Miraculous Ladybug, Season 3, Part 1, directed by Thomas Astruc. Written by Nicky Baker et al. Zagtoon, 2019. Rated TV-Y7. 13 episodes.
It had seemed, after the second season of Miraculous Ladybug made it from France to the United States, that the distributor had worked out the problem with the jumbled episode order. The third season of the show, however, tells us this is not the case: The episodes are crazily out of order here, which is a problem since this third season continues to develop a linear plot. Despite that, this is another strong season overall with only a few flubs. A viewer just needs to be willing to go with the flow, to assume that previously unmentioned plot points or characters will get their introduction at some point.
I earlier wrote about the first half of the third season and think this previous post only needs a slight update now that the third season is available in its entirety.
The beginning of this season’s second half is not encouraging: It’s a recap episode, and like all recap episodes, it’s pretty bad. However, after that and a few other weak episodes, things ramp up.
New Complications
Time Travel
Probably the most notable inclusion in this third season is the introduction of time travel as a recurring plot device. How important this will actually be remains to be seen, but time travel features in three major episodes this season.
Viperion
Following the established concept from the second season, Ladybug continues to loan miraculous to her friends on a temporary basis and turn them into new superheroes. A few heroes get introduced this season, but the most significant is Viperion, a transformed version of Ladybug/Marinette’s love interest Luka.
Ladybug at first tries to give the snake miraculous to Adrien, unaware that he’s her sidekick Cat Noir. When that doesn’t work out well, she gives it to Luka instead, turning him into the Viperion, who has the power to go back in time five minutes, as many times as he wants. This leads to a sequence reminiscent of, and likely inspired by, Edge of Tomorrow (the movie based on the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill). Ladybug’s need to select Luka instead of Adrien also reflects another theme in this season, as I’ll discuss below.
Bunnyx
Second, and more significantly, we have Bunnyx, a rabbit-themed superheroine capable of traveling to any point in time. She comes from a future in which Ladybug and Cat Noir are adults—and are still fighting Hawk Moth. Both her episodes are really good, but they’re also dismaying as they suggest this show is really never going to have a resolution, what with the two protagonists being in the same situation they’re in now six or more years in the future. However, the line, “The future isn’t set in stone” gets repeated throughout these episodes, suggesting that fans aren’t supposed to take this too seriously.
The Villains
The second season opened by revealing the true identity of Hawk Moth, the supervillain responsible for creating all the other villains in Paris. Season 2 also introduced his sidekick, Mayura, who uses the peacock miraculous to create “sentimonsters,” deadly inanimate objects more formidable than Hawk Moth’s supervillains.
The relationship between Mayura and Hawk Moth, and their motives, get further development here. Although he chews scenery like a standard comic-book villain, Hawk Moth has reasons that are easy to appreciate.
Between the two, Mayura is probably the more likable, as she dutifully serves Hawk Moth even though his victory would mean her loss. Due to the damage her miraculous had previously suffered, Mayura begins to succumb to illness as this season progresses, and that awakens sympathies in Hawk Moth, showing us a new side to his character.
During some episodes, Hawk Moth also leaves his lair and interacts with the heroes directly, which is always refreshing. He continues to be formidable in a one-on-one fight, even when not hiding behind his supervillain creations.
Your Crush Gets Crushed
I’d best give a spoiler warning here. This season does a fantastic job, which I deeply respect, of demolishing expectations regarding the characters’ relationships.
This show, as readers may recall, is a boy-girl buddy-cop drama, following the usual formula of two crimefighters who can’t admit their feelings for each other, except with the complications of secret identities thrown in. Season 2 introduced two rival love interests, the guitar-strumming Luka with an eye for Marinette and the hot-headed Japanese fencer Kagami who has the hots for Adrien.
Kagami
Season 2 didn’t do much with these characters aside from introduce them, but Season 3 has taken them out of reserve and given them their proper place in ways unexpected but sharply written. Kagami continues to be one of the most interesting characters in the cast, and her relationship with Marinette is a refreshing change from the combination of antagonism and jealously that characterizes Marinette’s interactions with other girls who are after Adrien.
As season 3 develops, Kagami and Marinette develop a frenemy-style relationship in which Marinette’s jealousy continues to smolder while Kagami, socially inept and oblivious, makes overtures of friendship partly out of genuine affection and partly out of a sense of duty—apparently thinking she needs to be friends with all of Adrien’s friends if she’s to marry him. At the same time, Adrien and Kagami pal around in a way that seems comfortable and natural, and which contrasts sharply with the bumbling that characterize his interactions with Marinette.
The quality of both the writing and the acting in the depiction of Adrien and Kagami’s relationship is high. It looks and feels like genuine affection, and that of course means that Marinette’s romantic aspirations are in big trouble.
Luka
On the other hand, there’s Luka. While Kagami is one of the most fascinating characters in the show, Luka is the most boring. Easygoing and always calm, he’s almost Marinette’s opposite, which was probably the idea, but the writers have gone too far in depicting Luka as an excessively nice guy.
As I was watching the show and growing frustrated with Luka, I thought to myself that a boy like him would probably be equally happy if he married Marinette or lost her to Adrien, and then, a few episodes later, he actually comes out and says it. This level of detachment might indicate spiritual maturity and wisdom—the writers’ likely intent—but in the world of storytelling, it’s uninteresting. One of the first rules of character-development is, your characters have to want something and preferably want it badly. Luka does not want anything badly and acts as if he’s incapable of it.
Consequences
In one of the biggest fan-teases I’ve ever seen, during “Cat Blanc,” a time-travel episode, the show depicts what could happen if Adrien and Marinette learned each other’s secret identities and fell in love—and the results are devastating.
This is one of the best episodes in the show, and it finally accounts for an ongoing plot device that until now had seemed largely arbitrary—the need for Marinette and Cat Noir to keep their real identities secret from each other. This third season opens serious questions about whether a romantic relationship between these two is even possible while also moving them closer to Luka and Kagami.
While the show from the beginning had made it look as if Adrien and Marinette’s love was inevitable, this third season wrecks that as far as possible and does so convincingly. I’ve little doubt that it’s going to twist things back around in later seasons, but season 3 ends on a grim note, which I respect.
Conclusion
Season 2 had no bad episodes. Season 3 can’t keep up that level of quality, but it does contain some of the best episodes in the entire series and it continues to exceed my expectations.
I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop: I keep expecting this show to peter out, plummet disastrously in quality, or commit some major flub. So far, despite obviously limited resources (the animation still varies considerably from one episode to the next), it remains really good, probably one of the most creative superhero titles in recent years.
Two more seasons are already planned, and this season gives the impression that the show’s creators really do intend to stretch this out as long as possible. Sooner or later, it probably is going to drop in quality: Just as a personal guess, based on past experience, it has two seasons left in it before it begins to tank.
But I may be wrong.
