When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.
"Emilie, everything I've done, I've done for you... and if I had to, I would do it again a hundred times."
—Gabriel Agreste
When Cat Noir's nowhere to be found when Ladybug needs him for a mission, Grandmaster Su-Han realizes that not knowing Cat Noir's civilian identity is a problem. If Ladybug wants Cat Noir to remain in possession of the Black Cat ring, she must figure out who he is and report back to Su-Han so that Cat can be tracked and called upon in emergencies. What will Ladybug do to handle this ultimatum?
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: 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.
- All of Time at Once: 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 Miraculous Cure resets this problem.
- And I'm the Queen of Sheba: When Cat Noir tells Ladybug he's Adrien Agreste, she bursts out laughing and says she's Audrey Bourgeois.
- Apocalypse How: Narrowly avoided Class X-4. Gabriel's wish to change the past requires erasing the present, metaphysically annihilating the current universe so it can be replaced with one that meets his desires.
- Apologetic Attacker: Ephemeral is forced to ambush Ladybug and apologizes as he does so.
- Arc Number: The number 100 is mentioned many times in this episode:
- This is the 100th episode.
- Viperion had to try 100 times to open Moolak's safe.
- Gabriel's press conference is for his 100th collection.
- Ladybug's meeting with Cat Noir at the Eiffel Tower is at 1:00 AM.
- When Cat Noir reveals himself as Adrien, he states that the event is causing his heart to beat 100 times a minute.
- It's been 100 weeks since Emilie went missing.
- Gabriel has been trying 100 times to get the duo's Miraculouses...but only if he's really bad at keeping count.
- The watch from the Lucky Charm is set to 1:00 AM.
- Ladybug says to Su-Han that she's proven she's a good guardian 100 times, and that she and Cat Noir have proven themselves as exceptional heroes 100 times.
- Su-Han admits one doesn't come across a guardian like Ladybug every centurynote .
- Batman Gambit: 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.
- Big Damn Heroes: Luka saves the universe by charging straight into the Dupain-Cheng Bakery and running to Marinette's room to find Sass, who then uses Second Chance to travel back to before these events ever happened. Erasing them instantly.
- Blatant Lies: 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 he didn't buy her excuse one bit.
- Call-Back: 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.
- The Cameo: None other than Joan of Arc appears (Ladybug Miraculous and all) for a brief moment on the Eiffel Tower when Sass uses Second Chance to save the future.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: With Ephemeral at his side, Shadow Noir is able to utterly trounce Ladybug, notably because Ephemeral's power speeds up her detransformation timer. Without the transformation, she is a weak, helpless kid against a grown adult with three Miraculouses.
- A Day in the Limelight: 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 a bit more on how powerful it can really be when necessary.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: 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, they sound a lot like two teenagers getting nervous about getting naked in front of each other and losing their virginity together.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Su-Han orders Ladybug to find out Cat Noir's identity, so she plans it with Luka, not realizing he already knows Cat Noir's identity as well as her own. He even suggests it might be a better idea for him to ask Cat Noir directly instead, though Ladybug doesn't agree.
- Marinette asks Luka how one can reconcile their idea of someone else after they learn a huge secret about that person that completely changes how you think of them, only to add that Luka probably hasn't experienced something like that before. Other than Alya, Luka is the only person to know who Marinette truly is, so he understands.
- 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.
- The End of the World as We Know It: As soon as Shadow Noir makes his wish, the entire world prepares itself for an explosive destruction. Sass explains that when making a wish, the old reality needs to be destroyed in order to suit the desires of the upcoming reality.
- Equivalent Exchange: As Master Fu warned Marinette back in "Robostus", the price of the wish is the destruction of the old reality that would be replaced in favor of the new ones that suited for the wisher.
- Everything Is Online: Ladybug resetting the International Date-Keeping satellite resets every single clock, even though the vast majority aren't likely to be linked to an internet connection.
- Evil Is Petty: 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.
