Recap / Scarlet Lady S2 E2: The Gamer

Episode 12 - The Gamer - Tales of Max the Pro Gamer

Marinette's class has a literature report due, and Alya and Marinette have agreed to work on it after class at the library. However, when they arrive, they find everyone watching Max and Nino playing a video game together, which quickly monopolizes Alya's attention, much to Marinette's dismay.

Rose tells the girls that there's an Ultimate Mecha Strike III tournament, and the school has organized tryouts to select the two best players for them to send. Kim figures that it'll be pretty much choosing who's going to be partnering with Max (who mocks Nino due to the latter's low score in the game, even though Nino explains he only joined to boost numbers), who has been training for the tournament for almost an entire year. When Adrien asks Marinette if she wants to join, Kim tries to dismiss the idea, only for Marinette (who is a Gamer Chick through and through) to muffle him and express interest her interest in the tournament, too, proclaiming her love of Ultimate Mecha Strike III.

Alya pulls Marinette aside and attempts to call her best friend out; representing the school in the tournament is Serious Business and not some excuse to flirt with Adrien. Marinette, however, snarks at her friend getting so worked up about a tournament she didn't even know about until five minutes ago before quickly shooting Alya down by pointing out that, if she were to be chosen to participate in the tournament, it would be because she's proven she's one of the two best players in the school.

Adrien manages to win his bout against Max, with then Marinette taking the former's place. Max condescendingly begins to explain how to play the game, but Marinette quickly tells him she's got it. Max arrogantly taunts Marinette... only to see Marinette also beat him, making her and Adrien the school's representatives for the tournament. Max calmly admits defeat and leaves... or at least attempts to while he's suffering a mental breakdown trying to process his defeat. Hawk Moth senses this and sends a butterfly, only to be slightly put off that Max only blames Marinette; the villain even points out to the teen that he was defeated by two people, not just her.

Sabrina sends a message to Chloé telling her about Adrien participating in the tournament. Chloé doesn't care: she doesn't need to play a stupid video game to spend time with Adrien, after all. She quickly changes her tune when Sabrina sends another message, this time telling her Marinette is Adrien's partner. She grabs Tikki and runs to Marinette's house, where she stalks the duo as they enter the boulangerie, planning to crash the date.

Meanwhile, the Gamer (Max's akumatized form) attacks innocent people in order to gain the power needed to carry out his plans, eventually obtaining a mecha-form like the one in the game.

Marinette introduces Adrien to her parents before the two teens head up to her room to train for the tournament, and Sabine and Tom become very interested in the boy their daughter has brought home. Upstairs, Marinette starts the game, and when she and Adrien both move to grab a controller, they end up touching hands, causing the two of them to blush.

Chloé attempts to get into the Dupain-Cheng's home, claiming to have a project with Marinette. However, Sabine can tell that Chloé is lying through her teeth and prevents her from entering the bakery. Chloé tries to still get in by asking for cookies, but Sabine is prepared for that as well and shows her a bag she's already prepared, though at an increased cost.

As Marinette and Adrien continue practicing, Adrien says her parents seem nice, which she agrees, even if they are a bit invasive. Tom then coincidentally interrupts them, offering some croissants, which his angered daughter silently accepts before slamming the trapdoor shut with her foot. Continuing with their game, the teens win against the machine. Adrien compliments Marinette, saying that he's nothing compared to her. She agrees, noting he probably hasn't had any experience playing in co-op mode, something Adrien realizes as well. Marinette decides to loan him her "secret weapon"—a lucky charm bracelet made of some string and beads—to see if it improves his play. However, the moment gets interrupted once more by Marinette's parents, this time offering a delicious salmon quiche. Seeing her getting angry, Adrien suggests they take a break.

Still waiting outside the boulangerie, Chloé complains that she was prevented from "saving Adrien" right when she sees Adrien and Marinette coming out. Chloé, hiding behind a tree, plots out loud how to ruin Marinette, but her planning gets interrupted when an old man tells her to step off—that's his spying tree!

