First, his mother turns out to be Evil All Along, and wastes no time manipulating him during their 'happy reunion', twisting him round her little finger until he willingly gives her the Cat Ring, over Plagg's desperate protest. The moment she gets what she wants out of him, Emilie shows her true face, blithely dismissing her son's concerns and leaving him to start questioning matters just a little too late.
Then he upsets all of his friends with his obliviousness towards how much they suffered due to his father's actions as Hawk Moth, trying in vain to argue that he should be shown leniency. He only makes matters worse when he accidentally reveals that he knew about Lila the whole time and didn't do anything. Felix later points out that they may not consider him their friend after learning how little he regarded them.
Forced to face his parents again after they kidnap him and Felix, he claims that he can convince Marinette to hand over her Earrings so he can Wish for his mother to recover. Emilie hits him hard with a Breaking Speech about how naive, selfish, and entitled he is to expect Marinette would bend over backwards like that for him, revealing that she prefers Felix and that they intend to forcibly fuse him with his cousin to create an 'ideal son'. Adrien is left utterly crushed in the wake of her cruelty.
So much of Adrien's naivete stemmed from his desire to trust his parents. He wanted to help them out so that they could all live happily together, only for that idealistic image of the Agrestes to be irrevocably shattered upon realizing that he can never actually 'earn' their love.
In a happier tearjerker, Adrien eventually finds some measure of peace by accepting his aunt Amelie and Felix as his new family, calling them his mum and brother. While Plagg completely rejects him at the moment, he's able to reconcile with Marinette and get one last 'pound-it' for old time's sake.
Marlena reminds us of the downside of Mayor Andre's downfall: everyone working at his hotel finds their livelihoods in limbo after his arrest, and she somberly notes that she's likely going to have to track down a new job.
She and her husband also serve as a sad counterpoint to Sabine and Tom. While both sets of parents learn that their respective daughters have been protecting Paris as superheroines, Marlena and Otis also learn that Alya has been misleading them about what had been going on with Marinette, manipulated by a Consummate Liar and refusing to take any responsibility for her own mistakes. Her priorities have been dramatically skewed by her focus on the Ladyblog, and Marlena is left lamenting that all of this unfolded under their noses without either of them noticing just how bad it had gotten.
Gabriel twists the knife by commenting on the irony of her using the very same Miraculous that was used to create her, as well as the fact that she was sacrificing the life it gave her.
Sabrina has to deal with the guilt of helping Chloé bully Marinette, even as going as far as seeing herself as unworthy of taking part in the meeting to deal with the villains. Luckily, Luka and Pollen representatively give her a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech each, and she wields Pollen in the final battle.