- Evil Only Has to Win Once: Shadow Moth declares he only has to win once after Moolak's defeat.
- Fastball Special: Pigella and Purple Tigress toss Vesperia up in the air so she can get on top of Moolak's vault and paralyze him.
- Foil: Marinette and Adrien have very different reactions to 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.
- Godzilla Threshold:
- Without Cat Noir's ability to destroy anything he touches, Moolak is so difficult to stop that Ladybug has to get the help of a whopping nine superheroes just to find something that can penetrate his outer shell.
- Ladybug and Cat Noir keeping their identities secret from each other has always been stated to be of utmost importance, but with a particularly bad showing against Moolak when Adrien can't help, Su-Han decides enough is enough and gives Marinette the task to find out who Cat Noir really is so he can be called upon when needed, or he'll take the Black Cat Miraculous away from him and bestow it to a new holder who is more reliable.
- Plagg immediately tries to Cataclysm Shadow Moth upon Adrien giving him his ring, despite the fact that he'd be using his power on a person and probably destroy the whole mansion, Adrien included, as well as his own Miraculous and those of Nooroo and Duusu. He doesn't get the chance though because Shadow Moth as his new master orders him to stop.
- When Shadow Moth bursts into the movie theatre room Marinette's at alone while waiting for Adrien and tells her "Hello...Ladybug.", she doesn't attempt to evade or conceal herself before transforming, she does so immediately.
- Sass uses Second Chance by himself in order to undo Gabriel getting the Miraculouses. This causes time to collide around them.
- In order for Sass to use Second Chance by himself, Marinette texts Luka that Sass is in her sewing box, revealing her identity to him as far as she knows (unless she realized from what he told her earlier that he already knew).
- Good-Times Montage: We get a brief one where Marinette and Adrien are in a happy relationship following them revealing their identities to each other.
- Innocently Insensitive: When Cat Noir tells Ladybug that he's Adrien Agreste, she laughs at his face, saying that it's not possible because the two of them couldn't be further from each other. He quickly detransforms and shows her he's serious, leaving her speechless.
- Internal Reveal: Many, but all victim to Sass's Reset Button:
- Ladybug asks Cat to identify himself for her, which he does by telling her he is Adrien. She laughs in disbelief, only to be shocked when he detransforms. She is so shocked that she forgets to ask Viperion to SC it. This causes her to question if she ever knew Adrien at all.
- Days later, she sees Cat Noir everywhere Adrien is, but after a while she sees it the other way around, realizing that she loves Adrien for who he really is. So, she finally detransforms in front of him, revealing herself to him. Rather than be shocked, he accepts who his Lady is immediately, and the two start a relationship of sorts.
- Gabriel discovers Cat Noir's identity by overhearing Adrien talking to Marinette, referring to her as "M'Lady".
- 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.
- In Their Own Image: Sass explains that if someone has their wish granted by the Ladybug/Cat combination, the effect obliterates the current universe and builds a new one based around the wish made by the person.
- Irony:
- 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.
- For much of the season, Adrien has been despairing that Ladybug won't be needing him soon with all the allies she's gathered so far. When Cat Noir doesn't show up to fight the latest akuma, however, Ladybug is forced to call upon everyone to defeat it, and it's still a struggle without Cat Noir and his Cataclysm.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While Su-Han is indeed ignoring the drawbacks of them knowing their secret identities as Ladybug's mentioned, he has a point about the danger of letting Cat Noir being unaccounted for since if Adrien were to unluckily die suddenly, his ring could be lost to them.
- Leet Lingo: The error code on the malfunctioning computer reads "0B:0T13:M15D3D", which translates to "Time is Dead", with the "0B:0" being an emoticon with a halo.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Marinette transforms into Ladybug as soon as Shadow Noir bursts into the movie theater, knowing full well how dangerous the situation has become immediately!
