Recap / Miraculous Ladybug S04E05 "Psycomedian"

If you look real close, you'll see three clowns staring at each other.

"Psycomedian, I am Shadow Moth. They refuse to believe that you can create other emotions besides laughter. Well, you're going to show them that no one can play with their emotions better than you!"

— Shadow Moth

Marinette enlists famous comedian Harry Clown's help in winning Adrien's heart via humor, while the comedian himself hopes to impress producer Bob Roth with an emotional script. Both events go awry and lead to Harry's akumatization into Psycomedian, who can impose any emotion he wants on his victims and seeks to force Bob to accept his script.

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Tropes:

• Affectionate Nickname: Harry Clown tells Marinette that he and "Gabi" (i.e. Gabriel Agreste) are old and dear friends. The fact that Gabriel lets the nickname slide speaks volumes about their friendship.
• Angrish: After being hit by Psycomedian's Hate Plague, Ladybug expresses her seething rage at everything around her through incoherent snarling.
• Artistic License – Art: With a few daubs at her eyes with a Lucky Charm makeup kit, Ladybug paints fake open eyes on her eyelids that are good enough to fool the villain at a distance. Later, Cat Noir paints a helmet red with black spots in a few minutes with the tiny brushes of another makeup kit.
• As You Know: The episode opens with the girls briefly recounting Marinette's many failed attempts of getting closer to Adrien.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: We see Cat Noir's "AMP Factor" sequence when he figures out what he needs to do with the helmet in his hands.
• Be Yourself:
  • When Marinette is coming up with a plan to make Adrien see her in a new light, Alya tells her that her awkward goofy behavior is part of her appeal. She's instantly proven right as Adrien is so busy watching her and laughing, he's not paying attention to an actual comedy sketch Nino is showing him.
  • After a conversation with Ladybug, Harry decides he can make a dramatic movie while still making it funny like the rest of his work.
• Call-Back: The B-plots of "The Bubbler", "Gigantitan", and "The Puppeteer 2" are referenced during the girls' talk in the beginning.
• Character Tics: Harry is seen winking, pinching his nose, and making a honking sound to emphasize a point for his comedy sketch...and it quickly turns out he regularly does this off-stage as well (and may even pinch someone else's nose for it).
• Complexity Addiction: We've known for a while that Ladybug prefers her plans to be unnecessarily convoluted, but this time she's angry enough to say it — when her Lucky Charm turns out to be a motorcycle helmet, which would easily negate Psycomedian's ability, she smashes it out of rage for being too simple and straightforward.
• Continuity Nod: Marinette starts saying her "three kids and a hamster" spiel before Alya interrupts her.
• Crocodile Tears: Ladybug pretends to be hit by the Psycomedian's sadness attack and fake-cries to lure him close enough to grab his clown nose, which she thinks is his akumatized object.
• Didn't Think This Through: Psycomedian uses his power to drive Ladybug into an Unstoppable Rage, which instead of incapacitating her, just makes her far more aggressive than she'd normally be in a fight. Cat Noir even notes that it was a mistake to make her angry.
• Emotion Control: By changing the expression on his mask and honking his clown nose, Psycomedian can change the emotions of anyone who looks at his mask. He can cause laughter, fear, sadness, and anger.
• Everyone Can See It: Harry Clown invites Marinette and Adrien, the boy she totally doesn't have a crush on, to his latest show...and pretty much realizes she's sweet on Adrien in the space of thirty seconds after Marinette and Harry first meet. And from the way he glances at the duo during their conversation in the finale, the Gorilla has also figured out that there's something between Adrien and Marinette.
• Expy: Psycomedian's name, costume, and powers closely resemble DC's supervillain, Psycho-Pirate.
• Failure Gambit: Gabriel says he'll back Harry's movie while privately smiling and remarks to himself that Harry will never be taken seriously, because of course Gabriel wants to use Harry's expected despondence to akumatize him. It's certain Gabriel doesn't really care about Harry's movie actually entering production compared to having another chance to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses.
• Foreshadowing: Harry keeps calling Gabriel "Gabi". Come next season, we learn that Gabriel's real name is actually Gabi Grassette, which he changed to sound more upper-class. So it wasn't just an an Affectionate Nickname, Harry was actually calling Gabriel by his real name.
• Gratuitous English: In the original French language version, Harry declares that The Show Must Go On in English.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Ladybug while afflicted by Psycomedian's powers forcing her into a rage becomes absolutely belligerent and infuriated by almost anything anyone around her does (or even a sandwich board she bumps into).
• Handicapped Badass: Ladybug fights Psycomedian not only in an induced rage but also with her eyes closed to keep from getting a more debilitating emotion. She is surprisingly good at blind fighting.
• Hate Plague: Psycomedian causes groups of people to become enraged and want to fight. He eventually catches Ladybug this way and she becomes The Load for the team, which Cat Noir has to carry.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Before Cat Noir unbinds the furious Ladybug so she can summon her Lucky Charm, he asks her not to do anything rash. She snarls that it's pretty hypocritical of the resident Leeroy Jenkins to lecture her on caution.
• Hypocritical Humor: After Psycomedian makes Ladybug super-angry, one of the things she screams at Cat Noir about is complaining that he “can’t be mellow for one second”.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Harry Clown looks decidedly more realistic compared to all the other characters in the show. He looks like his French voice actor, the comedian Franck Dubosc.
