Episode 11
- Darkblade - Tales of Armand the Knight
In the limo on her way to school, Chloé watches a news report about the latest akuma attack. She openly brags about being Scarlet Lady, which Tikki chastises her for, pointing out that her driver is right there. Chloé is unconcerned, though, and reassures the Kwami she won't give away her identity. Being Scarlet Lady is a delicious secret that everyone's dying to figure out, and her driver's too dense to realize anything anyway. In reality, he's simply ignoring his passenger, who seems to be talking to herself.
Next on the news is Chloé's father winning the local elections, which prompts her to comment that she'll be running for class representative. When Tikki asks her why she wants to be class representative when she barely does anything even as Scarlet Lady, Chloé states that she does it for the title, obviously.
Meanwhile, Marinette puts her diary into a box while considering running for the position herself. She has a lot of free time now, and certainly couldn't do any worse than Chloé. When she announces her intention to compete, everyone else cheers, asking if she can help them get what they want at school... though Juleka's request is so confusing that Marinette doesn't know what to make of it.
Chloé's naturally furious that anyone would dare run against her, much less Dupain-Cheng! But she promptly reassures Sabrina that she knows how to win. Though Sabrina hopes this means that her best friend knows how to run a good, strong campaign, Chloé declares that it's all about smearing and ruining your opponent. Sabrina gives a depressed, but not particularly surprised look in response.
That afternoon, Alya calls Marinette with urgent news: Chloé has invited the class to her class representative campaign launch at city hall and (somehow) managed to get Jagged Stone, the class's favorite musician, to participate in it. Realizing Chloé's trying to buy votes, Marinette quickly runs over to city hall—but not before asking why Alya's already there.
Chloé's plan for "ruining Marinette" consists of sending Sabrina to steal Marinette's diary. Sabrina manages to fool Sabine into thinking she needs to get a schoolbook from Marinette's room; however, Sabine also gives her a few cookies as a pick-me-up, causing her to tear up from the guilt.
Adrien is currently in the middle of a fencing class and has just fallen in a bout against M. D'Argencourt. The fencing teacher mentions that the move he used to defeat Adrien was invented by his ancestor, the Black Knight, who once ruled Paris with an iron fist until a commoner bought the loyalty of Paris's lower class with money. Of course, as Adrien mentally notes, the Black Knight must have been a dick if he was such a tyrant that someone giving money to the poor was enough to cause a revolution.
Outside the collège, Nadja Chamack is waiting to interview M. D'Argencourt, who, as it turns out, was M. Bourgeois's rival in the recent elections. Nadja asks for his opinion on how he's being accused of being an "outdated, medieval fossil with no grasp of the 21st century," angering him enough to get him akumatized into Darkblade. Adrien quickly transforms into Chat Noir and begins to follow the akuma as Darkblade turns people into minion knights and declares his intention to overthrow Mayor Bourgeois. Chat Noir remarks that at least Marinette won't be in the middle of this akuma.
Sabrina enters Marinette's room and begins to look around, trying on a hat and playing with a plush toy before Chloé exhorts her to find something embarrassing. Seeing Marinette's diary, she tries to grab it, only for the box it's resting in to clamp around her wrist. It's a trap!
Mayor Bourgeois officiously launches Chloé's campaign, thanking a very unimpressed Jagged Stone for coming to support her. The rock star, however, seems less than happy as he sits behind a table, ready to sign CDs for the class. Reminded that he's only there because Fang (his pet crocodile) ruined Bob Roth (his producer)'s car, he decides he might as well do his best, although he gets a bit of a pleasant surprise when he learns that Rose is a fan of his.
While Chloé declares that anyone who votes for her will get a ticket to Jagged Stone's next concert, Alya checks her autographed CD—only for Marinette to show up out of nowhere. Alya reassures her best friend that she got an extra autographed CD for her, too, and that she's only there for the CDs as she still plans to vote for Marinette. Marinette, though, questions whether that's ethical.
Sabrina arrives at city hall, the booby-trapped diary box still firmly clamped around her wrist; however, Chloé refuses to believe her story about what happened despite the evidence being right in front of her. All she cares about is that they technically have Marinette's diary. Dragging her opponent to a back room, Chloé threatens to expose all of Marinette's secrets if she doesn't withdraw, though Sabrina simply pleads with her to get the box off her arm.
