134: Foul Weather Friends
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Strange? Where's Chikorita? Why isn't it on Ash's other shoulder? We all recall the previous episode where Ash told Chikorita the other shoulder was for it and yet now.... nothing. Now only Pikachu rides the Ash Express and Chikorita is crammed away into the tight confines of it's cold, lonely Poke-Ball.
Which seems to make Togepi happy, given the massive, wide-jawed grin currently stretching the muscles of it's hideously evil little face.
They pass Bellsprout and Vileplume, Gloom and.... Cutie? Yes, coming up the path is a little bundle of pink joy, hopping happily towards them with wide, Jigglypuff like ears and a couple of leaves sprouting from the top of it's head.
"Cutie!" giggle Misty girlishly, reduced to a mere cypher thanks to Togepi's cruel, energy leeching ways.
"I think it's called a Hoppip," corrects Brock.
"I can see why!" laughs Ash.
"It's a sweetie," Misty insists, deciding that it's not a cutie after all, but another type of Pokemon known as Sweetie?
"Hoppip, the cotton-weed Pokemon, this hopping Pokemon, is light as a feather, and can be lifted by the gentlest breeze," explains Dexter as Ash pulls it out. It's words are given credence when the gentlest breeze comes along and lifts Hoppip airborne.
"We can't let it blow away!" cries Misty in distress, and they give chase to the floating Pokemon.
The Hoppip in question is decidedly unworried, despite the trio's cries for it not to be alarmed and that they're with it. In fact it looks to be enjoying itself a great deal and could probably do without the interference.
Suddenly a pretty girl (they're always pretty, aren't they) appears in the foreground behind the running Ash, Misty and Brock, clutching a net and looking very determined.
Demonstrating the uncanny ability to see out of the backs of their heads, they ask who the girl could possibly be.
Whoever she is, she's trying to catch Hoppip, as she waves her net vainly back and forth in an attempt to catch the Hoppip floating serenely above her. Somehow she manages to get ahead of Ash, Brock and Misty without moving (ahh the joys of shoddy story-boarding) and catches one Hoppip, proclaiming, "One down and one to go."
Make that two down, as the second Hoppip lands on her head as she settles the first onto the ground.
"Well it's a good thing I didn't lose my head while I was chasing you, or you wouldn't have had a place to land," she tells the Hoppip, lifting it from her head.
Oh genius, looks like we've found a mate for Ash.
"Excuse me..." starts Ash, startling the young girl who didn't see them. This may have something to do with the fact that she appeared for the first time facing away from them and then somehow managed to teleport ahead of them still facing away.
Ash begins to apologise, but before he can Brock slide in to hit us with the obligatory HWAAA!
Clutching his palms together and blushing goofily, our tall, toned, tanned and squinty-eyed Gym Leader tells her, "Pardon me miss, my name is Brock. You demonstrated such dexterity that I couldn't help wondering about the identity of such an agile ANGEL!"
"Ahhh," gapes the girl, a little on the thick (or Ash) side of the brains department, "My names Mariahh."
"OH MARIAH!" gasps Brock, "I have a confession to make, you've captured my heart just like you captured that little Hoppip!"
"Return! Brock!" growls Misty angrily, grabbing her pet by the ear and dragging him away. This leaves Ash clear to step forward and continue the conversation, just as we see happen in every other episode of Pokemon Johto so far.
"Like I was saying, my names Ash. Are those wild Hoppip or do they belong to you?"
"They're mine," Mariah tells him, a little grumpily might we add, as Brock pinwheels his arms and leaps from foot to foot as a surly Misty holds him in place.
Taking them back to her place, we find a prison designed in the name of gross capitalism. It seems that the rather thick-headed Mariah is actually quite astute when it comes to business, and she is exploiting the wild Hoppip she has captured to turn a mint.
Her deceptively peaceful looking farmhouse hides a gulag containing seven Hoppip, all of which are dependent on Mariah for food and shelter to live. Trapped in a cage and kept from the airborne freedom which is their birthright, the heartless Mariah profits from the death of Hoppip dreams.
And that's Mah-Rye-Ah by the by, not Mah-Ree-Ah.
"You sure have a lot of thingamajigs up there Mariah," notes Ash, demonstrating his remarkable stupidity as he looks up at Mariah's roof and the assorted weather-monitoring devices to be found there, including the most technologically superior of them all.... The Mighty Weather-Vane!
"You must do something here besides training Hoppip?" Ash asks.
Mariah gives a little grin, enjoying the opportunity to show off her heartless financial nous.
"Wanna see?" she asks.
Inside we see the lie of her carefully cultivated, rustic image.