- Loving a Shadow: Discussed. After finding out that Adrien, her crush and the ideal boy in her eyes is also Cat Noir, her goofy and reliable partner, Marinette is seen wondering which one is the true Adrien and if she hasn't been in love with a public mask. After a talk with Luka, she spends some time observing him and Cat Noir to eventually realize that they are two halves of the same coin which prompts her to reveal to him her true identity.
- Near-Villain Victory: Shadow Moth succeeds in making a wish after defeating Ladybug and Cat Noir, and was seconds away from wiping out all reality before Sass went back in time.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: Heroic examples: When dealing with Shadow Moth who knows their heroes' secret identities and has already seized the Cat Miraculous, Plagg instantly tries to use Cataclysm on him. Similarly, Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm the second she finishes transforming.
- No, You Hang Up First: Marinette and Adrien have a brief phone argument like this after they've revealed their identities and presumably become a couple, concluding with Adrien hanging up and calling Marinette "M'Lady."
- Oh, Crap!: When Luka gets a text from Marinette telling him that Sass is in her sewing box, Luka immediately panics and goes full speed to the Bakery crashing his bike through the front door and running upstairs with barely an apology to her parents. Her suddenly blowing her identity to him (as far as she knows anyway) must mean something is SERIOUSLY wrong.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: The Kwamis' reaction to the lights indicates the universe's upcoming destruction and recreation. That means the wish was made at least once before the current time.
- Phlebotinum Analogy: 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 the wish destroys the current universe to replace it with a universe that complies with the wish.
- Portal Slam: Pegasus tries to teleport inside Moolak's safe, only to run into the realistic side of Pooled Funds when he simply bounces off the accumulated mass of coins inside.
- The Power of Love: By the simple fact that he haven't to hide his identity from Ladybug anymore, Adrien becomes more open to joke at the classroom, he doesn't play bad against Kagami on fencing and even becomes more effective as Cat Noir! It doesn't help him to negate his father's orders, though...
- Properly Paranoid: 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.
- Race Against the Clock: Being tagged by Ephemeral drains Ladybug's energy and speeds up the detransformation countdown, causing her to time out five times as fast. She hurriedly texts a picture of the lucky charm to Luka before detransforming, and Shadow Moth seizes her Miraculous.
- Rage Against the Mentor: The last scene is of Ladybug confronting Su-Han, telling him that because of his fear of the teens making a mistake, he demands action, instead of waiting for them to actually make a mistake. Su-Han accepts this and retracts his demand that she uncover Cat Noir's identity.
- Reset Button:
- Ladybug tries to make use of a reset to give Cat Noir's identity to Su Han. She lies to Cat about her reasons for wanting a reveal. Su Han's threat, her plan to expose Cat Noir's identity to the Guardian and Luka without his consent and that she was originally going to erase her own knowledge of his identity were never going to be revealed to him.
- She also pretended it was going to be a double reveal, which she had no intention of following through. Only when the reset didn't happen and after much soul-searching does she decide to keep her word.
- Another bigger reset using the power of Sass is required after the reveal leads to The Bad Guy Wins.
- The Reveal: 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.
- Rule of Symbolism: When Marinette realizes that she didn't know Adrien as well as she thought after finding out the truth, she starts seeing Cat Noir in Adrien's place everywhere she goes. This symbolizes how she sees him as more of a stranger to him. It isn't until enough time has passed where Marinette falls in love with the real Adrien, it's then that she sees Adrien instead of Cat Noir.
- Running Gag: Paris's abundance of billboards with Adrien on them returns as a sight gag, with Marinette finding to her shock that she can't stop seeing Cat Noir on them now that she knows Adrien is Cat Noir.
- Sadistic Choice: Marinette is given a rendition of this by Su-Han. As he realizes not knowing Cat Noir's secret identity is becoming dangerous (he's essentially a stranger with one of the most deadly Miraculous in his possession, and because she doesn't know his identity like everyone else she's temporarily lent Miraculouses to, Marinette can't call him in an emergency), Su-Han tasks her to find out Cat Noir's secret identity so that this is no longer an issue. If Marinette follows through with this, it could lead to her losing her partner's trust; if she doesn't, Su-Han will forcibly reclaim the Black Cat Miraculous and choose a new holder, which will cost Ladybug her trusted partner.
