"Collector, you have failed in the task of getting that boy to tell you his secret, so now I give you the power to take it by force!"
—Shadow Moth
Gabriel has an important dinner party to host, and he plans to use the opportunity to get Emilie's ring back from Félix. Chloé, on the other hand, is hoping to get Adrien pulled out of school with a video she took of Marinette and the class speaking disrespectfully of Gabriel's parenting. One thing leads to another, and Gabriel ends up akumatizing a sentimonster copy of himself, an on-the-spot decision which turns out to have a fateful result...
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Chloé's scheme to reveal her video to Gabriel falls flat when Bob Roth erases her video from his phone (she took his phone and put her sim card into it so she could show Gabriel, after being forced to relinquish hers).
- Alpha Bitch: Invoked by Zoé, who emulates Chloé's attitude to boss butler Jean around and send him on a wild goose chase so Marinette can take his place in Gabriel's gala. Zoé apologizes to him under her breath as soon as he's out of earshot.
- Art Shift: Marc and Nathaniel's plan to help Marinette is accompanied by visuals they made describing their fairy-tale analogy, with a fitting children's-picture-book artstyle to match. Chloé's Imagine Spot scenes describing what will happen when she shows Gabriel the video of their plans contrasts with theirs, with a very simple and flat style and incomplete coloring.
- Badass Bystander: Kagami, Adrien's bodyguard and Sarah (the maid from Chloé's hotel) all try and take on the Collector rather than flee. They don't accomplish much and are quickly captured, but full marks for effort.
- Beat: After Chloé and Félix both leave Adrien's room, he and Kagami are left staring at each other and her eyes narrow. This could either be due to the awkwardness of them having broken up recently, or just Kagami continuously expressing she doesn't have a good feeling about Félix.
- Beneath Suspicion: When Marinette learns that Gabriel is scanning fingerprints at the door, she offers to carry a heavy box in while the caterer goes in with the lighter equipment. The caterer passes the check and Marinette walks right past, as he thinks nothing of more staff coming in as long as the one in charge passes.
- Black-Tie Infiltration: To get into Gabriel Agreste's gala, Marinette disguises herself as "Marino", a server filling in for Chloé's butler Jean-something, by putting on a tux and a fake mustache and pulling her hair in a single low ponytail.
- Brains and Brawn: Gabriel tells Nathalie that despite the immense power he possesses, he hasn't had a lot of success against Ladybug without her to help him plan and execute his schemes.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: Inverted; when trying to akumatize Félix, Shadow Moth distances himself from his true identity by brushing off Gabriel Agreste as someone who doesn't have what it takes to be a supervillain.
- Call-Back: Marinette again disguises herself with a fake mustache, does an awful Italian accent, and claims her name is "Marino".
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Any humans captured by Senti-Collector's tablet are forced to confess their darkest secrets. Examples include Chloé who reveals that she wants to hurt Marinette because she's a sad miserable girl while Bob Roth confesses that he's always out to steal other ideas for his own gain.
- Collective Identity: Pun aside, Collector is the first akumatized supervillain identity to be used by two different characters. Justified since the second character is an identical copy of the first one.
- Decoy Protagonist: The episode opens with Marinette having to do a Zany Scheme to prevent Chloé from showing Gabriel the video, but during the party the point of view shifts to Félix with him knowing Shadow Moth's identity and trying to escape from the Collector. Marinette's actions are fairly inconsequential, since Chloé never had a chance to show Gabriel for reasons outside of Marinette's control.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Gabriel threatens to his nephew "...destroy your life." if he doesn't return the rings he stole.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Nathaniel and Marc liken Gabriel to a fairy tale evil witch holding the princess imprisoned, while Rose argues that his title should be evil king. None of them are aware that Gabriel is actually a Supervillain.
- When Ladybug gives senti-Gabriel his magical charm, Shadow Moth has him tell her "you can't imagine how much this means to me". The audience sure can, though.
- Easily Forgiven: In Queen Banana Chloé was angry enough with Adrien to not want to be friends with him anymore. By this episode she appears to have completely forgotten about it.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Possibly. Félix and his mother share a tender moment as they ride to Gabriel's party, then the reason Félix gives for stealing the ring is that his mother wanted it in the family (which is technically true; he did give it to her in his debut episode and seemed genuinely surprised when she said the reason she wanted it was to give to him), and when Gabriel threatens to "snap [him] out of existence," the final nail in the coffin to Félix being vulnerable to akumatization is Gabriel urging him to think of how his poor mother would feel without him.
