#lycorogue analysis

What they DO know is that Marinette is apparently a miracle worker. As far as they are concerned, Marinette is the Mr. Agreste Whisperer. There have been a couple of times that she was able to convince Gabriel to let Adrien do something. If she’s involved, he can go to birthday parties. He can host a Christmas dinner. He can return to school. He can sneak off to a movie. He can do impromptu photo shoots for his friend’s fashion line. He can go on international class trips. Heck, the fashion show that showcased Marinette’s winning derby hat MAGICALLY DREW GABRIEL AGRESTE HIMSELF OUT OF HIS HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS! One of the FEW times he’s left his mansion in a year (at least). 

If Marinette could do all that, despite the odds, despite Gabriel Agreste seemingly being steadfast in his decision, then why can’t she do so again? Why couldn’t she ask Adrien to stay with them, and then try to talk Mr. Agreste into allowing it?

She refused to sit idly by when Adrien said he wouldn’t be able to go on the New York trip. She stormed over to the Agreste mansion and “convinced” Mr. Agreste to let his son come. 

“My father told me everything. The only reason I can enjoy this beautiful sunset is you. I thought it would be impossible, but you believed in it. You're always willing to take a chance on something or someone, even when no one else is.”

...even when no one else is.

Marinette doesn’t give up on anyone or anything!

Until that moment. That moment when Adrien desperately needed someone to fight for him, to prove to him he’s worth fighting for, to validate that people DO value him and want him to stay. The moment when Adrien needed Marinette’s determination and positivity the most, and she failed him. (Not to salt on Marinette. I totally get why she froze. I’m just putting this in the perspective of the characters)

He had told Marinette that “You're always willing to take a chance on something or someone, even when no one else is,” and yet, apparently this is the point where Marinette draws the line. This is when she’s no longer willing to take that chance. HE’S not worthy of that chance anymore, and with everything that just happened between him and Ladybug, he FEELS that to his core.

Alya sees this. Alya can SENSE how much Adrien needed his defender in that moment, and Marinette just threw in the towel on him. Yes, Nino begged Adrien to not go, but it’s been shown multiple times that Nino truly doesn’t have any power over what Adrien can and can’t do. Sure, it may be a small bit of comfort that Nino wanted him to stay, but it wasn’t what Adrien needed in that moment. 

THAT is why Alya was so pissed at Marinette. All those times that the girl did over-the-top stunts to try to get Adrien’s attention. All the times Marinette has gone to bat for Adrien over “silly” things in the past. All the energy Marinette puts into proving Lila is lying. Then the ONE TIME someone clearly needs her to go to bat for them, and she BAILS!? THAT is when Marinette suddenly doesn’t think Adrien’s worth the effort!? Worse comes to worst, if Gabriel shrugs Marinette off and still demands that Adrien comes with, at least then Adrien still knows someone is willing to fight on his behalf, and that’s something.

But this? Not a single word? It snaps Alya. Trying to get over Adrien is one thing, but now Marinette is overcompensating to the extreme where she’s not even being a good FRIEND to him. Nope. This shit is NOT going to fly with her.

So she storms up to her bestie. She yells at her. She has no clue what inner turmoil is going on with Marinette. She knows nothing of Chat Noir. Honestly, at that moment I don’t think she even realizes Ladybug and Chat Noir are in NYC.

True, it’s a dumb move to send Marinette racing after Adrien in the rain when the city is on lockdown and a dangerous supervillain is on the lose. I’m sure Alya beat herself up about that the moment Marinette was out of view and Alya had a moment to calm down.

BUT THE GIRL IS FOURTEEN! SHE’S ALLOWED TO BE LASER FOCUSED AND NOT SEE THE BIG PICTURE WHEN HER EMOTIONS TAKE HOLD. KIDS ARE ALLOWED TO MAKE MISTAKES.

Also, let’s just face the facts. The amount of times Alya puts HERSELF in danger for a scoop, she probably doesn’t even truly grasp the potential consequences. I mean, yeah, she’s cut back on the self-endangerment a lot after becoming Rena Rouge, but still. Besides, NYC is flooded with superheroes, and at this point none of them have been influenced by the supervillian yet. As far as Alya’s concerned, how much danger could Marinette truly get in, right?

