474: Not On MY Watch Ya Don't!
Dodgy Synopsis
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478: Poketchi Nyushu Konnan!?
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The small green haired kid in a bowtie with a Shinx (a kind of half-dog, half teddy bear half-blue, half-black Pokémon with a star on its tail) is very impressed, but Ash doesn't seem surprised. He knows how close he and Pikachu are, and now Brock wants a chance to find out how he and Croagunk fare, so he calls the bizarre, creepy Pokémon out to slouch and stare at the fat man in his cheap suit. Fatty checks out the croaking Croagunk, and discovers.... what? Is it love, is it hate? Will we find out before the opening credits? HA!
Earlier than the pre-credits sequence, the episode opens inside the Jubilife City Pokémon Centre where various Coordinators are practising with their Pokémon, watched by the twerps. It is only three days till the Pokémon Contest, and Dawn asks Piplup and Buneary if they're ready, and they seem to think they are. so she promptly starts.... shopping!?! Yes, apparently she's after Poketch, a kind of wristband/scanner/reader that gives Coordinators various information about their Pokémon, and looks cool too!
Nintendo Representative: Buy. BUY. BUY!
Ash suddenly cries out that he has heard of them and Brock follows up on the lie by telling him that they're all over television. Dawn shows them a model wearing one in a magazine, and then heads into a local shop to grab one... and there aren't any! It appears that there has been a product recall, and a Poketch can't be had for love or money.
Nintendo Representative: If your store is out of Pokémon Merchandise, you can buy it directly from our online store. Buy. BUY. BUY!
The twerps trudge on up the street, Brock offering to make a nice lunch and an angry Dawn retorting that she intends to have a triple banana split with hot fudge! But then a familiar voice catches their attention, and they look ahead to see a very familiar trio in clown outfits selling their own Poketchs!
People gather around desperate to buy, and Ash tells Dawn she can get one after all, so she rudely rushes to the front of the crowd. Team Rocket are delighted though, turning around to conspire over the chance to pull off whatever scam they're trying to pull. They turn back and hand over a Poketch to Dawn free of charge for "being polite", despite the fact she pushed to the front of the line, then offer two to the "strapping young men" with her. Ash says he really doesn't need one but they insist he shouldn't sell himself short, and should wear it all the time.
The twerps head off and settle down on a park bench, Dawn checking out her Poketch and smiling that dreams do come true (what a shitty dream) when suddenly Shinx shows up barking harshly at them. Ash checks it out with Dextina, and finds out that it runs away when in danger.
Dawn is confused why it is barking, and then the small green haired boy in a bowtie we saw at the start of the episode shows up. He tells them Shinx is barking because they are wearing fake Poketchs (oh, that's its other ability, discovering shoddy merchandise?), and proceeds to point out that they're a dumb colour and the paint will soon start peeling off. Dawn is offended, of course, and snaps at the boy for "ranking" on her Poketch, and he replies that he'll just have to show her and pulls it off of her wrist and pours water from a faucet over it... and the paint comes off. Brock and Ash stare at the Poketch's on their own wrists, and they ask how he knew, and he replies that his Daddy would never make such a shitty product.
Nintendo Representative: Nintendo are firm believers in selling quality merchandise. If your Nintendo Product is not satisfactory, it is probably a fake and you are supporting terrorism by purchasing it.
He takes them to a tall building where they meet his father, the fat man in the cheap suit with a goatee and crew-cut seen at the start of the episode. He apologises to them for getting stuck with shitty Poketchs, and also for his son's less than polite way of showing them. They laugh it off, saying that the only people who should be feeling sorry are the clowns who gave it to them.
Fatty explains that once he heard there were counterfeits on the street, he pulled the authentic product from the shelves and didn't tell anyone why, completely gifting the marketplace to the fakes to make a killing. That was a good idea, wasn't it fatty? What, did you have half a good idea and then get distracted by doughnuts?
The kid asks Dawn if she is a coordinator and she explains this will be her first contest, and becomes grumpy when he calls her a rookie. Fatty offers her a prototype of his newest model of Poketch... it even registers the friendliness between a Trainer and Pokémon. We then get the scene from before the opening credits, with Ash and Pikachu registering almost off the graph, and then Brock calling out Croagunk and getting the surprising reading that we saw before. So what was it?
