Episode 35
- Silencer - Tales of Luka the Musician
André greets two of his latest guests, both of whom are familiar faces: Bob Roth and his son Xavier, who angrily corrects the mayor that he's going by his stage name, XY. Mayor Bourgeois reintroduces them to his daughter while Chloé gushes over XY, claiming she secured her daddy's best table for him. XY dismissively thanks "Clarice"; she corrects him, then demands that her father compensate XY's meal. André starts to protest, only for her to declare that he can still make Bob pay for his own.
Bob then asks his son to reveal what he's cop—er, "created" this time. Chloé swoons over the music, only for Bob to bluntly point out it's the same as last year's. However, he tells XY not to worry about that. As for visuals, they'll use their usual method: "If you're short on new ideas, borrow someone else's." While they laugh about this, Chloé happily muses that they're just like her.
Bob Roth then announces a big contest, inviting people to send in videos showcasing their visual and musical talents. Kitty Section is eager to seize this chance to show off their skills alongside Marinette's designs; Adrien cheers them on but isn't able to participate alongside them, as it goes against his father's draconian contract. A Hard-Work Montage follows, showing Kitty Section putting together their video for the contest as Adrien weeps about how cool they look in their new costumes.
Rather than receiving any word about their submission, Kitty Section learns from Ivan that there's a broadcast featuring XY's "new sound and style," which are blatantly copied off their video. Furious, they storm down to the station to confront the thieves, but the security guards refuse to let them through. So they stage a distraction: Ivan uses his costume to pretend he was akumatized, chasing Juleka and Rose around. The guards aren't impressed—and also aren't aware of Luka and Marinette sneaking behind them as they comment on how stupid it would be to fall for such an obvious distraction.
Peeking inside the studio, Luka and Marinette observe just how cheaply the stage was thrown together, wondering why somebody so rich didn't invest in a better setup. The reason why immediately becomes apparent when XY credits his new personal designer "Cleo" for the new look.
When confronted with the music video they blatantly stole from, Bob Roth declares there's no similarities at all while XY sneers that they were just... inspired. Infuriated, Luka snatches his copy of Marinette's mask right off the singer's face. Chloé claims that she worked hard on it, asking, "Are you calling me a liar?"
"I'm not calling you a truther!" Luka snaps back.
Marinette declares that if Bob won't admit the truth, then she'll expose him herself, live on air. Grabbing her arm, Bob sneers that if she tries, he'll ruin all their careers by claiming they're the copycats—and who does she think they'll believe? A renowned and respected producer, or a group of nobodies? As he threatens Marinette, declaring he can ensure that she'll never make another costume again, Chloé reassures Luka that she won't let him suffer the same fate. He glares back at her, yet Chloé continues to insist that he should ditch his friends and go solo... and is so busy making her pitch that she doesn't notice a black butterfly flitting in and landing on the horn of the mask Luka snatched off of XY. She looks over just in time to see Luka flipping her off with both hands before the transformation takes over.
Silencer extends one hand towards Chloé in a "shushing" motion; panicking, she drags XY over so that he gets his voice stolen instead. As Chloé flees, Silencer remarks in XY's voice that "There goes my chance to silence her for good."
Marinette pleads with him that this isn't justice, but Silencer reassures her that he won't let anyone hurt her, declaring that "You're the music that's been playing in my head since the day we met. I won't let anything happen to you." Marinette is left blushing fiercely, stunned at such a romantic confession... and one coming from an akuma using XY's borrowed voice at that! Pollen is completely dazzled, teasing her wielder as they duck into a bathroom stall to transform.
Silencer corners Bob Roth on the rooftop; Marigold arrives just in time for the Ungrateful Bastard to use her as a human shield, meaning her voice gets stolen away just like his son's. Scarlet Lady proves completely unsympathetic to her plight: upon realizing what happened, she laughs... until Silencer exploits her distraction to steal her voice as well. The two are forced to flee, arguing over who should text Chat Noir, while Silencer declares that they can't hide from him forever. He'll track them down, just like he's going to track down Bob Roth.
