445: All That Glitters Is Not Golden
Dodgy Synopsis
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449: Usokki! Ogon Densetsu!?
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With Ash's victory over Annabelle (and her heart!) behind them, the twerps are heading back towards Brock's hometown of Pewter City, close to where the Battle Pyramid is apparently located. They pass through some lovely countryside and impressive rock mesas and Brock decides to start preparing lunch, so Ash and May head off together for the nearby lake, a situation ripe with opportunities for skinny-dipping, making out and getting eaten by sharks/killed by a hockey-mask wearing maniac.
But none of that stuff happens, as instead May declares she could take a nap in the idyllic setting and then from out of the bushes pops a Sudowoodo.... a GOLDEN SUDOWOODO!
Well that's that then, Ash simply MUST catch it! Pikachu leaps high into the air and blasts Sudowoodo with Thunderbolt before Ash throws out his Pokeball in hopes of catching the ultra-rare Pokémon. But be warned Ash....
Sudowoodo recovers from the Thunderbolt and catches the Pokeball, tossing it back and beaning Ash right in the face, knocking him down. Sudowoodo grins with a glint in its eye (and all over its body!) then takes off leaving the astonished twerps behind. Rejoining Brock and Max, they head into a small town as Ash and May desperately try to convince a smug Brock that they really saw a Golden Sudowoodo. Max could care less about an ultra-rare Pokémon (which is odd for him) as the lack of water means they haven't been able to have lunch, but once again Mother Hen Brock provides by pointing out a tavern where he thinks they can get a meal. They step inside and are instantly creeped out by the assorted collection of rough looking moustachioed cowboys inside, each of them grumpily making tough guy comments about being tough cowboys.
May notes a poster of Lillian on the wall and reads that a nearby town is holding a Pokémon Contest, and instantly declares she simply must take part. Since it is enroute, the other twerps see no issue with this, but May wishes they could have caught the Golden Sudowoodo to use in the contest. The mention of the odd Pokémon instantly gets the cowboys attention, as they merge in on the twerps looking for action (Not of the illegal May kind, but the Golden Sudowoodo). They believe it has turned golden from living near a vein of gold and figure they can strike it rich if they can capture the Pokémon. But each of them wants to be the one to catch it, and as they begin angrily fighting over who gets to beat the information out of the twerps, a kid gets the twerps attention and motions them to follow him. They dart out the door as the cowboys fight inside, watched from the roof of the tavern by.... Team Rocket's asses!
Well okay, it's more that we're watching their asses, while Team Rocket are using their eyes to look and their ears to listen, hearing all about the Golden Sudowoodo. Meanwhile the kid has lead the twerps into a small cabin where they peek out the window and declare with relief that the coast is clear (no one was actually following them!). The kid introduces himself as Keenan and shows them a picture of the Golden Sudowoodo with him, telling them it is his. May thrusts out her chest and says that it is too bad she can't have it, but Keenan doesn't seem to notice as he rather suspiciously insists that it is true, the Sudowoodo IS his. Max notices that the Sudowoodo looks sad (well more utterly terrified) and Keenan freaks out somewhat, insisting that it wasn't sad when he first caught it.... which is hardly reassuring.
Listening from the roof, Meowth treats us to another Patented Crazy Meowth Giovanni Fantasy, and we see Giovanni sleeping in a golden bed before waking up and hopping into a golden bath for a wet, naked bubblebath as he luxuriantly stretches his legs. Then he sips at tea from his golden tea set before stepping out of his golden house to see his golden garden and Golden Sudowoodo standing in the middle of it, declaring that it is about time he paid Team Rocket their weight in gold!
Inside, Max is asking where the Golden Sudowoodo comes from in the first place, but Keenan doesn't know. Brock points out Onix can evolve into Steelix, so maybe Sudowoodo turned Golden by being near gold? Keenan jumps onto this explanation with disturbing eagerness, then looks startled when May asks Keenan why it isn't with him anymore. Ash notes that Keenan helped them so they should repay the favour by helping him find Sudowoodo. Freaked out, he tells them not to worry about it, he'll find Sudowoodo himself, but they insist on coming along to where they last saw it.
Team Rocket meanwhile have arrived at the lake, where Jesse tells them a bizarre story about her fantasy-world plot to capture the Golden Sudowoodo. We see childish images of her throwing a regular Sudowoodo into the lake, at which point the "Goddess of the Lake" (who looks suspiciously like Jesse herself) pops out of the water holding the Golden Sudowoodo and asking if it belongs to her. Fantasy Jesse tells the truth that it wasn't, and in repayment for her beauty AND honesty, Goddess Jesse gifts the Golden Sudowoodo to her.... presumably leaving the regular Sudowoodo to drown.
But there is a flaw in her plan (yes, just the one, other than that it is perfect!), they don't have a normal Sudowoodo! So Jesse suggests that they dress up Mime Jr and....
BALEEEEEEN WHALE!
Oh James, now you are the crazy one.
So if it can't be Mime Jr, it'll be Meowth, who to his horror quickly finds himself dressed up in a terrible Sudowoodo outfit and about to get booted into the lake. But before he can be, the centre of the lake erupts and the Golden Sudowoodo emerges from the water (which is odd, since Sudowoodo don't like water) with a huge smile on its face.
