Miraculous Ladybug Season 1 Episode 18 The Puppeteer
Marinette watches over Manon in her bedroom and plays with Ladybug, Cat Noir, Lady Wifi, Evillustrator and Rogercop plush dolls. Marinette tells Manon about how the villains got their powers and what motivates them. They were ordinary people in Paris who got very upset for one reason or another. An even more powerful villain named Hawk Moth gave them superpowers on the condition that they give him what he wanted — Ladybug Miraculous and Cat Miraculous, two magical jewels belonging to superheroes. Marinette explains that if that happened, the villains would win.
Heroes always win though, and when their game of make-believe comes to the same conclusion, Manon asks to play as Ladybug and Cat Noir, but before they can, Manon’s mother, Nadja Chamack, arrives for her daughter.
Mrs. Chamack instructs Manon to return the doll to the little girl’s dismay. When her mother tries to take it back, the doll’s arm is torn off. Marinette assures Chamacky that she can fix it and bids them farewell. At that moment, Mrs. Chamack’s phone rings. Her co-worker Alec Cataldi needs her help. While her mother is distracted, Manon returns to Marinette’s room and begs for the doll again. Unable to resist Manon’s cuteness, Marinette lends her a Lady Wifi plushie. Nadja calls Manon and tells her that she has to stop by the TV station KIDZ+. Tikki comments that it’s a good thing none of the villains are as cute and manipulative as little Manon.
Waiting for her mother in the reception hall of the TV station, Manon plays hero and villain with a Lady Wifi toy and a picture of Ladybug on the cover of a magazine. When Nadja notices her daughter playing with the Marinette doll, she believes her daughter took the doll without Marinette’s permission, scolds her and punishes her for disobedience by taking the doll from her and ordering her daughter to stay put until will not return from the errand.
This angers Manon and attracts Hawk Moth’s attention. Elsewhere in Paris, Marinette and Alya rush to the train station, ready to spend an afternoon of bookstores and movies. The girls spy Adrien also boarding the train and Marinette is frozen in place as usual. Alya has to drag her boyfriend onto the train. Marinette tries to come up with a plan to talk him out of it, but has little success.
Hawk Moth sends an akuma after Manon, which lands on her fairy wand. Hawk Moth contacts Manon and calls her the Puppeteer and explains her powers, that she can use Marinette dolls to control their real life counterparts, both heroes and villains. Recognizing him from the stories Marinette tells her, Manon sees her chance to be the winner of the game and agrees, being akumatized into the Puppeteer. The Puppeteer begins by stealing the Lady Wifi doll and using his powers on her.
Marinette, Adrien, and the other passengers on the train watch in horror as Alya is akumatized again. The villain then demands that Marinette give her the dolls. Marinette notices that Lady Wifi is speaking less like her and more like a very young girl. Confused, Marinette tries to reason with her friend and tells her that she doesn’t have them. This will only prompt Lady Wifi to call up the fast forward icon and ride her out of the subway station to Marinette’s house.
Seeing the whole thing through the window, Adrien leaves the train and tells the conductor to investigate the cat that is loose on the tracks. Once he leaves, Plagg transforms Adrien into Cat Noir. Elsewhere on the station, Marinette and Tikki are about to do the same, but Cat Noir finds her first and demands information. Marinette explains that Lady Wifi acted like a young girl she was babysitting and let her get a set of dolls that a child wanted. Marinette gives Cat Noir her address, and once she leaves, Tikki transforms the girl into Ladybug.
The heroes find themselves at the Dupain-Cheng house to catch Lady Wifi stealing replica dolls of Ladybug, Cat Noir, Evillustrator and Rogercop. Remembering how they defeated Lady Wifi last time, Ladybug tells her partner to knock out the wifi signal while she fights Lady Wifi. Cat Noir uses his Cataclysm to destroy the antennas, but when Ladybug breaks the phone with no signal, no akuma comes out. Lady Wifi retreats, but not without the three dolls, with the exception of Ladybug. The heroine tells her partner and they realize that Manon must have been akumatized and is using the dolls to control Lady Wifi and now has the means to control three other people, including Cat Noir. To make matters worse, Cat Noir’s transformation is about to wear off as he has already used his Cataclysm. He runs off to feed Plagg.
Ladybug arrives at KIDZ+ and asks Mrs. Chamacková about Manon. When she discovers that her daughter is not in the waiting room, Ladybug checks the security footage to find that the puppeteer, Lady Wifi and three stuffed dolls are on the sound stage. The heroine instructs the adults to evacuate and assures Mrs. Chamack that she will save her daughter.
Cat Noir returns and the heroes race to find the child villain before she can do any more damage. However, they arrive to find that she has already called Nathaniel and Roger as their villains and Cat Noir immediately does the same. Realizing that the akuma must be in the girl’s wand, Ladybug tries to retrieve it, but is outnumbered five to one. Making a plan, Ladybug takes her cloth counterpart and a roll of duct tape and flees to the roof.