- Everyone Can See It: Marinette is shocked to see Alya has brought in Marc and Nathaniel to help come up with a new plan to court Adrien, because she presumes it's still a secret between her and the girls. Everyone tells her that her crush on Adrien is obvious to everyone, except Adrien himself (to which Marc states "Of course, otherwise there'd be no story.")
- Evil Is Bigger: Shadow Moth clearly believes so, and has been invoking this trope from day 1. When he and Senti-Gabriel are standing face to face, we see that Shadow Moth is a full head taller than his civilian self.
- Evil vs. Evil: Once again, Félix goes against his uncle, but directly confronting him about being Shadow Moth. It isn't clear if he did it only to prove a point or if he was expecting some gain from that information.
- Fairy Tale Motifs: Marc and Nathaniel explain that Marinette and Adrien's story is similar to a fairy tale: Adrien is the princess locked in the castle (i.e. the mansion), Gabriel is the evil witch (or evil king) holding the princess imprisoned, the Gorilla is the dragon guarding the princess, and Marinette is the knight who fights to free the princess so the two of them can be together.
- Heroic Willpower: Félix isn't exactly a heroic figure, but he fights off Shadow Moth's influence through sheer willpower and confidence in his own skills. This is doubly impressive because, of the people who have managed to outright refuse or break free from Akumatization (Chloé, Alya and Nino), he is the only one to have never been akumatized before. He is that confident in his ability to get what he wants, he tells Shadow Moth he doesn't need his power to succeed. And he then proves it by slipping away from Gabriel and barricading him inside the atelier.
- Hopeless with Tech: The Gorilla accidentally makes every window shutter in the mansion go haywire by pressing a random button on a wrong remote control when trying to figure out which one activates the signal jammer.
- Identity Impersonator: Gabriel creates a sentimonster copy of himself so he can confront Félix while acting as Shadow Moth at the same time.
- If I Can't Have You…: Chloé would prefer seeing Adrien sent back to home schooling than to have him be with Marinette.
- I'm Your Worst Nightmare: While the other school kids are quick to refer to Chloé with unflattering fairy tale titles, she tops them all by declaring herself as their worst nightmare.
- Impostor Forgot One Detail: During their confrontation in the atelier, Félix tags senti-Gabriel by ripping open the right cuff of his trousers. When Gabriel shows up with a pristine suit after all the hubbub is settled, Félix confirms that his uncle is indeed Shadow Moth. The final scene, however, indicates Gabriel saw through the ruse and is prepared for next time.
- Internal Reveal:
- Gabriel learns about the Magical Charms after Ladybug gives his sentimonster one, also learning about the hidden potential the Miraculouses have that has not been recorded in the Miraculous spellbook.
- Félix learns that Gabriel is Shadow Moth, despite an attempted akumatization in front of a sentimonster duplicate.
- I Should Write a Book About This: Nathaniel says he and Marc have the idea to write a new comic about "The adventures of Marino, the clumsy waiter" at the end of the episode.
- It Only Works Once: In his first appearance, Collector was defeated by filling out all pages in his book. In this episode, he's using a tablet instead and it has way too much memory space for heroes to fill it up.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Marinette asks if Marc and Nathaniel know about her crush on Adrien, her friends reply that at this point everyone knows. When she timidly asks if Adrien knows, Marc replies that Adrien's probably the only one who doesn't know, or there'd be no story.
- Kick the Dog:
- Chloé is petty enough to keep Adrien all to herself that she's willing to have him go back to homeschooling by exposing Marinette's dating scheme to his father. Even when Marinette points out that she was happy that he was attending public school, the disgraced blonde declares that she doesn't care anymore as long as Adrien is away from pesky rivals.
- Chloé also convinces her mother to prevent Zoé from coming to the party out of spite. Also counts as an off-screen Kick the Dog for Audrey since Zoé is her daughter.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: In Marc and Nathaniel's fairy tale, Adrien is the princess wearing a dress while Marinette is a knight in shining armor.
- Masquerade Ball: The main theme for Gabriel's private party as the guests consist of elite and influential people who don animal masks, dress in black and get to dance in a red-lit room.
- Mobile Shrubbery: Chloé and Marinette both wear a tall cardboard box into a crowded dance floor in an attempt to blend with similar-looking robots.
