Cat Blanc: This episode is good... and it pisses me off.
I knew this was a big one, everyone was freaking about it from when the title came out alone. After watching it for myself, I can see why. Cat Blanc is freakin' terrifying but also utterly tragic and it breaks my heart to see him like this. Major props to Bryce Papenbrook, he nails ever single emotion whether it's anger, insanity, sadness, calm, insane and swings back and forth through them without skipping a beat. It was also nice to see Mari and Adrien together, as brief as it was, and to see Bunnyx again. The ending scene with Ladybug and Cat Noir was so freakin' sweet.
It's a very dramatic episode and it's done very well. It makes me detest Hawk Moth even more though, not only did he try to ruin his son and Mari's relationship just to akumatize Mari, but he decides to manipulate, traumatize, and akumatize Adrien, HIS OWN SON, just to claim the Miraculous. I think this proves that regardless of whatever love he has for Adrien, his love for his wife and his obsession to bring her back will always come before that. He doesn't care who he has to hurt, even if it's own child, as long as he gets what he wants. Adrien's reaction when he finds out the truth, then the akuma making it so bad he snaps and Cataclysms everything and everyone including Marinette... man that's dark. This is without a doubt the darkest episode in the show so far.
So the episode is good, there's no denying that. So why does it piss me off? Well... even when all I knew about it was the summary, it seemed pretty clear to me that this episode existed to justify maintaining the secret identity drama. One thing I was hoping that the show would do by that point was drop the whole thing as I felt like they'd exhausted all those stories and there was more potential with everything revealed. It felt like a slap in the face because it was essentially saying that if that happened, everyone would die. It also puts the blame on Mari because... she decided to confess her feelings for Adrien? And why does it suddenly care about her using it for personal gain where aside from The Bubbler she's done so and the show didn't care? And Adrien frequently uses his Miraculous for himself such as to get out of the house or set up something romantic for Ladybug despite her not being interested... you know, personal gain. I don't know, it REALLY rubs me the wrong way, like Marinette isn't allowed to be happy or grow because if she did, they'd have to change things. And given I know they do something like this again in the 100th episode... yeah that REALLY pisses me off.
I guess the question is how much do I hold that against the episode? It's not like the writers did that to spite me or anyone else personally, they did an interesting episode concept and they did it well. The voice acting from Bryce Papenbrook and also from Crisitna Vee also was really good, some of their best work thus far. There's nothing wrong with the episode, it just gives me this irritated feeling but that's a personal thing. So... I don't feel right giving it a 5/5 because of said irritation, but overall it was a very good episode and one that I would watch again. 4/5.
Felix: I groaned when this title first came out. I was familiar that Felix was the prototype Adrien from the original anime-inspired PV of the show. They didn't use him because he was an asshole and from what they said having Mari crush on him would send a horrible message, and... yeah having seen the PV I can see why. But the creator also always made it clear how much he hated Felix and didn't like it when anyone asked about him. This was when my opinion of said creator had gone massively downhill, so when I saw the title... yeah, I knew exactly where this was going.
While I was fine with them using Adrien over Felix, there were plenty of people who had wanted the PV version of the show to have happened especially around this time. It felt like this was them introducing Felix to make him as unpleasant as possible and give the middle finger to that section of fans. I think it's one thing to jab at asshole fans, I think it's another to use characters/concepts specifically to piss them off. It comes across as spiteful and not only is just a cheap shot, but it's time that could have been used for other things and it was wasted over essentially nothing. But okay, given I didn't watch the episode until now maybe I'm horribly wrong about this, so what do I think after actually watching the episode?
Well... this is an episode where knowing spoilers about later actually improves my experience... for the most part.
