Monarch's failed attempts to capture Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses using Second Chance are bugging him to no end, so when Tsurugi Industries launches their newest project in the form of experimental space jet ADA, piloted by Claudie Kanté, he concocts a cunning yet risky plan to nab the coveted jewels. But can he defeat his arch-nemeses before his luck runs out?
Tropes:
- 10-Minute Retirement: At Nathalie's urging, Gabriel decides to try giving up his war for the Miraculous and try figuring out a solution for Adrien when he dies. He tries by asking Adrien if there's anyone else he likes to spend time with, but upon hearing about the Tsurugi Industries Space-Jet test later that day, he naturally decides to take advantage of it to obtain his enemies' jewels.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: When ADA thinks she lost Claudie, her immediate response is to banish herself to the farthest reaches of the universe. She refuses to see reason when Cosmobug tells her that her sensors were turned off, and this immediately gets her akumatized.
- All for Nothing: Monarch's plan amounts to less than nothing because he ultimately gives up without even going through with a failed attempt after his final reset, all his efforts serving only to bring his inevitable death that much closer. Lampshaded by Nathalie.Nathalie: [angrily] You took a huge risk, for a disastrous result! All your attempts have accomplished is to accelerate the effect of Cat Noir's Cataclysm!
- Audience Surrogate: At the end of the episode, Ladybug admits that she finds it strange that Monarch never seems to use the power of Second Chance, reflecting what numerous fans thought before the episode. Of course, she isn't aware of the irony...
- Bilingual Bonus: The code for Tsurugi's security controls is romanized Japanese written in Leet Lingo — K1s3k1_n0_Sh1n_J1d41. When translated, it reads 「奇跡の新時代」 Kiseki no Shin Jidai, or "A New Era of Miracles".
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Even though Tomoe willingly gives Gabriel the code for the space jet when he is honest with her, he uses Second Chance so she doesn't remember giving it to him, seemingly just because he doesn't want her to know how bad his injury is getting.
- Colony Drop: Monarch uses Ziggy's power in a surprisingly destructive way, painting into existence a huge falling asteroid to menace the city.
- Continuity Nod: Monarch previously used Second Chance during the events of "Elation" and "Derision" to help the respective villains.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Thanks to his Cataclysm wound, using Second Chance is dangerous for Monarch because time doesn't rewind for him as it does for everyone else and his wound continues to spread through each reset. For that same reason, he can't have Nathalie use the power either, and isn't willing to trust an akumatized villain with it for fear it could be used against him.
- A Day in the Limelight: Gabriel is the main character here for once, rather than Marinette or Adrien.
- Disability Superpower: Tomoe impressively manages to detect Gabriel's irregular heartbeat through a video call.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Self-inflicted example. Believing that she lost Claudie due to Monarch's interference, ADA decides to banish herself to the farthest corners of the universe.
- Divide and Conquer: Monarch engineers a fake asteroid and the jet malfunction to split up Ladybug and Cat Noir, limiting their ability to cooperate and get each other out of jams.
- Double-Meaning Title: Monarch attempts to use the power of Intuition to defeat the heroes, but the Lucky Charm seems to have an intuition all its own that has foiled him in the past. Now, it's ADA's own intuition (when the situation doesn't add up) that proves to be his greatest obstacle. Nathalie shows intuition of her own when she realizes Gabriel used Sass' power after saying he would stop doing so.
- Dramatic Irony: Ladybug and Cat Noir comment on the fact that Monarch never uses Second Chance. Of course, we know that Monarch did try this in this episode (and is revealed to have been using this power in previous episodes beforehand), yet keeps failing miserably.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: This episode shows why Monarch can't just Second Chance spam his way to eventual victory. Since his body is not reset, the Cataclysm wound continues to get worse, sapping his remaining time away even faster. By the end of the episode, it's become so bad he can't risk using it any further, and since Nathalie will have a similar problem and he doesn't want to risk an akumatized villain having it, it's basically taken what was one of his strongest powers off the table.