Oh God, Peter Lorre is in love with Brock!
The two stare at each other, Croagunk seeming VERY self-satisfied and Brock horrified. Dawn jumps in to the middle of the awkward situation, wanting to find out about her and Piplup. To BOTH their horror, they discover that they're kind of... well yeah, they're friends.... kinda.... I guess.....
They hang their heads in shame and Fatty laughs that their friendship will become stronger over time, and the kid tells her she shouldn't enter a Contest any time soon. Dawn snaps that if he's so clever, why not check out his own relationship with Shinx, but the kid smugly replies that he's just a student at a Trainer's School, and too young to undergo any such test. Dawn asks what a Trainer School is, some kind of a.... school.... for..... trainers? Indeed it is, and Ash laughs that this means they'll be rivals one day, explaining that he wants to win at the Sinnoh League.
Dawn mocks the kid for being so scared of taking a little test, but he smugly replies that if he did, he'd certainly score higher than her and Piplup. They head outside as the sun sets, and Fatty tells them that year it will be an Officer Jenny judging the contest, and he is sure she'll do a great job. The kid surprises Dawn by wishing her luck, then laughs that she'll need every bit of luck she can get, and she fumes angrily on into the night, long after they've returned to the Pokémon Centre.
She storms around, bare thighs all up in the camera while Ash and Brock smile happily and watch on (oh dear, et tu, Ash?), and then Pikachu gets their attention. They look out the window and far below see various Pokémon wondering with blank faces towards an unknown destination.
Meanwhile, Fatty is checking out the fake Poketchs, wondering why someone has just been giving away counterfeits rather than trying to sell them. As he fiddles about, a noise starts to play from the fake Poketch.... it's a Psyduck! Yes, it's a Psyduck saying,"Psy, psy, psy," over and over again. As he and his son try to figure out what it means, Shinx turns and walks off, much to Fatty and Bratty's surprise, that's not like Shinx!
The twerps have followed along the side of the long line of blank-faced Pokémon, noting that they're acting like robots. Fatty and Bratty show up, explaining that they've come looking for Shinx after it headed away following the discovery of the "Psy" noise coming from the fake Poketch. Ash, in an amazing display of reckless stupidity above and beyond anything we've seen before, ponders just how a Psyduck got "inside" the Poketch anyway.
The truth, of course, is that Team Rocket have somehow gotten their hands onto a Psyduck, and are using it to broadcast through the speakers built into the Poketchs. It calls the various Pokémon belong to the trainers who took the free Poketch's towards it.
Meowth tells Psyduck they're good to go and gives it a basket of fruit, and it rushes off in delight clutching the fruit.... why, it wasn't captured by Team Rocket or forced to work.... it was doing it all for the fruit (no, not James).... it's Benedict Psyduck!
As it rushes off, Team Rocket say a happy goodbye and then giggle that now they've got all these other Pokémon, they just have to wait for Pikachu. But when Pikachu shows up, it isn't as a brainwashed Pokémon, but alongside the twerps. They all wonder why the other Pokémon have just shown up and stomped meekly into a giant boxed space at the foot of the radio tower the signal has been transmitted through.
Ash yells at the Pokémon to get out of the space, and Bratty spots Shinx and rushes towards it, only for a solid steel door to come sliding down and almost slice him in half. Dawn grabs him and pull him to safety, as Fatty FINALLY calls out the name of his son - Landis!
Lying on top of a very confused little boy who really isn't ready for this type of thing, Dawn asks him if he is okay. She jumps up and demands to know who is responsible for this, and of course... it's Team Rocket!
"Listen is that a twerp I hear?"
"It shrieks to me, loud and clear!"
"On the wind!"
"Past the stars!"
"In yer ear!"
"Bringing chaos at a breakneck pace."
"Dashing hope, putting fear in its place."
"A rose by any other name's just as sweet."
"When everything's worse, our work is complete."
"Jesse!"
"And James!"
"Meowth, dat's a name!"
"Putting the do-gooders in their place."
"Team Rocket!"
"We're in yer face!" they finish together.
"WOBBUH!" agrees Wobbuffet.
"Mime Mime!"