Plus, Alya never expressly told Marinette to go full-romcom-trope and chase Adrien down; meet him at the airport to beg him to stay. She just yelled at her best friend to shake her out of whatever teenage BS was going on with her trying to get over Adrien and make a flippin’ decision already (not that Alya was making that easy, but that’s for another post). Marinette simply made that decision on her own and Alya didn’t stop her. Maybe she tried, but Marinette moved too quick. We don’t know. The camera was on Marinette.

That notwithstanding, once Alya sees the news and knows that Marinette is now MIA, she probably has a MAJOR breakdown. We didn’t see it because it wasn’t important to the plot, but I trust that Alya doted heavily on Marinette the second she returned. Apologizing for her outburst and not focusing on if Marinette was okay. This is probably also where that 180 about deciding how Marinette feels about Adrien came from. Alya demanding Marinette figure it out NOW potentially put her in danger, so instead Alya has decided that Marinette SHOULD go at her own pace; there’s always tomorrow. We’ll see if that continues in s4.

Now, would I have written this whole car scene differently to try to avoid all of those narrative pitfalls? Maybe, but I’m also not a professional scriptwriter, so I can’t really critique those who are for their judgement calls. They went for the emotional gut-punch, and they kept the characters in-character. That’s all I can really ask for from them. 

At the end of the day, while it is always nice when shows take on the responsibility to educate their viewers and show them healthier ways to accomplish things, it’s not expressly their job. Their job is to entertain, and that scene WAS entertainment. It’s only with emotional and mental maturity, as well as an analytical and critical eye, does this scene present itself as problematic and therefore no longer enjoyable, despite it being fairly accurate with regards to how teenagers might think. 

So, let’s actually start with their flight. Based on a quick Google search for “fights from Paris to NYC” I got this list of potentials in November (yes, just about all of them will then give you a pop-up stating that flights are restricted to/from US because of COVID, but we’ll ignore that right now).

The airline the animators created for the special has a design that seems to mimic Air France.

So, we’ll go with Air France’s listed nonstop flight - given that Alya mentions the “looooong” flight, we don’t see or hear anything about layovers, and everyone passes out, we’ll presume it’s a nonstop flight - and say that the class was on that plane for 8hrs and 40mins, more-or-less.

Okay. So we have the flight taking off at 15:55 (3:55pm). It is roughly an 8hr and 40 minute flight. This brings the class to 00:35 (12:35am) their time. At the latest, if we go with the 8hr 55min flight listed above, they’re arriving at 00:50 (12:50am). Add in the roughly 30min drive from JFK international airport in Queens to where they’re staying somewhere presumably around midtown Manhattan, and it’s past 1am their time. No wonder Ms. Mendeleiev wants them to go directly to bed when they get to their rooms!

Anyway, back on track. So, if they’re landing somewhere between 12:35am and 12:50am their time, that means it’s between 6:35pm (18:35) and 6:50pm (18:50) Eastern Time.

Now, we won’t get into things like “how the heck did they see the sunset on the plane and it was still happening as they drove into Manhattan when it probably takes an hour to make it through disembarking and Customs and weaving through a crowded JFK alone” because there are superheroes for friggen everything in this universe canon, so we can pretend 9/11 never happened and airport chaos isn’t as bad.

Plus, the “sunset” Adrien and Marinette watched was still mostly above the cloud line, so it was closer to “golden hour”.

Now, the attack on the plane from an American supervillain and the quick capture by the main NYC/East Coast superhero team pinpoints the flight as nearing its end. They’re probably only a couple of miles out from the coast. Especially since Majestia welcomes their arrival, the flight is probably close enough to being over American soil.

Further proof: the flight is making its decent into JFK as TechnoPirate is handed over to the authorities. Since the superhero team was flying faster than the plane’s cruising speed, it shouldn’t have taken them long to land and hand him over to the probably already awaiting SWAT team.