• Insult Backfire: Cat Noir comments that Psycomedian's clown face is creepy. Since the villain is tired of people thinking he can only be funny, he takes it as a compliment.
• Irony: While under Psycomedian’s anger spell, Ladybug kicks over a a sandwich board with a picture of Adrien on it, who she’s madly in love with, complaining that all the ads everywhere make her sick.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Gabriel comments that he told Harry Clown to never mention the Super Fry costume again. He also says that Harry has to destroy all evidence of the costume's existence in order for him to fund Harry's new project.
• The Load: Psycomedian's Hate Plague makes Ladybug irrationally angry all the time, to the point that she attacks anyone in sight and even smashes her second Lucky Charm because it annoyed her. Cat Noir has to tie her up to stop her from attacking him and carries her from place to place.
• Mood-Swinger: Psycomedian's face consists entirely of a theater mask with a red clown nose, which changes its exaggerated expression. This emotion is then forced on whoever sees it once he honks his nose.
• Must Make Him Laugh: Marinette, thinking laughter is the key to Adrien's heart and that he is a fan of Harry Clown, tries some of Harry's comic sketches on him, but they fall flat, as he doesn’t actually think Harry is funny. Later, she finds out that her own wild gestures at school were what made him laugh, not the Harry Clown video that Nino was showing him.
• No, You: Cat Noir laughs at Psycomedian's use of a fanny pack, which he considers a pretty outdated accessory, "No joke." Ladybug snarls that he's the joke.
• Odd Friendship: Surprisingly, the stern and strict fashion designer Gabriel Agreste and the comedian Harry Clown have been very good friends since college, to the point where Gabriel doesn't get annoyed by Harry's antics and even considers funding Harry's film...if Harry destroys all evidence of Super Fry, one of Gabriel's first works. Although, their friendship currently seems to be one-sided on Harry’s end, as Gabriel gets annoyed with him bringing up the Super Fry costume he designed, and doesn’t hesitate to akumatize him.
• Old Shame: In-Universe. Gabriel considers the costume of Super Fry that he designed for Harry Clown back when they both were at the start of their careers to be an embarrassment. One of the conditions he sets in order to back Harry's new project is that Harry should destroy any evidence of that costume's existence.
• Once More, with Clarity: We see Marinette talking with the girl-squad and, in the background, Adrien and Nino laughing at something on Nino's phone. The same scene is later shown from Adrien's perspective: Nino is showing him a video of a famous comedian's act, but Adrien's eyes drift towards Marinette and her exaggerated hammy gestures, making him laugh.
• Remember the New Guy?: Harry Clown has never appeared or even been alluded to before this episode, yet Marinette knows him because he's a regular customer at her parent's bakery.
• Replaced with Replica: When Ladybug destroys her Lucky Charm in a fit of rage, Cat Noir creates a new one by painting a borrowed motorcycle helmet red with black spots. That said, Ladybug still uses the original, crushed Lucky Charm for her Miraculous Ladybug spell, as the replacement was still just a mundane helmet.
• Ship Tease:
  • Juleka and Rose tell Marinette that there can't be love without friendship, then lean their heads together while gazing in each other's eyes.
  • Adrien is distracted by Marinette's wild and hammy gestures, which make him laugh, and later tells her that no one makes him laugh as easily as she does. Marinette is over the moon when she hears that.
• Shout-Out:
  • Harry Clown's name (pronounced "cloon" in French) might be a reference to a famous Greek comedian whose stage name was Harry Klynn.
  • Harry Clown's proposal to have a superhero movie with food items (like a giant French fry) as heroes looks like a reference to Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
  • Continuing from above, the script also may be a reference to one of Zagtoon's scrapped superhero cartoons 'Sweet Power', which is about heroes with magical vitamin (i.e Fruit) powers.
  • Psycomedian breaks into Bob Roth's room while yelling "Here's Harry!"
  • Cat Noir and Ladybug's respective remarks of "It was a bad idea to get her angry." and "You're about to regret making me angry!" harkens back to The Incredible Hulk.
• The Show Must Go On: Harry Clown is devastated when Bob Roth shoots down his idea for a serious, emotional film, adding that he should stick to comedy because that's the only thing he's good at and what people expect from him...and it certainly doesn't help that he tried to get Marinette to perform one of his sketches to Adrien which has ended so poorly that she's curled up crying about it. Nevertheless, Harry still prepares to go on stage and put on a show, name-dropping this trope to Marinette.
• Swapped Roles:
  • During their first skirmish with Psycomedian, it's Ladybug who acts as bait while Cat Noir watches hidden on a nearby rooftop.
  • After Ladybug is driven into an Unstoppable Rage, she acts like The Big Guy and keeps the villain busy while Cat Noir quietly replaces the Lucky Charm she destroyed and uses it to incapacitate the villain. Furthermore, Cat Noir takes over as the leader of the team: he carries her away from the villain and into a safe place before her Miraculous times out, figures out where the akuma is, and even figures out how to use the second Lucky Charm.
• Tom Hanks Syndrome: In-universe, Harry is a comedian who is trying to break out into more dramatic fare.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After Psycomedian uses his power to make Ladybug furiously angry, she spends much of the episode screaming at Cat Noir, insulting him, and trying to hit him.
• Unstoppable Rage: Those hit by the anger emotion are constantly angry. This persists with Ladybug, even after transforming and afflicting Tikki as well. Ladybug even tries to attack Cat Noir just because he's close by.
• White Mask of Doom: Psycomedian's theater mask, naturally.

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