No weather vanes or idyllic farm-house setting here, but rather a wide range of technologically advanced computers monitoring weather patterns, meteorological histories, stock options and probably the Hoppip enclosure as well.
"All of those instruments on the roof help me do my job," she explains, "I'm a weather forecaster and the equipment you saw gives me data on weather conditions so I can make accurate predictions."
Not to mention turn a fast buck in the process, right you heartless corporate WHORE!
Ahem, well yes....
"Cool," states Ash, who hasn't got a freaking clue what the hell she's talking about.
"How do you manage to train all those Hoppip and still have time to make weather forecasts?" asks Misty.
"The reason I train Hoppip is so they can help me predict the weather!" explains Mariah, giving away the secret of her success. "HUH?" cry Ash, Misty and Brock at once, all three of them not getting if for a change.
"How can Hoppip help predict the weather?" asks Togepi through Misty, curious as to how it could turn this to it's own horrific advantage.
Outside in the cold, cruel confines of the Hoppip's cage we see The Hoppip huddling together out of fear of their cruel taskmaster, Mah-Rye-Ah.
"Now watch closely, the winds going to pick up any second" Mariah tells them.
"How do you know?" asks Ash, thinking maybe she had beans for lunch.
"Did your instruments help you predict that?" asks Togepi through Misty yet again, determined to find this capitalist bitches secrets out.
"I know because Hoppips always cluster together like that just before a wind," she tells them.
And indeed, along comes a breeze, picking two Hoppip up and carrying them away. Their faces come alive with joy, thinking that they're finally free, free, FREE! But it's not to be, it's all a cruel joke on Mariah's part and they slam against their cage, their wings clipped, natures will thwarted in the interests of money.
Just like The US Government!
"That breeze would only rate a two on the Hoppip Scale," explains Mariah.
Yes, that's right, a Hoppip Scale, a deceptively complex formula which is worked out through the arduous process of watching how many Hoppip are picked up by a wind and then repeating that number by itself. Einstein himself would have cried with the complexity of it all.
"What's that mean?" asks Ash, cementing his position as the dumbest crack baby ever.
"It was only strong enough to pick up two Hoppip," explains Mariah smugly, thinking she's super-intelligent, "So it rated a two on the Hoppip Scale!"
Misty and Brock look on, Misty doing a remarkable impression of a inflatable sex toy.
Check it our for yourself if you don't believe us, Dodgers.
"Recently I've been watching the Hoppip more closely and recording their behaviour patterns," explains Mariah, who is concerned they may be preparing to make an escape attempt, "I believe they may be able to help meteorologists make long range weather predictions."
"I see Mariah!" gasps Brock. But no, he doesn't really 'get it' at all, he hasn't figured out that she's hoping to corner the market on long-range weather predictions and make herself a Quad-Dillionaire, rather he sees her through rose-tinted glasses of lust,"It's kind of like some farmers and fishermen who can tell if there's a storm coming by looking at the shape of the clouds of the colour of the sky!"
"That's right!" laughs Mariah, neglecting to mention that her method involves slightly more cruel and unusual punishment than looking up at the sky,"I just love exploring the relationship between my Hoppip and the weather!"
YOUR Hoppip are they? Simply property to be used as you wish, are they? You cruel, heartless capitalist thing you!
"Sound great, but I think I have an even better idea," suggests Brock, then thrusts his body forward, startling the money grubbing Mariah, "Why don't you forget about The Hoppip AND the weather so you can start exploring the relationship between YOU AND ME!"
Misty to the rescue, the over-protective red-head clutching Brock's ear and pulling him away as Togepi roars with laughter cruel.
"Talk about windy," she grumbles.
"Mmm," laughs Mariah, amused at the thought that she could actually involve herself in a relationship that didn't involve financial compensation,"I'll admit it is a challenge to train my Hoppip and keep my weather research going, but being around them makes me so happy that it doesn't seem like work though it's not easy when I have to chase Hoppip that a winds blown miles and miles away."
Heh, uh, huh, uh, huh, I got breathless writing that, I don't know how she managed to say it!
"Sounds like The Hoppip keep you hopping!" quips Ash horribly, but it breaks the tension of Mariah's hideous tableau of lies nicely and they all share a laugh.
Meanwhile The Hoppip are huddled up and discussing escape plans once again, but note that there is an odd looking one amongst them, one that doesn't appear to belong. "The Hoppip are all bunched together again," notes Brock as Mariah turns to cast a stern glare at her prisoners.
"Must be another breeze on the way," Misty suggests, and it proved right immediately when a 7-Hoppip breeze shoots up and blows them all away, all except the odd Hoppip out.
It chases after the others, which once again think that they're flying to freedom. Running along after them we note that it's leaves are different and it lacks ears, and that it's cry of Hoppip sounds suspiciously similar to that of an Oddish.