Brock guesses that Team Rocket are behind the fake Poketch (bravo Brock, bravo) and they laughingly offer him a gold star, explaining what they did. Fatty is shocked, that's.... not nice! Landis cries out that Shinx is his, but Team Rocket laugh that now it is theirs, tell him to go home, and then as their Happy Buddha Face Meowth Balloon inflates and rockets pop out on the sides of the box holding the captive Pokémon, they tell him to do something about those short pants!
Landis is horrified, but Dawn and Ash tell him not to worry, and send in Piplup and Pikachu for a combination of Bubblebeam and Thunderbolt.... and promptly get caught in clear orbs by Team Rocket.
"Pikachu!" cries Ash.
"Piplup!" gasps Dawn.
"The twerps know their names!" mocks Jesse.
"And so do we!" adds James.
"Don't you just love educational TV!" rhyme Team Rocket together, and the balloon lifts on up into the air.
Dawn calls out Buneary and tells it to blast the Balloon with Icebeam, but it can't quite reach, and Buneary gets tired and has to stop blasting. Landis gasps that they're going to get to keep Shinx, but Dawn won't accept that. She snaps that her Pokémon Friendship may be low, but she'll never give up. She and Buneary take a moment to pause and reflect, and then she orders a maximum blast of Icebeam which manages to reach Team Rocket. It smashes into them, freezing them in place and causing the switch holding Pikachu and Piplup captive to trigger. Pikachu and Piplup plummet through the air and Ash sends Starly in to help them... but it is only a small Pokémon and can barely hold up Piplup, so Ash charges across the ground and leaps to catch Pikachu and.... HE MISSES!
He asks if it is all right and it mumbles its own name in a daze as the Team Rocket Balloon crashes to the ground. The steel door falls away and the Pokémon inside seem to have been snapped out of their mesmerism. Fatty yells at them to return to their trainers and they rush on by, Shinx returning to Landis as Team Rocket break out of their icy prison, demanding the return of the stolen Pokémon! They call out Seviper and Carnivine and... the results are predictable.
Seviper tries Poison Tail and Carnivine uses Bite, and since Pikachu is kind of a collection of broken bones and liquefied organs at the moment, it's up to Dawn, Piplup and Buneary to sort things out. Piplup Pecks Seviper in the face while Buneary smacks around Carnivine with Dizzy Punch, and Landis gasps she really DOES know what she is doing. As Carnivine and Seviper crash to the ground and James cries out,"What will the neighbours think!?!" (wait, what?), Fatty tells Shinx to use Spark to revitalise Pikachu. Meowth screams that he hates insider trading and Team Rocket rush in to attack, only to be Thunderbolted back into the box which explodes (being made out of explosives, apparently!) and sends Team Rocket blasting off again!
Officer Jenny shows up with Nurse Joy in her sidecar, and says that she heard there was a bunch of hypnotised Pokémon out here, so they came as soon as they could...
Right, okay, let's just recap shall we.
A. Everyone's Pokémon go missing, trainers report to Police and Pokémon Centre
B. Twerps meet up with Fatty and Landis
C. Team Rocket capture hypnotised Pokémon
D. Twerps show up ON FOOT
E. Pikachu and Piplup captured
F. Dawn believes in the heart of the cards and defeats Team Rocket
G. Box crashes
H. Pokémon escape
I. Team Rocket blasted off again
J. Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy show up "as fast as they could."
And that doesn't even begin to explain how they MISSED the giant stampede of un-hypnotised Pokémon that were going their way when they returned to the city in the first place!
But Brock could care less about any of that, as he slides in-between Jenny and Joy to ask them if they want to go out for a romantic dinner for three and then oh who knows what the night might bring! And..... and Croagunk makes it clear that there's only ONE love in Brock's life, and it ain't pretty!
It drags him off into the bushes for who knows WHAT and Landis apologises to Dawn, telling her he was all wrong and she'll do great. She smiles.... and then he adds in that she just shouldn't expect to win the contest!
The next day, Dawn shows off her brand new Poketch which are apparently back in the stores now that the counterfeit product has been taken off of the streets. And now Dawn is ready to finally take part in her first Pokémon Contest. But we, Gentle Dodgers, will have to wait for the next episode to see it!
| BEST QUOTES |
   "Go home.... and do something about those short pants!"
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