#fei wu

Hey... What the fuck?

OH MY GOD I FIGURED IT OUT

Okay so at first I was excited to see that Lila was using this disguise from Miraculous London again, and then we had this cluster fuck of a post-endcard scene. And I think I know exactly what will happen in Secret Protocol.

Episode 25 is on Sabine's birthday. She'll likely invite her family, her parents, Uncle Wang, perhaps his ward Fei, and why wouldn't Fei invite her new friend who she met from France?

All the Miraculous holders are responsible for maintaining their secret identities, such that most of them don’t even know who each other is under the mask. But Ladybug is under even more pressure, which explains why she feels justified in setting forth these onerous protocols. Listen closely, and you can hear multiple brains snapping like twigs as they scroll through the doc. Even Kagami thinks these rules are excessive. Kagami. But at least, as we see later, Marinette isn’t asking anyone to do something she doesn’t do herself.

Marinette’s brilliant and a whiz at engineering secret compartments, but the fingerprint-activated snowglobe seems a bit much. I suspect Ladybug had Pegasus commission that device since it involves sophisticated electronics. Speaking of Max, his accommodations for Kaalki may have inspired the nook Marinette created for Tikki.

Note the strategic placement of objects in Marinette’s room, including what appears to be a fake journal to distract intruders from the real ones she's got stashed. Good security involves a combination of high-tech and low-tech procedures. In another life, Marinette might have become a top DGSE operative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate_General_for_External_Security

That fraisier cake Marinette is attempting for Sabine’s birthday surprise is no joke. It uses every trick in the cookbook and then some. Then again, for someone who can pull 2782 safety protocols for the Miraculous out of her derriere and has an experienced baker on hand to provide technical support, perhaps it’s not so much of a much.

The special breakfast and the picnic featuring the gourmet cake? (shakes head) She goes too hard and does too much… then again, if you remember “Qilin”, you’ll observe Marinette takes after the birthday girl. BTW, the mention of the Champ de Mars unlocks a new location within the city of Paris, if only by phone.

Bonus points to you if Uncle Wang’s sudden appearance reminded you of Lila’s visit to Shanghai as shown in “Queen of the Dreadzone”. We knew Lila was collecting intel on Marinette, but it wasn’t certain what for and few people could have guessed how she’d use it. In retrospect, the golden ladybug earrings were an obvious Trojan horse… but Lila may have been counting on Marinette to suspect a trap, throwing her just enough off her game to make a mistake.

I confess that when Marinette suggested her beloved Uncle Wang might be the Butterfly, I wanted to reach through the screen and slap her. It’s a particularly unhinged conclusion that momentarily distracts her from more probable scenarios. That includes the akumatization theory; recall that Chloe’s transformation into Queen Mayor was marked solely by a new coat and her mayoral sash.

ICYMI: when Uncle Wang turned into Kung Food, the akuma was in his hat. That makes it the most likely vessel for a hidden akuma. Whapping up a new hat and giving it to Uncle Wang as a present encourages him to remove the possessed object, undoing the theoretical akuma’s influence. Not removing the hat would have been an immediate tell. Marinette didn’t count on Uncle Wang catching a butterfly the old-fashioned way.

Basically, “Secret Protocol” is shorthand for “give Tikki the earrings and let Scarabella do the heavy lifting”. The particulars of what to do next are Alya’s choice since she’s temporarily assumed the position of Guardian. Depending on the scenario, Alya might summon entirely different Miraculers as backup. However, given Chat Noir’s position as second-in-command and Carapace’s role as Rena Rouge’s most frequent partner besides Ladybug, these two are more likely to receive call-ups than others.

New power unlocked: Rena Rouge’s flute doubles as a telescope, which proves helpful since her power usually requires her to operate from a remote location.

Marinette’s been in the soup before, but it’s never made Chat Noir crash out this way. Then again, all those times happened back when Marinette was just a “really good friend”.

As Marinette learned from her dearly departed grandfather, sometimes a mouse infestation at your bakery is not necessarily a bad thing. Meanwhile, Minotaurox’s potential as a human, or rather bovine shield, was long overdue for deployment.

So it’s all just been a big misunderstanding complicated by a few irritating coincidences, and we can all take confidence that the Secret Protocol will succeed if it’s ever needed. Sigh. We all knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, if only because it’s the next-to-last episode of the season.

Marinette is wearing the hell out of that qipao (also called a cheongsam, depending on where you are in China). Too bad it ends up used for high drama rather than high fashion. Fei is calling from Shanghai, but the call is really coming from inside the house.

That nagging feeling that even though there's nothing there... something is here.

To pull off this prank, Lila needed to know every last one of Uncle Wang’s personality quirks and even some of the family history. This probably required getting so close to Uncle Wang and Fei that they practically consider her family. Marinette has finally met someone just as prepped, put-together, and paranoid as she is. But what was the endgame? Surely Lila’s not going this far simply to rattle Marinette’s cage. It can only be the first step in a plot to destroy her utterly, likely to be unveiled (if not unraveled) in “Nemesis”.

New York: The relationship between our heroes is incredibly unstable due to a lack of communication, just as Marinette is stuck because of her crush on Adrien, and everyone is going to do their best to keep it that way.

Shanghai: Marinette's obsession with a boy leads her to lie to her parents and go to another country. She proceeds to completely trust a stranger, becoming strangely clingy with her, even though she stole from her, she still doesn't doubt her and because of her kindness she literally changes her life.

Paris: The plot literally is about loving herself, save her other self, and emphasize the enormous impact Alya had on her life, asserting that she is so important to Marinette that she basically helped define her best qualities and make her a hero. Also THAT scene.

London: The writers literally perform Olympic-level mental gymnastics to justify and force Marinette to gaslight her boyfriend and lie to the world, marking one of her character's lowest points and tainting her relationship with her male co-star.

Tokyo, Stellar Force: Whatever is going on here between Marinette and Kagami.