After a short walk, Adrien and Marinette sit down on a bench at the nearby park and decide they're ready to return and further train for the tournament. They're interrupted, however, by the sudden arrival of the Gamer, riding inside a huge mecha. Chloé briefly realizes this is the perfect moment to get rid of Marinette, much to Tikki's horrified shock, before she transforms into Scarlet Lady.

The Gamer opens fire with his mecha's weapon. Adrien manages to save Marinette from the attack, which destroys the bench they were sitting on, and the two briefly blush as he lands on top of her. Marinette and Adrien split off, hoping to keep the Gamer distracted enough to escape, but the akuma quickly follows Marinette, who gets ticked off with Max... and then suddenly trips over.

This turns out to be Scarlet Lady's doing: the Ladybug heroine used her yo-yo's string to lay down a trap for Marinette, hoping that the Gamer will thus have an easy time killing her. Fortunately, her plan gets ruined when Chat Noir suddenly appears, quickly taking Marinette away in his arms. Marinette asks Chat Noir to go back—her friend Adrien is still in danger! Chat Noir tells her Adrien's safe already—only for Marinette to point out that Scarlet Lady is deliberately leading the akuma to them!

Chat Noir furiously calls out Scarlet Lady, who claims she just wanted to meet up with him to deal with the akuma. When he realizes they need to get Gamer off the streets, Marinette suggests going to the Parc des Princes—the stadium should be large enough to fight the mecha and contain it.

Chat Noir and Marinette manage to defeat the mecha (no thanks to Scarlet Lady)—only for the Gamer to reveal he's got a save point, restoring his mecha. Thankfully, the heroes get a mecha of their own, which Marinette and Chat Noir quickly activate. Scarlet Lady attempts to take the controls, assuming it will be easy to pilot it... only to be proven instantly wrong when the Gamer quickly punches out their mecha.

Marinette soon takes over piloting the mecha while Chat Noir handles weapons. Yet even with their combined efforts, fighting the Gamer is incredibly difficult; Marinette even comments that Max might have done better in tryouts if he had played like this. Scarlet Lady finally summons her Lucky Charm, which happens to be a spray paint can. Chat Noir grabs and uses it to cover the Gamer's mecha's visors, forcing the akuma to stick his head out to see what's going on, allowing Chat to snatch the akumatized object: the Gamer's over-sized glasses.

As Max recovers, Marinette tells him about the fight, making him wonder how much of it was due to him being akumatized and how much was from relying on his own skills instead of pre-written codes like he had in the tryouts. Scarlet Lady, meanwhile, thanks Max: he forced Adrien and Marinette to split up and only went after the latter. Marinette tries to defend Max, but the latter tells her not to bother—he's got a lot of stuff to think about.

The next day is the tournament. Max shows up to apologize to Marinette, admitting that he shouldn't have underestimated her, much less targeted her (and only her) as an akuma, which she readily accepts. Max asks if they could play together in the future, only for Adrien to tell him he can play with her now. Max protests on the grounds that Adrien earned his spot fairly, but the latter explains that he's realized he's weak at co-op, which would make him a liability in the tournament. With Adrien's encouragement, Max and Marinette go on to win the tournament for their school.

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This episode contains examples of the following:

• Adaptational Explanation: Marinette and Alya are confirmed to have learned about the video game tournament at the same time, hence why Alya didn't reschedule their study session. Additionally, Nino's dismally low score is here due to him only participating in the tournament to boost numbers.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Chloé deliberately tries to prevent Adrien and Marinette from spending time together practicing for the Ultimate Mecha Strike III tournament, something she wasn't concerned about in canon.
  • Played With regarding Max. His nasty and entitled behavior is emphasized more, with his condescending attitude towards his classmates and the sexist nature of his anger towards Marinette highlighted. However, after Gamer's defeat, he has a Jerkass Realization about his poor sportsmanship and apologizes to Marinette, which he didn't do in canon.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Played straight for Marinette while inverted for Max. In canon, the former was accused of being selfish for competing in the tournament simply to spend time with Adrien, as well as "stealing" Max's spot by defeating him without considering his feelings, with his subsequent akumatization blamed entirely upon her. Here, Max is instead portrayed as a Sore Loser who failed to qualify for the tournament fair and square, even after cheating, and solely blames Marinette for this despite losing to both her and Adrien out of anger over losing to a girl. Even the villains point this out to him, and he apologizes after having a Jerkass Realization.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Gamer takes a disturbing amount of glee in annihilating helpless civilians.
  • Chloé outright tries to get Marinette killed by tripping her and guiding Gamer towards her.
• Adults Are Useless: Averted. Sabine seems to have learned her lesson since Sabrina snuck into her daughter's room to steal Marinette's diary and refuses to let Chloé into the bakery when her daughter's bully tries to crash Marinette and Adrien's date.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Tom and Sabine mean well, but they keep interrupting Marinette and Adrien with offers for food, eventually driving their daughter into a rage.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Alya attempts to call Marinette out on only joining the tournament to flirt with Adrien, Marinette has a very good retort:
  Marinette: Hey, by virtue of how tournaments work, won't I only earn that spot by being the best to represent us?
• The Atoner: Max apologizes to Marinette for not only attacking her as an akuma, but also acting the way he did before then.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Chloé sees her attempt to bluff her way into the bakery by claiming she has a project with Marinette. Sabine doesn't buy it.
  • Scarlet Lady leads Gamer straight to Marinette, hoping the latter gets zapped by the akuma. When Chat Noir notices this and calls her out on it, she claims she just wanted to meet up with her sidekick in order to deal with the akuma.
• Break the Haughty: Max suffering this at Marinette's hands is what triggers his akumatization.
• Bridal Carry: How Chat Noir carries Marinette after saving her from the Gamer.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Max's been coding his own special mecha moves for the Ultimate Mecha Strike III tournament. Adrien and Marinette beat him anyway.
• Comically Missing the Point: Alya attempts to call Marinette out for only showing interest in the Ultimate Mecha Strike III tournament to spend time with Adrien since representing the school is apparently Serious Business. Marinette mocks her best friend for being so worked up over a competition she found out only five minutes ago while also pointing out that since only the two students with the highest scores in tryouts will be chosen to move on to the actual tournament, she would only get a spot by proving she's the best and earning one.
• Compliment Fishing: Adrien tries this as he compliments Marinette on being such a good player, saying he's nothing compared to her. It backfires when Marinette agrees with his statement, although she points out it's likely because he has little experience playing in co-op mode, which he concedes.
• Crush Blush: After Adrien does a Diving Save to protect Marinette from the Gamer, he ends up atop of Marinette, who's lying face up on the ground. They sport a mighty blush.
• Death Glare:
  • Marinette gives one to her father when he interrupts her and Adrien's gaming practice.
  • She also fires one at Scarlet Lady after the Ladybug heroine leads the Gamer right to her and Chat Noir.
• Description Cut: Kim praises Max for acting calm and collected despite the crushing defeat handed to him. Cut to Max, who's internally screaming.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Max entirely blames Marinette for beating him and thus "stealing" his place in the tournament despite losing to Adrien as well.