It babbles away its own name happily and Meowth tries to translate, only to discover that there seems to be something a little mentally defective with the Golden Pokémon, as it insists that the weather tastes nice and it wants some more!
Still, they don't care about its conversation skills but the money, and now that it has shown up Meowth thinks it is Jesse's turn to get her hands dirty. He throws a figure hugging wetsuit onto Jesse (like you wouldn't) and then pops a snorkel, net AND jetpack onto her....
Jesse is blasted into the lake, crashing into Sudowoodo and threshing about before emerging victorious, she's captured it! Meowth and James cry out in delight until she points out that SHE is the one who caught it.
The twerps arrive on the scene and demand they hand over the Golden Sudowoodo, it belongs to Keenan. Jesse growls the rule of the sea says otherwise (sea, lake, whatever), then James and Meowth leg it when they see Pikachu sparking up. Jesse is left behind and Keenan reluctantly agrees to try to return the Sudowoodo to its Pokeball, but it ducks behind Jesse who gets hit with the red beam, gritting her teeth in pain as she gets to find out firsthand what that actually feels like. James and Meowth grab her and cheese it, leaving Sudowoodo behind.
Ash can't understand why Sudowoodo doesn't want to come with Keenan, and Brock says Bonsly might be able to talk to it. He calls it out and it dances happily, then goes over to Sudowoodo and chats to it, hearing a sad tale while the twerps and Keenan look on. Sudowoodo shakes it head and cries before running off, followed by Keenan while Bonsly just seems utterly confused by the whole thing.
Keenan chases after it calling out for it, only to trip over and then ask what he has done wrong? The twerps catch up and ask why it ran away and Keenan admits that he hasn't been entirely honest with them, explaining that he did a "little" experiment on Sudowoodo back when it wasn't golden, trying to remove its dislike and weakness to water. But the machine malfunctioned, exploding and revealing a now Golden Sudowoodo that freaked out, threw a tantrum and eventually ran away.
Brock growls they can hardly blame the Sudowoodo for running away, but Keenan insists that he didn't do it on purpose (wait.... yes he did!) and he has been working on a way to change it back, and thinks he might have figured it out... maybe. But to find out, he needs to get Sudowoodo back.
Elsewhere, the Golden Sudowoodo seems relieved to be alone, only for Team Rocket to call out from above in their Happy Buddha Face Meowth balloon. They blast a net at it but it runs from them, so they chase, firing net after net as it runs towards the town, and straight into the tavern full of angry cowboys.
It waves with a nervous smile and then runs out chased by the cowboys and their nets and lassoes, while the twerps and Keenan trudge through the town and spot it. Keenan calls out to Sudowoodo to follow him so he can turn it back to normal, but it runs down an alley away from him, Ash noting with his usual tact that it REALLY doesn't like him.
Team Rocket are pissed to see someone else trying to catch THEIR Sudowoodo, and Meowth fires out what looks like a couple of pot plants, which combine together to turn into.... A RO-POT! THE POTTED BONZAI BOT MARK I!
With repeated cries of,"BONZAI!" it tries to grab Sudowoodo, bringing down the water tower instead as the twerps arrive on the scene and Pikachu blasts at the robot with Thunderbolt, but to no effect. The Potted Bonzai Bot Mark I charges at Sudowoodo and swings one mechanical arm, only to be blocked by Keenan who throws up a shovel to stop the arm, insisting that Sudowoodo is HIS PROPERTY! IT BELONGS TO HIM!
The Potted Bonzai Bot Mark I reacts by PUNCHING KEENAN RIGHT IN THE FUCKING FACE! The Bot tries to grab Sudowoodo again, but its leg is grabbed by Keenan who yells at Sudowoodo to run. James demands to know how that crazy kid can be gumming up the works, and Meowth screams back a reply familiar to Hulkamaniacs everywhere,"VITAMINS!"
Sudowoodo, having seen Keenan stand up for it, leaps in and headbutts the Potted Bonzai Bot Mark I over, giving us a completely unnecessary spread-eagled shot of robot asshole. It struggles back up but gets overhand chopped by Sudowoodo, and in true Japanese cartoon fashion it explodes into two pieces
Meowth insists that in Team Rocket not winning is everything and James cheers at his attitude while Jesse retreats back into her happy fantasy world. She is soon shocked out of it when she and the others are Thunderbolted by Pikachu, blasting off again as Jesse moans that they went for gold and got tin.
Keenan approaches Sudowoodo and thanks it, then tells it he never meant for this to happen and hugs it, begging forgiveness and promising to change it back as soon as he can.... but the cowboys show up! They run for it back to Keenan's house, and Sudowoodo is put back in the torture device it was first experimented on. They try once again, zapping it with some kind of energy and.... it's a regular Sudowoodo again! Moments later, the cowboys are grumpily looking around for their golden goose as the twerps walk by with Sudowoodo, no one taking notice of the now regular Pokémon.
As the sun sets over the pretty landscape, the twerps and Keenan say their goodbyes, the latter now reunited with the Pokémon he abused and experimented on. Heading away, Ash turns and looks directly at May's chest, then declares that she'll be relying on her team to win the next contest.
| BEST QUOTES |
 "Simple, isn't it?" "Just like you!"
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