- Failure Is the Only Option: No matter how many times Monarch uses Second Chance or how close to victory he gets, something always happens that screws it up. On top of that, his use of the power doesn't reset his Cataclysm wound from "Destruction", sapping away more of the time he has left with each use.
- Heroic Bystander: Without her yo-yo and on the verge of losing her Miraculous, Cosmobug calls on Claudie to help her sabotage Bugfighter since the mecha can't detect her. The astronaut's actions ultimately end up foiling Monarch's plan, because he can't figure out a way to get rid of her without cluing Bugfighter in that he lied to get the AI on his side.
- Honesty Is the Best Policy: Using Second Chance, Gabriel tries using various tactics so that Tomoe tells him the security codes for the upcoming space-launch. He tries tricking her, intimidating her and making excuses, all of which fail. It isn't until he comes clean as to why — he's slowly dying and he hopes to use the launch as an opportunity to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous — does she give him the codes.
- Hypocrite: Gabriel's at it once again. While his reasons for not giving out Second Chance are valid, Nathalie is quick to point out that he's already done so many foolish things already and therefore, has doomed himself because of it.
- Ignored Epiphany: Even if Gabriel witnesses first hand that being honest towards Tomoe ends up being far more efficient in getting what he wants, he doesn't take any time after to ponder about this and reconsider his strategies of choice in order to be more effective. Instead he once again spams Second Chance so Tomoe won't remember giving the codes. This displays once more how much Gabriel is an ineffectual planner, by default acting before thinking. This makes him an excellent opportunistic villain but he only succeeds this far because his plans always have some undevised parts leaving an opening for a potential Didn't Think This Through event to happen.
- Impeded Communication: Monarch disables the biometric sensors on the jet so ADA can't see, hear, or detect Claudie in any way, allowing him to akumatize ADA using her despair over losing her pilot. This works against him later when Claudie starts helping Cosmobug and any attempt to stop her reveals his deception to ADA.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Monarch is able to trap Astrocat using Shellter while Monarch is on a roof in Paris and Astrocat is in space. He did miss his first attempt, but that was only because Astrocat changed the direction he was flying.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When Nathalie urges him to stop using Second Chance as it's causing his necrosis to spread even faster, Gabriel rudely and sarcastically asks if she'll use it instead. As stubborn and rude as he was, he's not wrong that she's not exactly in any position to use it either because of her own ailments. He's also correct that giving an Akuma the power of Second Chance would be a very bad idea.
- Like You Were Dying: Acknowledging that Gabriel isn't going to last long, Nathalie implores him to spend the little time he has left with his neglected son.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Due to Monarch cutting ADA's sensors so she can't detect Claudie in any way while they were testing if ADA can retrieve Claudie after she ejects from the jet, ADA believes she has caused her pilot to be completely lost in space and demonstrated that she is a danger to human beings, and so ADA decides to fly the jet away to the farthest reaches of the universe while insisting that everyone's safety, no one should attempt to retrieve her.
- Never Say "Die": Nathalie dances around the word but she constantly brings up how she and Gabriel don't have much time left because of their weakened states.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Hawk Moth lost control of his akuma when it was only a little more than 200 km away in "Startrain", but Monarch is now able to control it in outer space. Possibly justified by his magical and technological upgrades.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Most events in the Bugfighter loop have Monarch give away the con — that she didn't lose Claudie after all — while trying to keep Claudie from breaking herself out and helping the heroes.
- No Man Should Have This Power: Or rather, no man except me. Gabriel says that he can't transfer the power of Intuition to an Akumatized villain because that would make them too dangerous in the event that they betray him.
- Oh, Crap!: Sass has this reaction when Monarch reveals that he intends to exploit his power for another cockamamie scheme.
- Once More, with Clarity:
- In "Elation", Monarch tells Glaciator where the heroes are hiding, with it being unclear how he got this information. Now it's revealed that he knew because he was using Second Chance.
- Likewise, in "Derision", Dark Humor had the uncharacteristically clever idea to shoot Ladybug's yo-yo in mid-air before it could conjure the Lucky Charm, an idea Kim wouldn't have thought of himself. It's shown that Monarch suggested it after witnessing a time loop where Ladybug successfully summoned her Lucky Charm and instantly defeated him.