- "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Chloé and Sabrina drop into the art room through the ceiling in a spoof of this type of entrance. On the way out, Chloé misses the opening and hits against the edge of the hole in the tiled ceiling.
- Never Say "Die": Gabriel warns that he could snap Félix out of existence, which might be literally true if he's a sentimonster as the season has been hinting.
- Non-Protagonist Resolver: The threat of Chloé's blackmail ends up resolved when Bob Roth deletes the video file just to spite her, with the actions of Marinette and her friends having contributed nearly nothing.
- Not Now, Kiddo: A rare example that works out in the heroes' favor. Chloé's attempts to show her blackmail video to Gabriel are constantly shushed, and her plan is eventually foiled when she steals Bob Roth's phone, provoking him into deleting it out of spite.
- Palette Swap: Everybody's party clothes are just their regular outfits colored black.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Marinette enters the mansion disguised as a waiter complete with a fake mustache, but all those at the party that might recognize her never do, though Adrien is briefly suspicious.
- Pinball Projectile: How the Collector is defeated, by Cat Noir hurling his contracted staff at the back of a street light, which bounces onto a small post, and then off a tree, and finally off the Lucky Charm trampoline to hit the Collector's hand holding his tablet from behind and knock it out of his grip for Ladybug's yo-yo to break.
- Removed Achilles' Heel: After his previous stint as The Collector resulted in Ladybug and Cat Noir defeating him by filling all the pages in his book, this time around, Gabriel instead outfits his akumatized self with a tablet to remedy that weakness.
- Replaced with Replica:
- The ring Félix "returns" to Gabriel is a fake, which doesn't fool Gabriel. Gabriel later returns the same ring to make nice in front of everyone else.
- Félix has another fake ring he says will fool his mother into thinking he still has the original.
- Gabriel replaces himself with a fake at his own party in an attempt to fool Félix into thinking he isn't Shadow Moth, even going so far as to akumatize his sentimonster to sell the ruse.
- Gabriel places a fake Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous in his safe as a decoy for the next time, realizing that Félix wasn't fooled by the switch.
- Running Gag: The fantasy of Adrien and Marinette getting together and getting a hamster returns with a mention of them having "buckets of hamsters" this time around...as described by Marc. Either Strange Minds Think Alike, the girls told him about that predilection of her's, or he's overheard Marinette's Zany Schemes enough times.
- Shout-Out: The style of the fairy-tale illustrations that Nathaniel and Marc create for Marinette are in the style of Disney's Sleeping Beauty, with Adrien as the princess, Marinette as the prince, and Gabriel as Maleficent.
- Smoke Out: After Chloé confronts the class with her intent to get Adrien pulled out of school, she orders Sabrina to use a "ninja smokescreen" — what appears to be a small bag of flour that she throws down, creating a comically tiny dust cloud that completely fails to cover either of them as they ascend back out.
- The Stinger: After the end card, scene plays out showing Gabriel leaving behind fake Miraculouses in his safe in preparation for Félix's next visit.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Ladybug gives a magical charm to the freshly de-akumatized Gabriel Agreste, unaware that the person in front of her is a sentimonster and that she just handed Shadow Moth the one thing he needed to get ahead in their fight.
- Villains Out Shopping: Shadow Moth is at a dinner party and only uses his powers to get his ring back from Félix.
- Wham Episode:
- Félix knows that Gabriel is Shadow Moth, and is not fooled by the latter attempting to hide this.
- From the way Gabriel (or rather, Senti-Gabriel) threatened to snap Félix out of existence, there's a very high chance that the latter could be a sentimonster.
- Gabriel gets his hands on a Magical Charm after Ladybug cures his sentimonster self.
- Wham Line: Related to the second point above, and not so much what was said but the context of it...Senti-Gabriel: And now you know that I only need to snap my fingers to make you disappear from here...
Félix: (seething) You wouldn't dare!
Senti-Gabriel: Do you want to take that risk, Félix? Think of your mother... - Xanatos Speed Chess: Gabriel and Félix have to adapt on the fly to each other. Félix gives Gabriel a fake ring, so Gabriel confronts him as a sentimonster to threaten him and make him vulnerable to akumatization, as well as deflect suspicion of being Shadow Moth. Félix fights that off, so Shadow Moth akumatizes his sentimonster to force Félix to reveal the ring's location. The Collector is defeated, and Félix confirmed his suspicion that Gabriel is Shadow Moth, but Gabriel saw this coming and has copies of the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous waiting for their next encounter.