  • Chloé tries to get Marinette killed for spending time with Adrien.
• Dramatic Irony: Master Fu has been following Adrien and Marinette with the double quest of (a) determining if he should give Marinette another Miraculous and (b) finding the identity of Scarlet Lady. He ends up meeting the latter while she's stalking Adrien and Marinette and doesn't realize it's her.
• Dramatically Missing the Point:
  • Max is akumatized over not being selected to represent his school in a video game tournament after getting beaten by Marinette, even though, as many remind him, he lost to two people, not just her. To his credit, he does have a Jerkass Realization about this after being deakumatized and apologizes to Marinette for it.
  • While working together with Marinette to take down Gamer, Chat makes a pointed comment about how he knows he can rely upon her. Scarlet reacts more to the way he's flirting with Marinette than to the implied insult aimed her way.
• Epic Fail:
  • During tryouts, Nino's score is so low that Max snidely wonders if it's the former's first time playing. Nino says he's just boosting numbers.
    Nino: Dude, I'm only playing to boost numbers. Ain't nobody here for this tournament.
  • Scarlet Lady takes the mecha controls, thinking it won't be hard to pilot it. She promptly gets their mecha hit with a Non-Lethal K.O. by the Gamer's own.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Max's monomaniacal obsession with Marinette beating him leaves Hawk Moth unsettled; he even points out to Max that he lost to two people, not just Marinette.
• Evil Is Petty: Scarlet Lady tries to get Marinette killed simply for spending time practicing for a video game tournament with Adrien. She trips Marinette as the latter is fleeing from Gamer before outright guiding the akuma towards Marinette.
• Flirting Under Fire: Chat Noir and Marinette begin to flirt with each other while they're fighting the Gamer.
• Foregone Conclusion: The last bit of narration states that Marinette and Max clearly won the tournament.
• Foreshadowing: When Adrien attributes their victory to her, Marinette mentions that Adrien's co-op skills are almost non-existent (see Plot Parallel), which he admits is an accurate criticism. Next season, Adrien (as Chat Noir) will gain an actual hero partner in Marigold (Marinette), which allows him to learn how to work together with another hero(ine).
• Gamer Chick: Marinette is a skilled Ultimate Mecha Strike III player that ends up trouncing Max in the tournament tryouts.
• Graceful Loser: Max attempts to be this at first, but his anger at losing to Marinette gets the better of him. Thankfully, he has a Jerkass Realization after being deakumatized and becomes this for real, apologizing to Marinette for unfairly blaming her and even protesting at first when Adrien offers to give his spot in the tournament to Max because Adrien earned that spot fairly (he wasn't aware that Adrien is actually bad at co-op mode despite being good at single player mode).
• Hypocrite: Chloé attempts to prevent Marinette from spending time practicing for the tournament with Adrien, justifying it by claiming that Marinette is "going to put her grubby paws all over Adrien." Chloé is a blatant Personal Space Invader who keeps jumping at Adrien and grabbing him without permission.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: Max fixates upon this, causing Gamer to be obsessed with getting revenge upon Marinette and Marinette alone despite Adrien also having beaten out Max for a spot in the tournament.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Though she comes up with another theory for why she's better than Adrien at Ultimate Mecha Strike III, Marinette still gives him her lucky charm.
  • Max apologizes to Marinette instead of the other way around after he has a Jerkass Realization about his poor sportsmanship and how he treated her. However, he still ends up competing alongside her in the tournament when Adrien drops out due to realizing he's worse at co-op than Max is.
• Jerkass Realization: When Scarlet Lady thanks Max for only going after Marinette while leaving Adrien alone, Max realizes just how out of line his behavior was.
• Kick the Dog: The Gamer shoots at innocent, defenseless people, just for the sake of earning Experience Points.
  The Gamer: Time to level up! Ahahahahahaha! Nothing says 'Best Gamer Ever' like gaining EXP from NPCs with no defensive capabilities!
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: When Marinette tells Max that he was fighting so well they had to resort to cheating with the Lucky Charm, Max wonders if it was because he was an akuma or because he wasn't relying on the pre-written codes he was using earlier in tryouts.