Back at the bottom of the building, the rest of Kitty Section sees Bob Roth fleeing, with Silencer in hot pursuit. Realizing they're probably looking at Luka, they muse that it might not have been the best idea to let him and Marinette go alone.
Meanwhile, Adrien shows Nathalie video evidence of Roth's thievery, noting that it's in his father's best interests to know that he's working with a plagiarist. Nathalie assures him that she'll pass on his concerns; after she leaves, he laments to Plagg that there's not much more he can do unless there's a public backlash. Then they spot Marigold and Scarlet Lady on a nearby rooftop, and Adrien realizes his friends might have been akumatized over the theft, frantically transforming.
Catching up with the girls, he's thrilled to learn that Scarlet Lady had her voice stolen, jokingly remarking to Marigold that there's no need to rush while dealing with this akuma. He promptly changes his tune, however, upon learning the Bee heroine was also victimized. Without their voices, neither of them can use their powers or detransform; however, Marigold starts texting Chat Noir, suggesting that they can trick Silencer into saying one of their key words for them. While they work out a strategy, Scarlet Lady interrupts to send them a selfie.
Meanwhile, Bob Roth calls Mayor André, declaring he needs the police to come protect him. But Silencer has beat him to the punch, calmly instructing him in André's voice to tell him where he is. Officer Roger escorts Roth right to the akuma, who notes that while he could easily take his voice, what he wants is for him to admit what he did. Otherwise, he'll use his collection of stolen voices to ruin his reputation just like how he threatened to ruin Marinette. Bob caves, wondering why Silencer couldn't have just threatened his son instead; Silencer makes clear he knew that never would have worked.
As Alec returns to the air with an "exclusive interview with Bob Roth," Chat Noir suggests they let this play out before they act. Marigold nixes that, pointing out via text that the record executive would just take it back later. Scarlet Lady chimes in, declaring that they'd better not let an akuma make XY or Chloé look bad; Chat Noir remarks that she should leave the persuading to Marigold.
Chat Noir distracts Silencer while Marigold leads Bob Roth to safety; he complains the whole time, declaring that the whole mess is Kitty Section's fault and that they should have just let him steal their ideas. He questions where Scarlet Lady is, unaware that she's currently snuggling up to his son. Chat calls out to Marigold, pretending to fall for Silencer's ruse when the akuma responds in her stead. As the real Bee heroine shows up, a fake stinger in hand, Chat Noir asks if she got held up while she smiles evilly. A swift cutaway shows that she wrapped Bob Roth up in duct tape.
Upon being threatened with the fake stinger, Silencer blurts out, "Impossible! I stole your voice! How could you summon Venom!" which activates the heroine's power. As Venom materializes in front of her for real, Silencer suddenly finds himself held in place by the rest of Kitty Section, who dogpile on and entreat him to recognize that this isn't what any of them want. Marigold sticks him with her stinger, paralyzing him, and Chat Noir thanks the band for their help, with Rose enthusing that he knows their group's name.
The stolen voices emerge from Silencer as small, squiggly creatures. After reclaiming her own, Marigold offers Scarlet Lady hers back; grossed out, Scarlet Lady refuses but balks when she sees Marigold open her mouth and begin to insert the Ladybug heroine's voice inside.
One Miraculous Cure later, Luka woozily asks what happened. Bob Roth scoots his way onto the scene, screaming about how scandalous it was for Marigold to tie him up and gloating about their failure to expose him. "Like I'd admit I stole Kitty Section's song and look for my son!" he declares... only belatedly realizing that everyone's smiling and that a live camera had been pointed his way the entire time. Frantically backtracking, he claims he was just joking and that he's offering Kitty Section a record deal and letting them finish the show. Luka asks if they can get that in writing.
As they're preparing to perform, Marinette hesitantly asks Luka if he meant what he said as Silencer. Though he doesn't recall what he said, hoping it wasn't anything mean, he unknowingly repeats it as he assures that "You're an extraordinary girl, Marinette. Clear as a music note, sincere as a melody. You're the music that's been playing inside my head since the day we met." Marinette is knocked for a loop, thinking that it sounds so much better in his own voice. As she watches Kitty Section take the stage, she's left wondering how she's supposed to act around Luka now that she knows how he feels.