Before Marinette can react, Darkblade arrives in front of city hall, demanding that Mayor Bourgeois fight him. The mayor responds by attempting to close the doors just as Chat Noir arrives. While Penny keeps Jagged Stone from slipping out and putting himself in danger, everyone else closes the doors. When Rose turns to ask Chloé what to do, she's missing, having just abandoned the group the moment the akuma showed up. Marinette quickly takes charge and directs her classmates to barricade the entrance and the windows.
Tikki exhorts Chloé to either help the group or Chat Noir, but Chloé doesn't care about doing either. When the Kwami asks how Chloé intends to be class representative and Scarlet Lady when she won't do either, Chloé transforms just to shut her up.
Chat Noir is struggling to keep the knights from climbing up the building when one of them gets hit with Scarlet Lady's yo-yo. Darkblade transforms two cars into catapults, allowing him to send his transformed minions flying against the building; he intends to have them raise his standard as a sign of victory. Chat Noir realizes that the akuma is hiding in Darkblade's sword, but Scarlet Lady is not keen on helping her partner defeat the akuma—at least, not before Darkblade calls her a peasant.
Meanwhile, Marinette's efforts to keep the akuma from capturing everyone else aren't enough, and Marinette herself gets turned into one of Darkblade's knights.
Darkblade jumps to the top of the building thanks to the catapults, and Chat Noir and Scarlet Lady follow. As Scarlet Lady summons her Lucky Charm—a wind-up toy, which really disappoints her—Chat Noir fights the akuma. Recognizing the move Darkblade's making as the same riposte M. D'Argencourt did in their earlier bout, Chat Noir manages to counter it, and Scarlet Lady throws the toy at Darkblade's head, causing him to drop the sword.
With the Miraculous Cure doing its work, Chloé rejoins the group, claiming that she was calling Scarlet Lady. While Nathaniel snarks that no hero would hang around with Chloé, Marinette demands her diary back. Chloé tries to act innocent, but Sabrina quickly begs Marinette to free her hand.
Given that it's obvious something happened, Chloé quickly blames Sabrina for everything, which Sabrina isn't happy about. However, much to Sabrina's surprise, Alix quickly steps forward and calls Chloé out on lying to everyone and trying to scapegoat Sabrina because everyone knows the only reason Sabrina acts out is because Chloé forces her. The classmates make it clear they won't vote for Chloé, even if Marinette would rather they vote for her rather than against Chloé.
The next day, the class votes, and Marinette becomes class representative with Alya as her deputy after a landslide victory. Chloé yells at the others, asking why they didn't vote for her when they took her Jagged Stone CDs. While Kim and Max point out that the CDs were only giveaways and Rose accuses her of abandoning the group, Mme. Bustier asks Chloé if she was actually trying to bribe the others, which Chloé attempts to deny.
This episode contains examples of:
- Accidental Public Confession: Chloé ends up revealing to Mme. Bustier that she was trying to bribe the class when she complains about how her classmates didn't vote for her despite accepting her CDs.
- Adaptational Explanation: It's stated that Jagged Stone only agreed to attend Chloé's campaign launch and sign autographs as a favor to Bob Roth, whose car Fang had ruined.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: The class doesn't come off as being sellouts like in canon, in which they seemed to genuinely be swayed by Chloé's bribes to consider voting for her, the class bully, over their friend Marinette. Here, it's made clear that they were always going to vote for Marinette and only attended Chloé's campaign launch for the free giveaways.
- Adults Are Useless:
- Sabine lets Sabrina go up to Marinette's room after falling for Sabrina's lie of having lent a geometry book to Marinette, giving Sabrina the chance to steal Marinette's diary.
- Mayor Bourgeois lets Marinette take charge of the defense of city hall, too terrified to act himself.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Sabrina twice begs Marinette to open the booby-trapped box, crying from the pain both times and not even caring about the diary at all.
- Armor-Piercing Question:
- Played for Laughs when Alya calls Marinette to tell her that Chloé got Jagged Stone to come to city hall in an attempt to buy votes. Marinette asks why Alya is already there.
- Tikki attempts this when she asks Chloé how she intends to be class representative and Scarlet Lady when she doesn't do anything in either job. However, Chloé just ignores both questions and transforms to shut the Kwami up.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Inverted when Chloé protests that her classmates didn't vote for her despite accepting her CDs. Kim and Max dismiss them as giveaways and compare them to campaign buttons while Rose angrily snaps about how Chloé abandoned them the moment Darkblade showed up.