Felix is an asshole. While knowing about some of the stuff in Seasons 4 and 5 make it more understandable why he's an asshole, he's still an asshole. As Plagg points out Adrien lost his mother, and he's still a kind person, being nothing but kind to Felix and making excuses for him invading his personal belongings due to his own losses. Felix sending that nasty message to his friends, while it was to trigger an akuma attack to communicate with Hawk Moth, was still just utterly cruel and given his reaction when he watched their messages he wasn't lying all that much. Again knowing about later helps me understand why and it does look like he wanted the ring to give his mother (though now we know that's not the only reason...), but if you didn't know that like when this came out, it creates a HORRIBLE impression for the character.
I kind of have to give the episode props because it means essentially using the fandom's intended disdain in using Felix and uses it to crate said horrible impression, only to reveal the true depths of the character later. As setup for future seasons, it does a good job. We may not know all of Felix's motivations, but we know that this isn't the last of him. We also have some other great stuff like Nathalie proving to be an utter badass and us getting three akuma at once. Mari's part is much more minor compared to normal, but her not being fooled and even punching Felix when he tried to forcibly kiss her was SO satisfying. Even Chloe's on her best behavior this episode!
This episode is always gonna irk me somewhat, if only because watching Felix be so cruel is REALLY hard to watch. Even knowing about later, it still has that vibe of giving fans the middle finger and sure maybe that was intentional, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. But the episode did it's job in setting up Felix, allowing some emotions regarding Emilie's 'death' with Gabriel especially bitter, and sets the stage for seasons to come. 4/5.
Ladybug: This episode is excellent!
Lila follows up her promise from the start of the season to ruin Marinette, and she succeeds in framing her for cheating, assault, and theft. While I find Lila despicable, I can't deny that her plan was brilliant by using Mari's well-known dislike of her and knowing how she'd react to plant evidence on her and be careful to leave no trace. Mari has no way of proving anything otherwise, and while I feel that expulsion is FAR too extreme, there's truly nothing that she can do.
We find out that Lila did this for two reasons. One was to let Gabriel use his Catalyst plan again, although it's ruined by Nathalie's condition. The other is to allow Lila to become a model for Gabriel, specifically alongside Adrien against his will. Lila has wormed her way into their lives and gotten everything that she wants and even though no one seems to seriously think that Mari did any of what she was accused, they aren't blaming Lila either. It is kinda funny to me how salt fics portray Alya as a horrible friend where here she is the most vocal about believing Mari and while she doesn't accuse Lila, she is determined to prove her best friend innocent.
Nathalie striking out on her own when Gabriel refuses to let her use the Miraculous anymore and creating a Ladybug sentimonster is really good. It shows that Mayura can create human-like beings, something that will be VERY important later, and it makes her killing Sentibug when Mari gives her the Amok all the more heartbreaking. I'm a little annoyed that Cat Noir fell for the trap so easily, especially since last episode Mari saw through Felix so easily, but meh. I also don't like how Mari's parents seemed to believe that Mari might be guilty. I get that it looks bad, but Tom, Sabine, come on... you know better than that. It makes Tom saying he never believed it at the end feel hollow and IDK why they wrote it that way when her parents have ALWAYS supported her before.
That said, none of those nitpicks ruin my enjoyment. We even get a Ladynoir vs HM/Mayura fight which was awesome! I'm sad that Mayura's been benched, they really didn't do much at all with her, but that's not this specific episodes fault. But honestly the real MVP of this episode is Adrien. Like Alya he never doubts for a second that Mari is innocent, but unlike Alya he knows full well that Lila caused it. He can't prove it, but he makes it very clear that Lila crossed a line and that she better fix it or else. It annoys me that Lila got off scot free by lying that she can't help but lie, like... I know compulsive lying is a thing but come on! But it gets Mari back in school so I'll accept it for the time being. Overall this episode was really good! It feels like a payoff from what they started this season, and we even get a cute flashback of Adrien getting Gabriel's permisison to go to Mari's surprise party last seaosn... which apparently means Befana comes after the Queen's Battle episodes. Huh. Well anyways, loved it! Now it's on to the two-part finale! 5/5.