Later on, Adrien's practicing piano when a delivery comes in. Though he wasn't able to join Kitty Section as they were practicing and filming their video for the contest, Marinette still designed a costume for him, and he promptly takes a picture of himself wearing it to show his support for the band.
Meanwhile, Bob Roth gets called to a private meeting with Jagged Stone, who makes clear his deep displeasure with how Roth threatened Marinette and his ki— uh, her friends.
As for Chloé? Fang helps himself to her favorite shoes as she screams for her father to do something about Jagged's "stupid lizard."
This episode contains examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: XY isn't pleased with Chloé openly fawning over him, finding her rather annoying. He's also clearly irritated when Scarlet Lady snuggles up to his side instead of untying him or Alec.
- Cassandra Truth: Bob Roth insists that nobody will believe Marinette, Luka, or Kitty Section if they go public with how he stole from them.
- Commonality Connection: Downplayed For Laughs. When Chloé realizes that Bob and XY are openly discussing stealing the results of others' hard work in front of her, she delightedly muses that she's among "her people."
- Didn't Think This Through: Bob Roth holds a "contest," asking hopeful artists to submit their music videos, then blatantly rips off Kitty Section's song and designs. While he claims that nobody will believe them if they come forward about the theft, he doesn't consider the fact that they were not the only entrants and still have their copy of the video. Justified in that Bob is simply that much of an entitled Jerkass and firmly believes that he's powerful enough to silence any critics.
- Double Standard: Justified and Played for Laughs when Chat Noir laughs and mocks Scarlet Lady for having her voice stolen, only to comfort Marigold upon realizing she suffered the same fate.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: While trying to convince Luka to ditch his "loser friends" and go solo, Chloé complains about how hard it was for her to reproduce Marinette's work, completely ignoring the fact she was only asked to do so in the first place because Bob Roth deemed it good enough to steal.
- Engineered Public Confession: While Silencer's plans to force a confession out of Bob Roth are seemingly thwarted, Marigold and Chat Noir ensure that Bob exposes himself all the same by aiming a camera at him as he gloats about his plagiarism.
- Entitled Bastard: Bob Roth immediately grabs Marigold and forces her into harm's way in order to protect himself from Silencer and keeps yapping away whenever there's a hero within earshot that he can complain to.
- Everyone Has Standards: XY looks surprised when his father grabs and manhandles Marinette while threatening her and Kitty Section. This contrasts sharply with Chloé smirking smugly at the sight.
- Evil Gloating: Bob enjoys rubbing his successes in everyone's faces; this proves to be his downfall when he taunts Luka about his failure to expose the plagiarism in front of a running camera.
- Failed a Spot Check:
- Played for Laughs when Roth's security team fails to notice Luka and Marinette slipping right behind them as they criticize Ivan's "akuma costume."
- Chloé is so busy trying to convince Luka to go solo that she completely fails to notice him being contacted by Hawk Moth, only looking over just in time to see him flipping her the double bird as he's akumatized.
- Bob fails to notice Chat Noir pointing a live camera towards him while bragging about how Silencer failed to expose his plagiarism to the world.
- Flipping the Bird:
- Luka flips Chloé a double bird as he becomes akumatized.
- Scarlet Lady flips Chat Noir off after he mocks her losing her voice but comforts Marigold after learning she also lost her voice.
- Foil: Bob Roth's many similarities to Chloé are highlighted here:
- Both of them are more than happy to steal the hard work of others and pass it off as their own.
- Both are completely self-absorbed, to the point that both use unwilling human shields to protect themselves from Silencer. Silencer is also Genre Savvy enough to know that Bob wouldn't care about any threats made towards his son XY when Bob himself laments that the akuma didn't take that route instead.
- Both abuse their high-profile connections and believe themselves to be completely above consequences. This overconfidence directly contributes to their downfalls.
