#ml s5

It shows the repeated and complete neglect of a part of the premise this show is built on, SUPERHERO NONSENSE! I get if it’s something he doesn’t have as much interest in, but like in a garden, a neglected and withered plant stands out and can soil the whole presentation.

The show’s repeated and often careless add ons to the world instead of just utilizing what they already have, the guardians of the miraculous being the greatest example as only ONE person went after the box when it singlehandedly caused their destruction and it being so neglected even now, leads to the show feeling quite bloated.

There is even another glaring example in Lila. She somehow learned Gabriel is Hawkmoth off screen and gets the Butterfly miraculous in season five. One of the two has been verbally written off by Thomas as unimportant to show and the other is a loose thread.

I get if Thomas just wants this to be a romcom involving superheroes, but the reality of doing such a thing is that you need to balance more of the story around that partial set up and the expectations that follow. It doesn’t make your story more cohesive to ignore what is essentially the backbone of your show’s premise so deliberately.

The 'it happened off screen' breaks not just genre conventions but basic narrative structure. Felix's actions CAUSED S5 to happen. Even as early as S3 he was set up as a direct antagonist not just to Marinette but to the love square in his first appearance. A scene where Felix acknowledges this is Required to bring closure!

Imagine A New Hope where the rebels set off to take on the death star and we cut to the awards ceremony.

Her excuse for not reporting it, aka doing the job that she RAN for, is just as lame! And I quote:

Marinette: Why would I have? She doesn’t have difficulties! Only privileges! And if you need proof, see how the teachers will let her get away with anything!

I don’t understand why she would think doing nothing is better than at least getting one over on her with the cheating thing.

Marinette at the end of S5 is abslutely unhinged when it comes to Chloé. She was being puppeted by Astruc. They put his actual tweets(the quote you gave came from one of his tweets) into the script.

My point in bringing this up is salvaging that scene in Collusion where Ms. Bustier reaches out to Chloe. Play on the tragedy that scene should have on a character level. Chloe is touched by her words, but that only makes it harder to cling to as, like everyone else, she’ll leave eventually. Lila goads this on as her attempt to get Chloe to follow her words exactly fails when push came to shove regarding Chloe’s… issues. It’s kinda like Chrysalis prep.

This is all to make revolution have an “alone at the top” feel and parallel Chloe slipping into Andre’s role for a day both as mayor and in terms of sheer unhappiness with where they are.

I’d change preluding scenes in previous episodes to match this set up.

You might be asking, “but how?” Well, the “how” is quite simple. She says she’ll be akumatized again on one condition, that being she gets to hold the bee miraculous for a moment. Monarch, thinking he knows her well enough, and seeing this as a show of ego and sentimentality, agrees. She puts it on and make a show of showing it off not just to throw off her intentions, but to mask the small amount of joy she gets holding it again. In doing so she whispers venom and hits Monarch before he could process her saying it. Cue disbelief into mad laughter while something like this plays: ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=fPW2-yx-yMA&ra=m ).

Lila would be confused and asking what happening to which Chloe, high on her scheme working to such a marvelous extent, says she doesn’t need Lila’s lame advice anymore, throwing away the ear piece.

Chloe would take all the rings and the broach off of Monarch, revealing who he is. She’s shocked but not completely flabbergasted as she then wonders why he’d give her police robots just to akumatize her. As if on cue, the police robots turn on her and she turns tail out of city hall to escape, transforming to outrun the robots.

Where goes from here is a mystery I can’t decide on. Whether she goes to the Agreste Mansion to see what else Gabriel might be hiding, just goes back to the hotel to rest up form gloating tomorrow, or goes to the police to take Gabriel into custody first and foremost is equally weighed in my mind. That being said some things will be certain.

Gabriel will be exposed and Nathalie will likely not be, but still die as well. Adrian will be in shambles. Marinette will be confused and pissed. The public is in awe of how a child, on their first day of office, managed to capture their at-large supervillain. Chloe will lie, say she was threatened, but overpowered him with her superior battle prowess.

Don’t you love fun hypotheticals?

The trick is, she DID try to arrest Gabriel, but Lila stopped her. By this point cerise is puppeting Chloe with her magical lie powers that she's used on Kagami and the rest of the class to great effect.

The whole season they were wincing about the fact that, no one can deny it this time, her love for Adrian had caused her to make a grave mistake in her superhero work, (in spite of this being more applicable to season 3, but whatever). Now, normally this would lead to an arc where Marinette temporarily needs to give up on that and focus on the bigger picture, right?

Did you forget the show you’re watching? Marinette? Grow and change? No way in hell! So they came up with the stupidest, most convoluted series of events where Tikki and Plagg think them giving up their burden of being the cat and ladybug holders is the best course of action.

Tactically that makes zero sense. For Tikki at least she’s picked someone who was a holder before, so she’s not burdening someone with zero experience, but Plagg picked someone he doesn’t know has used a miraculous before.

But, more importantly, you can tell they wanted the heroes to give up being holders temporarily so they can get together without the weight of her work being hampered repeatedly by her love for Adrian. To which then both parties are burdened by superhero work and can leave the other “on the hook” so to speak without consequences unlike with Luka or Kagami.

At the end of the episode they then talk about “understanding the reason why Marinette can’t embrace Adrian’s love fully” even though it, to us as an audience, has been front and center this entire season.

Derision is the worst attempt at misdirection I’ve ever seen. It’s not backed up by any previous developments in canon, and it’s an unsatisfactory conclusion to the entire first arc of the season. Why didn’t they just use the established reason? Because that would require AN IDENTITY REVEAL!

The writers, the short sighted numbskulls that they are, wrote a plot centering around either a temporary discarding of romantic affection to show personal growth from previous finales, or an identity reveal for full transparency and a satisfactory conclusion to this conflict. They chose neither and this was the fallout.

You can tell this lesson of “putting your personal feelings aside” wasn’t learned because of what happens in the London special, where she LETS HER PERSONAL ATTACHMENT TO ADRIAN guide part of her decision making. I don’t think she’d have as much trouble just telling the truth if the villains weren’t attached to someone she loves.

Season 5 had so many ??? Moments that were included to push some canned story beat(giving up the miraculous) that made no sense in context, or grind some personal axe via characters.

Plagg and Tikki stripping Ladybug&Adrien of their powers.... While Monarch has *all* the Miraculous. Just throwing it upon some (relative)newbs. It's baffling and dumb and it was crammed into a tight space to check a box. Not to mention it was a nothingburger. Zero stakes because you know nothing will come of it. That's the problem with not having mid-range stakes in your show. You *know* the outcome, because one isn't an option.