[Review/Recap] Miraculous Ladybug Season 2 Episode 3: "Despair Bear" (SPOILERS) · 5:54am Apr 25th, 2018
Faced with the potential loss of Adrien's friendship, Chloe Bourgeouis tries to learn how to be nice; seeing a potential recipe for disaster in the making, Hawk Moth sends out an Akuma without a pre-planned target.
The episode begins with Marinette's father Tom giving a baking lesson for Marinette's class. Throughout the lesson, Chloe is bored, disgusted, and rude, making insulting comments and showing total disrespect for Tom and the lesson which everyone else is very interested in. For her own amusement, Chloe sneaks off to the side and calls the fire department to cause a disruption.
Marinette is taking a bowl of ganache down to the cafeteria to put in the refrigerator when the fire alarm goes off and the students begin evacuating. After the fire captain comes out to the school and discovers the whole thing was a prank, Director Damocles gathers the entire school for an interrogation and lecture. Chloe tries to frame Marinette for the prank, but Marinette's friends quickly come to her defense, pointing out she was running an errand for her own father's cooking lesson and didn't even have her phone with her. Marinette starts to point out that Chloe was on the phone when the whole thing started, but her friends remind her that this isn't proof of guilt--something everyone learned from the whole Rogercop fiasco.
Ultimately, nobody comes forward to confess guilt, so Director Damocles decides to punish the entire school. Chloe objects to this and threatens to call her daddy, so Damocles exempts her--the actual guilty party--from the punishment.
While the entire student body is cleaning the school and feeling miserable, Chloe is sitting around goofing off and insulting the others. Adrien finally has his fill of it and gives Chloe a talking-to. He tells her that if she doesn't start being nicer to people, then he won't be friends with her anymore. This shocks Chloe to her core.
Later, at Le Grand Paris, Chloe is wallowing in self-pity when her butler comes along and, hearing the problem, decides to try to help her change. Using Chloe's old childhood teddy bear as a moral compass, he encourages Chloe to throw a party for all her classmates and treat them nicely. Everyone is stunned to receive Chloe's invitation, not knowing what to make of it, but a party's a party, so everyone attends. Hawk Moth, having caught wind of this sudden shindig, is absolutely certain that the mere presence of Chloe Bourgeois is bound to cause strife and suffering, so he sends out an Akuma pre-emptively, confident that it won't take long for his Akuma to find a victim.
The party kicks off with an amusing episode--Chloe and Marinette sharing a formal greeting, and neither of them being particularly graceful about it. After that, the party gets into full swing, with Chloe playing hostess--begrudgingly, and always with her butler and "Mr. Cuddly" coaching her on the "nice" thing to do. Each time the Akuma almost finds a target only for Chloe's fake niceness to thwart it, Hawk Moth grows more and more agitated. However, Chloe can only play it cool for so long, and seeing Adrien dancing with Marinette strains her temper to the breaking point. When she finally loses it and her butler brings "Mr. Cuddly" out for an emergency intervention in full view of everyone, Chloe snaps, pushes him into the kitchen, screams his head off, and fires him. This is what Hawk Moth was waiting for--he immediately Akumatizes the butler, creating Despair Bear, a puppetmaster who can latch onto anyone and make them misbehave.
Despair Bear is fast, hard to see, and switches victims as soon as Ladybug and Chat Noir identify his current puppet, making for a tricky fight. When he latches onto Chat Noir, it's almost the end for Ladybug as she nearly takes a Cataclysm to the face, but Chloe, of all people, saves her! Chloe also proves instrumental in the defeat of Despair Bear.
As a final gesture of niceness, Chloe has Tom Dupain over to the hotel to finish his baking lesson. Chloe asks Adrien if he's impressed at her niceness, and he says that he's glad she showed a nicer side of herself, and will still be her friend. As soon as Chloe secures a pinky-swear on that, she reverts to her usual nasty self, proving she learned absolutely nothing from this whole thing.
This is one of the funniest episodes of season 2, and definitely merits a 10/10. The cheek-kissing scene, Hawk Moth's mounting frustration, and a buttload of other reaction shots make this episode a nonstop laugh riot. Particularly of note is Alya's nonchalant little thing she does when she and Nino pass by Marinette and Adrien on the dance floor. It has to be seen, it can't be adequately explained. Also, there's the running gag of Chloe not knowing her butler's name--and we never do find out what it is.
*Sigh* Yet more proof that if Choe were to actually bite it, Akumatized villain activity would probably drop at least 50%.
WHY DON'T THEY LET THAT SHE-HARPY DIE ALREADY
but seriously yeah the world would be a better place without Chloe in it.
You know, I'm starting to lose count of how many times Chat Noir has been brainwashed by Hawk Moth to attack Ladybug and take her Miraculous. It's becoming quite a predictible scenario at this point.
4847158 Agreed, but if it was Ladybug who got infected by the Akumatized villain then it would be a problem. Only she can capture and purify an akuma back into a harmless butterfly.
This was a good episode, although maybe I liked it a little bit more than I should have because I became a giggly little bitch because of the name of the Villain this time around.
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Actually, if Chat Noir defeated the Akuma and broke the object with the actual butterfly, that would free Ladybug from the mind control and she could finish the job. It's just that a mind-controlled Ladybug would be a serious threat to Chat Noir unless one of the others (ie Rena Rouge or Queen Bee) was active, because Ladybug is kind of unbeatable under most circumstances.
I swear, Hawk Moth just needs to haven an Akuma follow Chloe 24/7, it would save a lot of time and effort.
Idk why Hawk moth doesn't just recruit Chloe as a side-kick or something. They could claim the world together. But ANYWAY, that dance between Adrien and Marinette, SQUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
and I love that the song playing in the background was reminiscent of Careless Whisper. 10/10 destroy.
The butler is probably the only positive role model that Chloe has. I wonder if there's a fic out where he's Chloe's real father, and tries to connect with her and get her to change her ways while being discreet. That would be awesome.
Yeah, something I found really fascinating was Adrien's confrontation of Chloe. There didn't even seem to be any anger in it, just sadness and disappointment. Combine this with Kung Food earlier and it makes for a really interesting character trait for Adrien and an interesting dynamic with Chloe that I don't think I've seen a whole lot if anywhere else.
*watches dance between Adrien and Mari *thank you god now I just need the confession and reveal and I can die a happy man