- Hard-Work Montage: Kitty Section gets one showcasing the creation of their submission to Roth's contest.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Bob Roth is so confident that his status shields him from "baseless accusations" that he openly brags about it, taunting Luka about his apparent failure to make Bob confess without realizing a live camera has been pointed his way, ensuring that everyone watching hears the executive admit to his theft.
- Bob dismissed Marinette, Luka, and the rest of Kitty Section as a non-issue because they lacked any high-profile connections... forgetting that Marinette had previously worked for Jagged Stone. He's also blissfully unaware of Jagged Stone's other key connection to Kitty Section.
- "Just Joking" Justification: Bob attempts to play off his accidental confession of plagiarism this way.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Scarlet Lady is so busy taunting Marigold about having her voice stolen that Silencer is able to slip in and steal hers as well. Chat Noir then laughs and mocks her in much the same way she'd mocked Marigold.
- Invoked by Silencer, who threatens to ruin Bob Roth's reputation in precisely the same way the executive had threatened to ruin Marinette's.
- Bob directly threatened Marinette and her friends while claiming that they didn't have connections comparable to his. Not only does he wind up exposing his own crimes via an Engineered Public Confession, he also finds himself facing the wrath of Jagged Stone for targeting his "favorite designer" and his ki— ugh, her friends.
- Chloé once again tries to steal Marinette's designs and pass them off as her own. While we only see Jagged Stone directly confronting Bob, the rock star still has Fang snack on Chloé's shoes so she won't be a Karma Houdini.
- Love Confession: Silencer reveals to Marinette just how much Luka cares about her.
- Malicious Misnaming: Downplayed. XY finds Chloé so annoying that he can't even be bothered to remember her name correctly, so he ends up constantly calling her by the wrong name.
- Meaningful Echo: Luka unknowingly repeats the same confession he made to Marinette as Silencer while apologizing for his akumatization.
- Mood Killer: Luka tells Marinette how much he loves and admires her... as Silencer, using XY's voice and his hand as a puppet.Marinette: [thinking to herself while blushing fiercely] That was the most romantic thing I've ever heard... and you said it in XY's voice!
- Never My Fault: Bob Roth rants to Marigold about how Kitty Section should have just let him steal their hard work instead of getting angry enough to get akumatized over his blatant theft.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Chloé's response to seeing Luka mid-akumatization is to calmly remark "Oh &%$#."
- Adrien panics when he realizes that one or multiple members of Kitty Section might have wound up being akumatized after discovering the theft.
- Silencer says this after realizing he's been tricked into helping Marigold activate her Venom.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: Bob Roth, XY, and Chloé attempt to steal Kitty Section's song and designs.
- Plot Parallel: Both Chloé and Bob Roth use another person to block Silencer from stealing their voices, driving home how both of them are selfish narcissists.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!:
- Bob Roth openly taunts Marinette and Luka by proclaiming nobody will believe Kitty Section's story since they aren't as well connected as he is. He then threatens to use his connections to destroy their careers.
- While fleeing Silencer, Bob Roth tries to ensure his safety by calling the mayor himself, unaware that Silencer anticipated this and has already dealt with André.
- Skewed Priorities:
- Scarlet Lady interrupts Chat Noir and Marigold planning out their next move over text messages to send them a selfie of herself.
- When Chat Noir contemplates letting Silencer extract his confession from Bob Roth, Scarlet Lady insists that they can't let an akuma make XY or Chloé look bad.
- Scarlet also ignores dealing with the akuma herself in favor of snuggling up next to a helplessly tied up XY.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Adrien explains to his friends that he can't be involved in their music video due to his father's contract but insists it doesn't bother him... while forcing a smile that makes it clear he's lying through his gritted teeth.
- Verbal Backspace:
- Bob starts to ask XY what he copied before correcting himself to "created."
- When confronting Bob Roth about how he threatened Kitty Section, Jagged Stone slips and almost says, "my kids."
- We Need a Distraction: While Roth's security guards aren't fooled by Ivan pretending to be akumatized, they still get distracted by him chasing Juleka and Rose around and fail to notice Luka and Marinette slipping past them.