- Artistic License – Politics: D'Argencourt unsuccessfully challenged André Bourgeois in the mayoral elections; in real life, to do this, he would need to first be elected to the Council of Paris, as the Mayor of Paris is elected by the Council from among its members rather than directly by Parisians. Moreover, each member of the Council of Paris also sits on an arrondissement (administrative district) council. There's no mention of D'Argencourt being a member of either, though, and him continuing to work as a P.E. and fencing teacher seems to outright refute that.
- Berserk Button: Scarlet Lady doesn't like being called a "peasant."
- Booby Trap: Marinette keeps her diary in a box that will clamp around a would-be thief's hand. Sabrina gets caught in it.
- Bribe Backfire: Chloé attempts to buy her classmates' votes in the class representative race by offering them free CDs, throwing a fancy campaign launch, and hiring Jagged Stone to sign autographs at said launch. The class shows up and happily accepts the free giveaways while still fully intent on voting for Marinette, meaning Chloé wasted all her money for nothing in return. Moreover, she later makes an Accidental Public Confession when she complains about this in front of the teacher, causing her to be questioned about trying to bribe her classmates.
- Chekhov's Classroom: At the beginning, Adrien is defeated by M. D'Argencourt with a move passed down from the latter's ancestor. This allows Chat Noir to recognize the same move during his fight with Darkblade, allowing him to counter it.
- Corrupt Politician: Mayor Bourgeois is implied to be one, given how Chloé apparently got the idea of ruining Marinette to win the class representative election from him. She also has her father get Bob Roth to make Jagged Stone sign autographs as part of her campaign, just to buy votes.
- Didn't Think This Through: Somehow, Chloé never considered the possibility that her classmates (whom she constantly bullies) might vote against her despite accepting all her bribes.
- Dirty Coward: When Darkblade shows up and challenges him to fight, Mayor Bourgeois responds by slamming the doors in his face and running away.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Sabrina sports these through the first half of the episode, showing that she hasn't forgiven or forgotten how Chloé got Roger fired over a petty slight in the previous episode.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Chloé is very quick to claim the attempt to steal Marinette's diary was all Sabrina's idea. Sabrina gives her a Death Glare.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Sabrina is disappointed (albeit unsurprised) when Chloé declares that she plans on winning the class representative race by ruining her opponent rather than running a good campaign.
- Though she still goes through with sneaking into Marinette's room for blackmail material, Sabrina clearly feels guilty about taking advantage of Sabine's trust (with tears even welling in her eyes) when the woman gives her a bag of cookies as a pick-me-up.
- Mme. Bustier generally turns a blind eye to most of Chloé's bad behavior, but she still disappointedly asks her student if she had tried to bribe her classmates for their votes after Chloé makes an Accidental Public Confession.
- Evil Is Petty: Chloé, once more, excels at this.
- Rose mentions that Chloé threatened to prevent her from doing scrapbooking at her school club if she tried to run for class representative.
- Chloé has Sabrina steal Marinette's diary to score a cheap shot on Marinette.
- First-Person Smartass: When M. D'Argencourt mentions how the Black Knight ruled Paris with an iron fist, only to be overthrown by someone who bought the commoners' loyalty with money, Adrien thinks that maybe the ancestor was kind of a dick if he had such a tyrannical rule and all it took for him to be deposed was someone giving money to the poor.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: In-Universe, M. D'Argencourt considers his ancestor the Black Knight (who "ruled Paris with an iron fist") a hero who was overthrown by someone who bought people's loyalty with money. Adrien, however, mentally remarks that D'Argencourt's account just makes it sound like his ancestor was a tyrant who was deservedly overthrown by someone who gave money to the poor.
- Honor Before Reason: Marinette quickly realizes how incompetent of a job Chloé has being doing as class representative over the years and that she plans on playing dirty by buying the classes' votes with free autographed CDs and such. Nonetheless, Marinette still questions whether it's ethical for her classmates to vote for her anyway after accepting free stuff from her opponent and tells them she doesn't want them to vote for her just because she isn't Chloé, even though the odds are almost hopelessly stacked against her otherwise.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- Despite Mayor Bourgeois losing the support of all the adults present at Parent's Career Day due to his abuse of his authority, he still wins re-election.