Okay, so we have established that the plane is probably coming into JFK International between 6:35pm and 6:50pm ET, and that they are in the Golden Hour leading to the official sunset as the plane descends. Which is also why the sun isn’t close enough to the horizon for an official “sunset” quite yet as they drive through what is presumably Broadway.

I mean, it’s not crucial that it’s Broadway, but it looks like they’re aiming for it to be...

Although this one marquee says “Roadway Musical”, so....

BACK ON TOPIC!

Okay, so it’s closing in on 7pm ET - or is closer to 7:20pm if you go with the 6:50 arrival and add in the 35min drive - and it’s the Golden Hour. Based on where the sun is, I’d maybe peg the sun to be officially setting (as in, touching the horizon and sinking below it) between 7:15 and 7:45pm (19:15 and 19:45).

Plug THAT information into timeanddate.com set for Manhattan, and you’re looking at the first week of September or even the last week of August. 

Alternatively, you could argue that it could also be the last week of March/first week of April.

HOWEVER, when the class arrives at the hotel and Marinette and Adrien are first trapped by the dreaded Automatic Doors, we do see this shop sign in the background sporting a jack-o-lantern design. Halloween-themed stores like this are usually seasonal and don’t open until the end of August/start of September. Spirit, the largest Halloween-themed company in the US, has its “pop-up” stores open late-August through early-November. So we’re probably looking at those September dates over the March ones.

Especially since we also get this establishing shot of the class pulling up to the museum and the second show of Adrienette vs Automatic Doors where we clearly see that some of the trees are already changing color. This solidifies that the French-American Friendship Week is indeed during autumn. 

Based on that evidence, the first week of September does seem a bit early. First of all, leaves don’t start changing in NY until the last week of September/1st two weeks of October, depending on how dry/cold the weather has been. So, what if we take the dialogue at face value and ignore that “sunset” is when the sun touches the horizon? What if we take it as “the start of Golden Hour when the sky becomes more of that orange hue”? In that case, we’re going back to the projected arrival time and using THOSE times against that one website.

The US premiere - which ended up being the world premiere - of this special was on September 25, which had a sunset time of 6:47pm. It could be a nice, neat way to have the air date be the canon date of this special and the class’s arrival within NYC. We can even bump it to the premiere on Disney Channel France and have it be Saturday, September 26th, with a sunset time of 6:45pm ET. This way it makes sense that Marinette wouldn’t already be with her class leading up to the bus departure, since it would be a Saturday and non-school day, as well as why Luka would be available to give her that ride at about 3pm (15:00) instead of being in school/just getting out of school himself.

Also, if Adrien still has the same schedule he did back in “Copycat”, he has fencing practices on Fridays.

We know that post-practice, Adrien tells Kagami that his class is going to NYC “tomorrow”, which would seem to confirm that the class is flying out Saturday afternoon. Kagami’s “I’ll see you tomorrow” and mention of "give us more time to practice” doesn’t necessarily mean fencing class and instead probably explains what they do for “dates” in this awkward “are we dating now?” limbo they’re in.

So, what do you think? Is their NYC trip from Saturday, September 26th through Monday, September 28th? Should we give more attention to the actual sunset times and have the trip be the first week of September? 

Regardless of how we time the sunset, this trip IS in autumn, but it’s also after everything that’s happened in the first 3 seasons, which most likely means this is the start of a new school year. How do we feel about the entire class lucking into being in Miss Bustier’s class again; no new students and not losing anyone to a different class? What about the fact that Marinette and Adrien have officially been Ladybug and Chat Noir for a full year, and that Paris has been surviving Hawk Moth attacks apparently daily for that year? What about the fact that Adrien’s birthday is probably right around the corner again? You think they’ll do another episode focusing on that and how it differs from his birthday in “The Bubbler”?

Maybe Amelie is an orphan, and with her sister “missing” the only thing she has to remember her family are those bands. Maybe she wants them back specifically because they’ll help her remember her sister. Maybe one ring used to be hers, and the other was Emilie’s, and Amelie is mad she had agreed to give hers up so Gabriel could use it for a wedding band. Maybe she’s always hated Gabriel and blames him for her sister’s disappearance, and wants the rings back because she feels he doesn’t deserve them. Maybe she’s feeling especially sentimental after her husband’s passing and wants to gift Félix key heirlooms from both sides of his family, and is mad she doesn’t really have anything from her side to hand down. Some families, like my husband’s, have more heirlooms than most descendants care to keep, and other families, such as mine, have only a small handful to pass down. So perhaps the Graham de Vanily family is the latter.

