childhood friend Adrien to threaten to stop being her friend if she doesn't start being nicer.
- Foreshadowing: Chloé's imagine spot with Mr. Cuddly shows a shot of her mother walking away with luggage, suggesting that they don't have the closest relationship.
- Frame-Up: Chloé tries to pin the fire alarm on Marinette since she was the only one out of the room, but everyone quickly rises to her defense and it doesn't work.
- Hates Being Touched: Chloé is not happy about getting hugs or kisses from her guests, especially when she has to kiss Marinette. Of course, Adrien as always is the exception.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- The principal calls everyone out so he can make the culprit for the false alarm apologize for wasting the fire marshal's time, all the while ignoring the marshal's pleas that the principal is doing the same by dragging out the apology since no one will admit to it.
- Marinette comments that Chloé is only having that party to please Adrien and Alya points out Marinette wouldn't be attending if not for the fact Adrien is attending as well.
- Idiot Ball: The butler invites Chloé's wrath when he does his act with the bear right in front of everyone, even though up until this point he made sure to do it discreetly so no one would notice.
- Ignored Aesop: Immediately after getting praise from Adrien for getting nicer, Chloé goes back to insulting everyone around her.
- "Just Joking" Justification: How Chloé recovers after insulting Mylène.
- Morality Pet: Chloé's teddy bear, Mr. Cuddly is close to being literal example for her despite being just a toy. More conventionally, Adrien also counts.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: Despair Bear tries to use Cat Noir's Cataclysm on Ladybug without the Stock Footage song and dance that usually accompanies it. He comes very close to nailing her and Chloé's quick intervention is all that stops him.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Alya points out that both Marinette and Chloé are willing to do things they otherwise wouldn't if Adrien is involved. Marinette isn't fond of the comparison.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Chloé inviting Marinette to the party makes the latter freak out.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Even Adrien loses patience with Chloé's shenanigans and tells her that he won't be her friend if she doesn't clean up her act. She treats this with a great deal of seriousness.
- Puppeteer Parasite: Despair Bear's MO is to latch on to the leg of his victim, allowing him to control their body.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: It's a small one (it's Adrien, after all) but he calls Chloé out on spoiling the cooking lesson and refusing to admit responsibility for the fire alarm, meaning everyone in the class is being punished except Chloé herself. When she brushes off these concerns, he flatly tells her that he can't be friends with someone who doesn't even try to be nice to people — "It's not that hard."
- The Reveal: As Chloé remembers how she got her teddy bear and what it means to her, an image shows that her mother—the first time we've heard or seen anything of her—left Chloé behind shortly after she was gifted it for unknown reasons.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: When the principal declares he's going to punish everyone in the school because the person who pulled the fire alarm did not come forward, Chloé threatens to sic her father on him. The terrified principal immediately retracts his previous statement and says that everyone is punished except Chloé. Chloé was the one who actually pulled the fire alarm, of course.
- Ship Tease: Adrien actually appears to show some attraction to Marinette, including inviting her to slow dance (after Alya shoves Mari into him). At the end of the episode, he notes that "[Marinette's] baking is as good as [her] dancing".
- Shout-Out: Despair Bear's name is likely a pun based on Care Bears.
- Not to mention, this isn't the first time a character voiced by Bryce Papenbrook has faced off against a "despair bear".
- As pointed out in this video
(at approximately the 9:42 mark), the song played during the slow dance is very reminiscent of the guitar solo from Toto's "I Won't Hold You Back",
- Stunned Silence: After Adrien tells Chloé off and says he can't be her friend, Chloé sits down dumbstruck — and then notices that all her classmates are glaring at her.
- Took a Level in Badass: Chloé gets involved in the battle, and, unlike previous episodes, she actually manages to be useful, even saving Ladybug's life from a Brainwashed and Crazy Cat Noir.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Most of the episode is about Chloé trying to achieve this. In the end, while she's back to her usual Jerkass behavior, at the very least she's trying to improve herself and even admits that Good Feels Good.
- Verbal Backspace: Once Marinette is invited to Chloé's party, and the other girls think that Chloé might not be so bad after all, Marinette insists that Chloé is still a jerk and that she'll not go to the party; she quickly changes her mind once Alya tells her that Adrien will go to the party too.
- Weirdness Magnet: This episode establishes that Hawk Moth learned to recognize Chloé as easy villain source, explaining why people around her (and through extension, around Marinette and Adrien) are so often targeted.
- What Would X Do?: The butler tries to nudge Chloé into being nicer on the grounds that "that's what Mr. Cuddly (Chloé's teddy bear) would do".