- Secondary Character Title: Despite being the titular villain, Ephemeral has less than a minute of screentime, fittingly enough. Even Moolak lasts longer.
- Shout-Out:
- The error message on the computer bluescreening from the time distortions has after "time.exe" contains two pieces of text that read "dr" and "wh0", with another piece of text reading "t4rd15".
- Shadow Noir's costume greatly resembles Marvel's Black Panther.
- Cat Noir's song, "Thus spoke Catathustra" is a reference to "Also sprach Zarathustra"
most famously used in 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Something Only They Would Say: Gabriel realizes that Adrien is Cat Noir when he overhears him talking to Marinette on the phone and Adrien calls her "M'Lady". He may have also figured out that Marinette is Ladybug because of this, though it's more likely he just made Ephemeral tell him.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Luka suggests that he could just ask Cat Noir to tell him who he is instead of using an overcomplicated plan involving subterfuge and temporal manipulation. Ladybug shoots it down on the basis that Cat Noir would never reveal his identity to anyone other than her.
- Status Quo Is God: 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, even if they love each other, they can't be together while Gabriel is around and preying on Miraculouses.
- Stunned Silence: Both Ladybug and Adrien have this immediate reaction after first knowing the other's true identity. It takes someone else talking to get them to snap out of it.
- Take a Third Option: Su-Han's original ultimatum is that Ladybug learns Cat Noir's secret identity or he will confiscate Cat Noir's Miraculous. She comes up with the alternative solution of having Viperion learn Cat's identity, using Second Chance to undo her learning it in the process, and having him tell Su-Han, thereby making it possible to keep tabs on Cat Noir outside the suit while preserving the secrecy between Ladybug and Cat Noir. After learning that Cat Noir is actually Adrien, Marinette abandons this plan and goes with option one, curious to see where this revelation would lead. At the end of the episode, after time shenanigans disrupt her initial plan, she comes up with the fourth option of skipping all the identity stuff and just telling Su-Han to his face that she's not going along with his demands because the team is doing fine as-is, which he admits might be due to his own hang-ups over the situation.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Unlike the other time-related Akumatized villains, Ephemeral's powers to accelerate time appear to be relatively harmless (unless he held back 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.
- Time Crash: Sass using Second Chance alone causes time to go haywire, with all of history chaotically mixing with the present. It also drives every single clock wild.
- Trailers Always Spoil: 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 some key context was left out.
- Trivial Tragedy: Bob Roth, a wealthy record producer, is devastated when he accidentally drops a single penny into a sewer grate, to the point that he gets Akumatized over it. Justified, as he's greedy and obsessed with money.
- Try Everything:
- Without Cat Noir to help, Ladybug has to recruit every single other hero she has access to in order to find some combination of powers among them that can penetrate the villain's shell.
- Viperion's role in taking down Moolak is to use Second Chance to brute-force the combination on his safe. After 100 attempts, he finds the right combination - 0099.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Long story short, due to Su-Han’s paranoia and demands for an identity reveal, Shadow Moth would have won and would have 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.
- Wake Up Fighting: 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.
- Wham Shot: Cat Noir reveals to Ladybug that he is Adrien Agreste on the top of the Eiffel Tower.
- What If?: According to Thomas Astruc, this is what the episode is meant to be. Downplayed as the events of this episode do have an impact on the main plot to some extent, such as The Reveal that the price of making a wish using both the Ladybug and the Cat Miraculouses is the entire universe being destroyed and a new one being created to suit the desires of the wisher.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When Su-Han started to chastise her for not getting Cat Noir's identity, Ladybug gives one to Grandmaster Su-Han for letting his judgment be based on his fears instead of their actions.
- Would Hurt a Child: After getting her Miraculous, Shadow Noir throws Marinette halfway across a movie theater, potentially injuring her severely.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: 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 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.