- Marinette still runs against Chloé to become the next class president, though it's much less spur-of-the-moment.
- Jerkass Has a Point: According to Nadja, there are accusations that Armand D'Argencourt is "an outdated medieval fossil with no grasp of the 21st century," which are implied to have originated from André Bourgeois's campaign. Given D'Argencourt responds with the archaic expression "Palsembleu" and displays Moral Myopia regarding his admiration of his ancestor, the tyrannical Black Knight, the claims might not be entirely unfounded.
- Landslide Election: Pretty much everyone votes for Marinette in the end in spite of Chloé's attempt to bribe the others.
- Moral Myopia: Chloé is an Entitled Bitch who is all about being All Take and No Give, as evidenced by how she takes Sabrina completely for granted. She is also incredibly offended by her classmates giving her a taste of her own medicine by exploiting her "generous" bribes."
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Sabine gifts Sabrina a few cookies because the latter looks sad, not knowing that she's trying to steal Marinette's diary on Chloé's orders.
- Oh, Crap!:
- This is Sabrina's reaction when the diary box clamps around her wrist.
- Chat Noir and Scarlet Lady's faces when Darkblade transforms two cars into catapults.
- Chloé has this expression when Marinette demands her diary back in full view of the entire class.
- Plot Parallel: Chloé is heavily implied to have learned how to run a campaign from her father, claiming that she simply needs to bribe the voters while ruining her opponent's good name. D'Argencourt is akumatized after Nadja repeats some of the unflattering accusations made towards him, which may well have been spread by André's PR team. Both Bourgeoises run away when the akuma attacks and expect others to step up and deal with the situation themselves.
- Rage Breaking Point:
- Still recovering from seeing her father get fired due to Chloé throwing a tantrum, Sabrina crosses this when the box Marinette's diary is inside snaps over her wrist after Chloé makes her steal said diary. She mouths off at Chloé (likely for the first time ever) and then yells at her when she refuses to believe Sabrina about what happened, even though the box is visibly latched to Sabrina's wrist.
- Rose manages to reach hers upon realizing Chloé abandoned the class the moment Darkblade showed up and later angrily calls the bully out on it when Chloé demands to know why nobody voted for her.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: When asked whether she also got transformed into a knight as she rejoins the class after Darkblade's defeat, Chloé denies it and claims she was calling Scarlet Lady instead. Though this was to hide the fact she is Scarlet Lady, Nathaniel calls it a lie under the belief no hero would choose to hang with Chloé.
- Selective Obliviousness: Sabrina tries to tell Chloé about how Marinette booby-trapped her diary and that the box clamped around her wrist when she tried to steal it. Chloé scoffs at the idea that she's supposed to believe that, completely ignoring the blatant proof of Sabrina having a box latched to her wrist. When Sabrina responds by yelling at her in frustration while waving the box in front of Chloé's face, the latter instead asks Sabrina if she's giving her attitude.
- Skewed Priorities: Jagged tries to go out into the street to gives his fans what they want even as Darkblade begins his attack.
- Tempting Fate: When he hears Darkblade intends to attack Paris City Hall, Adrien is glad that Marinette won't be involved in this akuma fight, not knowing that she's on her way to the building to find out more about Chloé's campaign.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: In-Universe; D'Argencourt clearly intended for Adrien to sympathize with how the Black Knight was overthrown after someone bribed his subjects, but Adrien mentally notes that the Black Knight sounds like a tyrant who was rightfully overthrown by someone who gave money to the poor.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Nadja accidentally triggers D'Argencourt's akumatization when she thoughtlessly parrots some of the insults that have been slung his way.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Rose, of all people, is the one who is angriest with Chloé for abandoning the class in the middle of Darkblade's attack.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Played With. Marinette declares her candidacy in the class representative race, undeterred by Chloé's threats, and then handily wins in a Landslide Election despite Chloé throwing a lavish campaign launch and giving away Jagged Stone albums to her classmates. While Marinette did prove her competency for the role when Darkblade attacked, the class later reveal that they all would've voted for Marinette anyway simply because she isn't Chloé.
- Worth It: When Jagged Stone asks why he's signing autographs for Chloé's campaign, Penny reminds him he owed his manager Bob Roth a favor after Fang ruined Bob's car. Jagged considers it completely worth having to do all this.
