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immaturityofthomasastruc · 11 months

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IOTA Reviews: Protection

In this episode, Lila is once again going to test the boundaries of Marinette's bond with her best friend, Al—Kagami. Uh, yeah, it's Kagami, not Alya. Because it's not like we saw that four episodes ago, right?

Let's get into the sixteenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Protection

We start off with Kagami hanging out with Lila to establish the fact that Kagami still trusts Lila over Marinette for some reason before cutting to scene where Marc and Nathaniel reveal a plan for Marinette and Adrien to have their first kiss. Somehow, they believe kissing will allow them to be more honest with how they feel about each other based on what they've seen in fairy tales, shoujou manga, and Hollywood romantic comedies. I'm not making this up. Marinette and Adrien go on the Ferris wheel to try and have a romantic moment as part of the plan, only for Nino's terrible guitar playing to ruin the mood.

Nathaniel: Nino, have you never touched a guitar before?

Nino: Uh, no dude. This is my very first time!

Nathaniel: Well, then why did you replace Luka?

Nino: Well, it didn't look so hard when he was playing it!

Hey, to be fair, I'm there's at least a few people think Nino and Luka are the same character.

After the plan fails, we cut to Gabriel and Tomoe having tea as they discuss moving up the date of something called the Diamonds Ball. Gabriel claims its a scheduling issue, but Tomoe is able to hear his heart beating erratically. Because like in every TV show ever made, being blind somehow gives Tomoe the powers of Daredevil. Also, check out what Tomoe compares Gabriel's heartbeat to.

Tomoe: Your heart beats louder than a taiko drum!

GET IT? IT'S BECAUSE SHE'S JAPANESE!

After Gabriel reveals that he doesn't have a lot of time left (even dramatically showing his Cataclysmed arm to Tomoe when she can't even see it), we see Adrien and Kagami talking about how long Adrien was in the dark about Marinette for. All due respect, this is actually a pretty good scene. I like how Adrien admits that he doesn't want to force anything while also admitting that this is something he has to do on his own. It shows off their friendship and how far both of them have come. Of course, it's ruined by the fact that somehow, Gabriel and Tomoe never learned that Adrien and Kagami broke up over a season ago. Marinette is invited to Adrien's house, and in another good scene, she decides to stop worrying about what to do around Adrien and plans to go there in her pajamas.

Meanwhile, Gabriel and Tomoe argue about how their children were supposed to be the perfect couple, neither of them acknowledging that they didn't even know they broke up in the first place.

Tomoe: All of our plans are falling apart! You were supposed to control your son, Gabriel!

Gabriel: And you, your daughter!

Tomoe: My daughter's so perfect she doesn't need me to control her!

Gabriel: Well, it appears she does.

Tomoe: It's not my child who's falling for someone completely wrong for her!

Gabriel: But she seems to be the one encouraging him!

Tomoe: Take control of your son, and she'll have nothing left to encourage. Organize the dance as soon as possible. Don't fail in capturing Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous. It is imperative that this situation be resolved before you... leave!

Where is he going to, the Shadow Realm?

After Tomoe leaves with Kagami, Gabriel talks with Adrien. He tries to convince him to get back together with Kagami because they're “Of the same design”, and when the camera shows Gabriel touching his ring, he forbids Adrien from continuing his relationship with Marinette.

Gee, I wonder how Gabriel is able to do this. I wonder what he means when he used the word “design” to describe Adrien and Kagami as if they weren't human. I wonder why we keep getting shots of Gabriel touching his ring whenever he orders Adrien around when this show has already established that creations of the Peacock Miraculous can be controlled with whatever object they were in and—Oh my God, just say Adrien and Kagami are Sentimonsters already!

We also get a scene where Tomoe tries to convince Kagami she still has feelings for Adrien, once again reminding us that she's Japanese.

Kagami: He loves Marinette, and Marinette is my friend. Some knots can't be undone.

Tomoe: When the knot cannot be undone, the samurai cuts right through it.

Ah, yes, just like the well-known Japanese legend of when Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot.

Adrien follows through on the order Gabriel gave him, until Nathalie gives him another order to do what he wants to do for his love life. For some reason, Gabriel is shocked even though I'm pretty sure Nathalie has had the ring since the end of Season 4, so this one's on you, dude. Meanwhile, Lila lies to Kagami about Marinette being a terrible friend, and once again, Kagami falls for it. Lila tips Gabriel off to what happened, and decides to send a Megakuma (and yes, I know the English dub always uses the term “Megakumas”, but this is the first time in a while where using one makes sense) towards Kagami, akumatizing her into Riposte Prime.