Also, when my grandfather passed away there was a MASSIVE battle between my mom’s side of the family and their step-mother/step-siblings because of of THEIR heirlooms - mostly their mother’s jewelry that my grandfather never passed out despite being a widower for decades - were being inherited by the step-siblings (who had no emotional attachment to those pieces; but they had financial value being things like pearls and diamonds). Maybe Amelie is just as concerned about a family heirloom going to Adrien, and then distancing further from the Graham de Vanily family from there. Kinda crappy since Adrien is part Graham de Vanily himself, but whatever. I understand family feuds.

So, maybe that’s all there is to the rings. Maybe the only reason Félix is so interested in them is because of how much his mother treasures them (he’s at least a good boy with regards to his apparent love for his mother and desire to make her happy), or maybe because of the story of how the Twin Rings “came to be” or how they started to be passed down; like all heirloom stories.

As for Gabriel’s obsession with the rings? THEY’RE HIS WEDDING BANDS!

They are his connection to his wife; a way to have her with him when she normally can’t. I hearken back to what I said before about my mother. If Gabriel has any positive traits, it is his undying love for his wife. He misses her. He grieves her. Please note the episode “Félix” and Gabriel’s reaction to Adrien DARING to suggest that Gabe “move on” and start dating Nathalie. This is a man insanely devoted to his wife (emphasis to the “insanely” part). He even told Amelie: “These rings are obviously very special to me.” That doesn’t have to be because they’re magical. It’s because they are his friggen wedding bands!

They are his way of letting the world know he’s still dedicated to his wife, and that there will be no other (his recent softness towards Nathalie notwithstanding). Those rings - at least him wearing one - is his way of showing that, despite being considered legally single, he never will be in his heart; he is firmly still married to the love of his life. The fact that Emelie still had hers on at first was his tether to her, but when the one ring was stolen, he’d prefer to have his connection to her than have her keep her connection to him. It wasn’t as important as HIM wearing a ring.

Could it be because there’s something magical going on and he literally needs the ring? Sure. I’m open for the writers to explore that. But I’m not a fan of so many people seemingly shrugging off the much more simple explanation of HE NEEDS THAT RING FOR HIS OWN GRIEVING. Something he’s clearly purposefully avoiding; stuck in Denial, convinced Emilie can come back to him with the Ladybug earrings and Cat ring.

Now, I have to admit I haven’t taken the time to go back and re-study the timing of Gabriel wearing the wedding band on his middle finger vs ring finger, but I think he switched back to his ring finger right about the time of “Queen Wasp” when his hope is restored and he felt he was closer than ever in getting Emilie back.

Perhaps he wore the wedding band on the ring finger for a while, but slowly moved it to the middle finger as a way of symbolizing that he was distancing himself from Emilie; realizing he’s a widower. But then his hope is restored, and back to the ring finger the band went.

I mean, in “Gorizilla” he is playing with his ring while talking to Adrien about keeping secrets. He could have simply been playing with the ring because they were about to watch Emilie in a movie, and it was a reflection back to his tie to his wife, but it could also be his guilt of hiding Emilie from their son (let alone Gabe being Hawky).

Perhaps as the Gabe/Nath relationship continues to develop we’ll see the ring return to his middle finger as he again starts distancing his heart from Emilie, and start to come to terms with the idea of being a widower. Maybe the ring will bounce around, not for lack of animation continuity, but because certain instances have Gabe be more sentimental than others. He’s thinking more of Emilie and how much he misses her? Ring on the ring finger. He’s becoming more emotionally connected and drawn to Nathalie? Time to distance himself from Emilie: ring on the middle finger. Etc.

It will definitely be interesting to see where the show goes with those twin rings, but I hope more and more people remember that GABE IS A GRIEVING WIDOWER, and MAYBE those rings simply have sentimental value.