- Out of Focus: For both Adrien and Marinette, as these protagonists have rather little screen time for this episode.
- Plot Parallel: Early in the episode, Monarch complains that one of the reasons he can't defeat Ladybug is that she has Cat Noir to support her. His attempts to separate them fail because of another unbreakable partnership, that of Claudie and ADA.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Despite how far he's fallen this season, Gabriel still has enough common sense to not transfer power of Second Chance to any of his Akumatized minions, as he could very easily loose track of what they're doing and that they'd be too dangerous if they turned against him for any reason. Doubles as Properly Paranoid.Gabriel: As for using an Akumatized villain, it's too dangerous. They'd hold sole power over time and memory of the events. And if they foolishly compromised that power, we could lose everything.
- Revealing Cover-Up: When Cosmobug enlists Claudie's help, Monarch uses Second Chance and tries to have ADA preempt any further attempts. However, in doing so, he's admitting that Claudie is actually still in the jet, causing ADA to overcome the akumatization, no matter how many different methods he tries.
- Sadistic Choice: Monarch invokes this by threatening Claudie's life with her one-way trip to the universe along with a meteor he created that's heading for Paris. He does this knowing that the Miraculous duo will split up to deal with both problems, giving him the opportunity to attack them individually and thus limit their options.
- Scry vs. Scry: This happens unknowingly between Ladybug and Monarch. Each time she defeats his villain, he uses Second Chance and warns them about what's coming. However, her Lucky Charm adapts to that knowledge and changes accordingly, so Ladybug makes a different plan and renders his knowledge useless. Even when he has Dark Humor disable her Lucky Charm, she just resets her transformation to cast it again. He comes up with the space plane plan to eliminate most of the variables that foiled him in previous attempts.*
- Shout-Out: As Cosmobug and Astrocat go after ADA and the meteor, respectively, Monarch says "In space, no one can hear you scream".
- The Stinger: The final scene shows Ladybug conversing with Cat Noir on how weird it is that Monarch has yet to use Second Chance.
- Superior Successor: ADA is regarded as Markov's little sister. Despite the role, she's an advanced A.I. taking part in a major space exploration program.
- Time Loop Fatigue: Monarch has used the power of Second Chance countless times to try and find a way to defeat Ladybug and Cat Noir, and has become extremely frustrated at his inability to do so. To make matter worse, his terminal Cataclysm injury gets worse throughout every loop, causing him literal fatigue as it starts damaging his organs.
- Villain Episode: The episode mostly focuses on Monarch and how his misuse of Second Chance compromises both his plans and his health.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?:
- Discussed. When Gabriel rants that Ladybug's Lucky Charm changes every time he uses Second Chance, Nathalie suggests targeting Ladybug's yo-yo before she can use Lucky Charm. Gabriel then explains that he thought of that already, and it also failed because Cat Noir shows up to stall long enough for Ladybug to restore her yo-yo. The space plane plan allows him to reuse the tactic because Ladybug can't reset her powers when there's no air to breathe.
- The entire episode is one long discussion of this trope, as Monarch has never been observed Save Scumming despite it being possibly the most dangerous Miraculous ability at his disposal and it had been conspicuously absent until now. Ladybug and Cat Noir even wonder why he seemingly hasn't used it against them, unaware that he has in fact tried.
- The Worsening Curse Mark: It's mostly obscured by his shirt collar's shadow, but Gabriel's Cataclysm wound has finally started to reach his neck. Not only that, but because his misuse of Second Chance, it's started to spread to his organs, particularly his heart.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Due in part to his use of Second Chance, Gabriel's Cataclysm wound has progressed to the point where he may have only weeks left to live. Nathalie believes that she has even less. Thus, she urged him to make preparations for Adrien having to be without them...and then the rest of the episode happens to worsen his condition further.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Said almost word for word after Monarch's second attempt using Second Chance with the fight with Glaciator in Elation only for Ladybug's Lucky Charm to get around it.