Riposte Prime is... literally just the same as Riposte, only now, she has a different sword, and not even a cool sword at that. Rather than the sword beams she used back in Season 2, Riposte Prime now has the Turtle Miraculous' Shelter power, which she uses by tapping people with her sword, trapping them in red spheres. Why they're red in the first place when the last time an Akuma used Shelter, it stayed green is beyond me. Even weirder, she can only use one Shelter at a time, and I don't even think she knows about this, since she uses it on Adrien and assumes he'll stay in one place. So to summarize, Riposte Prime looks about as creative as Sole Destroyer and needs the Turtle Miraculous to do something Penalteam had the ability to do with ease.

I also need to point out that the whole reason he did this was to ruin Marinette and Adrien's date. Because somehow, a near-death experience at the hands of Adrien's akumatized ex-girlfriend will convince him that he wants to get back together with Kagami. For comparison, there was an episode of Power Rangers Time Force where one of the villains, Nadira, fell in love with Lucas/The Blue Ranger thanks to a misunderstanding. Do you want to know how Ransik, her father, reacted? Not only was he willing to show mercy to one of his mortal enemies, he showed a level of dedication to his daughter and threatened Lucas to treat Nadira kindly, only going back to trying to kill him after the two broke up. The point I'm trying to make is that it says a lot when a mutant crime lord from the future is still a better father than Gabriel is.

Adrien tries to get Marinette to safety, only for him to be trapped in Riposte Prime's Shelter. The tension from that scene is resolved almost immediately as Marinette is then trapped in Riposte Prime's Shelter, giving Adrien the chance to transform into Cat Noir, who then frees Marinette with his Cataclysm. Marinette gets to a safe place and transforms into Ladybug.

Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm and gets a bottle of olive oil. Her master plan is to... just throw it at Riposte Prime. Yeah, all Ladybug does it throw the bottle of olive oil at Riposte Prime, Riposte Prime then cuts it in half, causing the olive oil to spill on her, leading to her losing her grip on her sword for Ladybug to break.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Megakuma, gives Kagami another useless Magical Charm, but she chooses not to accept it, so both Ladybug and Cat Noir head off to detransform so Marinette and Adrien can convince her that Lila lied to her, leading to her forgiving Marinette.

Marinette and Adrien get another chance to be together, but for some reason, Marinette decides to go home, so Gabriel and Lila call this a win. And so the episode ends with Kagami confronting Lila and telling her that she's not going to fall for her lies anymore.

Kagami: I'll still be your friend if your friendship is genuine.

Oh for fuck's sake...

This is the third time Lila has tricked Kagami, and she's still going to trust her? Why? She caused you to get akumatized three times! Yeah, Kagami claims she isn't going to be Lila's puppet, but it's hard to see this as character development when she was already made a complete idiot for no reason! Hell, for all we know, Lila's next plan is to trick Kagami into handing over her mother's social security number.

But I'm just kidding... because this is the end of the Kagami and Lila subplot for the season. Yeah, seriously. Once again, despite being built up a lot, just like with a lot of stuff last season, the writers decided to abruptly end this subplot, as Lila and Kagami have their own plotlines later on. You know what? Screw it, the episode's over anyway.

Like “Sentibubbler”, this episode actually started off pretty strong, but started to fall apart towards the end. I liked the character moments Marinette, Adrien, and Kagami all had, and it really highlights their friendship, and Marinette and Adrien continue to have some decent romantic chemistry. The problem came from how stupid the conflict was. Not only was it out of character for Kagami to be this gullible, but the entire conflict stemmed from Gabriel deciding to ruin his son's date. The Akuma was underwhelming, the resolution felt phoned in, and once again, the cliffhanger doesn't go anywhere for the rest of the season. It's not terrible like “Illusion” or “Derision” were, but it's still a pretty mediocre episode.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... GABRIEL

While Kagami came very, very close to getting the award, Gabriel ended up edging her out and became the first character to get the Biggest Idiot Award twice in a row. Not only did Gabriel have no idea his son broke up with Kagami, he didn't even know he started a new relationship with Marinette, forgot that he gave Nathalie one of the two things capable of overriding the orders he gives his son, decided to send an Akuma to ruin his son's date after he learned he and Marinette were dating, even though said Akuma was the girl he was trying to make Adrien develop feelings for again, and he did all of this right after the episode that ended with him vowing to be a better father to Adrien for what little time he has left before he dies. He's clearly spending what could be the last few weeks of his life well, isn't he?

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