• Moral Event Horizon: In-Universe. This episode marks the moment where Chloé/Scarlet Lady transitions from being just a petty and selfish Nominal Hero to an outright evil Villain Protagonist: she actively attempts to get Marinette killed by the Gamer just because Marinette was hanging out with Adrien.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Scarlet Lady attempts this with Marinette, reasoning that it doesn't count since the Miraculous Cure will later bring Marinette back.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Downplayed. Nino participates in tryout for the Ultimate Mecha Strike III tournament just to boost the numbers and draw more attention to it. Max rewards him by making a snide comment about his low score.
• Not So Innocent Whistling: To round up how much of a sleaze she is, Scarlet Lady is whistling as she leads the akuma to Chat Noir and Marinette.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Chat Noir manages to destroy Max's first mecha while on foot.
• Phrase Catcher: Multiple people point out to Max that he lost twice to both Marinette and Adrien.
• Plot Parallel: Adrien's very good at Ultimate Mecha Strike III, but mostly in single player mode since his co-op skills are quite weak; Marinette attributes this to him not having played the game with other people before. This reflects how he's doing a great job as a hero despite being forced to deal with most of the fighting himself because his "partner" barely lifts a finger to help fight akumas.
• Psychological Projection: Chloé claims that Marinette is "going to put her grubby paws all over poor Adrien" when Chloé herself is a Personal Space Invader (in both her civilian and hero identities) who keeps Glomping and hugging Adrien and has even tried to kiss him multiple times, including when he's obviously trying to get away from her.
• Save Scumming: One of the Gamer's powers is his save point, which allows him to recover his mecha after Chat Noir destroys it.
• Serious Business: Alya insists this about the Ultimate Mecha Strike III tournament. Marinette snarks that her best friend didn't even know about it until five minutes ago.
• Ship Tease: Marinette and Adrien have Luminescent Blushes when they accidentally touch hands and again after he does a Diving Save to protect her from the Gamer.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: In order to get back at Chloé for stealing Marinette's diary, Sabine increases the price of a bag of cookies she knows Chloé regularly purchases.
• Sore Loser: Max gets akumatized because he was defeated by Marinette at Ultimate Mecha Strike III.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: Played With. Max apologizes to Marinette and Adrien but still gets to play in the tournament after all when Adrien (rather than Marinette) cedes his place to him due to Max being better at co-op.
• Take the Wheel: Marinette holds the game mecha steady while Chat Noir uses the Lucky Charm against the villain, a role-reversal from the original. Her Chekhov's Skill with the game still works in this version, even more so because Chat Noir has already seen her demonstrate it. (Chloé had attempted this earlier, only to be shown having no skill at it whatsoever when Gamer gives them a Nonlethal KO.)
• Taught by Experience: One of the reasons Sabine bars Chloé from entering their home is that she still remembers how Sabrina got in with a similar excuse to steal Marinette's diary.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Adrien tells Max to take his place in the tournament, having realized that Max is better than him when playing in co-op mode.
• Underestimating Badassery: Max clearly thought that he'd easily win against Marinette. Marinette trounces him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Sabrina ends up triggering Chloé's attempts to kill Marinette by sending Chloé messages about the results of the tournament tryouts.
• Villain Has a Point: When Max expresses frustration about losing to Marinette, Hawk Moth points out that he lost to two people, not just her. Later, Scarlet Lady also thanks a deakumatized Max for only going after Marinette while leaving Adrien alone, causing him to have a Jerkass Realization.
• We Need a Distraction: Scarlet Lady actually inverts this: she deliberately gets his attention before leading him right towards Chat and Marinette.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Parodied when Alya accuses Marinette of only expressing interest in the tournament to flirt with Adrien, only for Marinette to point out how irrational she's being, given Alya only just now learned about the tournament and anyone who moves on to the actual tournament would have to earn a spot fairly.
  • Played straight when Chat Noir calls out Scarlet Lady for blatantly luring the akuma to him and Marinette.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Scarlet Lady praises Max for only targeting and trying to kill Marinette despite how Adrien had defeated him as well. This forces Max to recognize his own sexism.
  Caption: Time to rethink your entire life because somewhere under all the insults, Scarlet Lady had a point.

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