It bounds up onto a rock and leaps high in the air, kicking it's little legs back and forth and trying to fly in vain before crashing face forward onto the ground.
Seems we have an Oddish Hoppip out.
.....
Dodgemaster Tim would like to apologise for that terrible quip.
"Hey, what's the matter with this one?" asks Ash.
"That ones a little bit... different," giggles Mariah nervously.
"It didn't fly away like the others," notes Brock.
The Oddish stands up and to all intents and purposes it looks to have a pretty serious black eye, but when an AWWWWING Misty tries to brush it's face off we find that it's all blue.
"That's not a Hoppip!" proclaims Brock in astonishment, "That's an Oddish!"
"I know it seems strange, it's a Pokemon from the neighbourhood but the poor little thing spends so much time playing with my Hoppip that it's decided that IT wants to be a Hoppip too!"
The determined little Oddish starts climbing up the tough metal of the Hoppip's cage as Mariah explains that she has tried to explain to the Oddish that it's not a Hoppip, but it's determined to fly.
Climbing high, The Oddish leaps into the air and plummets to the soft straw below, breaking into tears as it realises once again that it has failed to correct Mother Nature's cruel, cruel handiwork. "I wish there was something we could do to help," says Misty as Togepi stares eye to eye with The Oddish with callous indifference to it's plight.
"Yeah but I'm not exactly sure what we can do, Misty, no way an Oddish can fly!" Ash informs her.
OH FOR A TM! If only this were a game!
"YOU CAN DO IT, ODDISH!" cries Brock suddenly, "IF YOU JUST START FLAPPING YOUR LEAVES!"
"BROCK!" snaps Misty angrily, "WHY DON'T YOU STOP FLAPPING YOUR GUMS!"
"Uh... I'll be quiet," mumbles Brock, chastised.
But enough of this foolishness, because it's time once again, for our Beloved Team Rocket to make their appearance!
"Look at dem twerps," grumbles Meowth, "Twerpy as evah! Hmmmmhmmhehehah!"
He moves his binoculars over to the assembled Hoppip, which are still attempting to work out an escape plan,"And look at all dem Hoppip! If we could swipe 'em maybe we could go into some kinda bidness for ourselves!"
"The only kind of business we'd be any good at is a going out of business store!" grumbles Jesse as her and James go through one of those melancholy phases required of all Rr-Teeests!
"Dose Hoppip could have us rolling in dough, Jesse," Meowth happily tells her.
"You want us to open a bakery?" asks James.
.....
Ah well, when you're that pretty I guess you don't have to be smart.
"No," Meowth admonishes, eyes growing wide with potential,"Dis is a million dollar idea, you ready?"
The image of a giant Hoppip appears as Meowth outlines his brilliant plan, "I wanna start a Hoppip delivery service!"
Small Hoppips begin flying out of the giant open mouth of the massive Hoppip Building, each one carrying a package.
"A HOPPIP DELIVERY SERVICE?" ask a bemused Jesse and James together.
Inside the giant building, Jesse and James (still in Team Rocket costumes) leap onto large see-saws, sending happy Hoppips flying up into the air where they catch the breeze and take the packages away.
"All we gotta do is launch the Hoppip into da sky, we don't gotta pay for no aeroplanes, no trucks, no delivery person uniforms!"
Small children wave and cheer as the Hoppips fly over their heads.
"If we keep dem Hoppips overhead, we won't have any overheads!"
Lines of children pull their parents to Hoppip Delivery Service as Meowth explains further,"Every kid loves Pokemon so dey'll have dere parents lining up to use the cute little Hoppip like carrier pigeons, but da prices won't be chicken feed!"
"Ahhhh," sighs Meowth as his vision fades and he returns to the woods,"We could have a fly by night operation!"
"Sorry to take the wind out of your sails," mutters James, he and Jesse crouched on either side of a happy Meowth, "But what happens when the winds die down and drop The Hoppip ten miles FROM THEIR DESTINATION!"
Meowth's face falls comically.
"OH YEAH!" he cries.
"And what would The Boss do to us if he found out we were hoarding Pokemon for ourselves instead of giving them to him!" growls Jesse as a terrified Meowth sees his dream crumble around him.
"We'd be off the team!" moans James.
"Your business plan won't fly..." mutters Jesse, scratching her chin in her best Brock imitation,"But maybe there's a way to deliver those Hoppip to The Boss somehow? Let's seize this opportunity before it's gone with the wind!"
"YO!" Team Rocket cry together, throwing their arms high in unison in one of the more bizarre acts we've seen in Pokemon to this point.
Meanwhile The Oddish is still grizzling about being born a sucky Pokemon, despite all of Misty's attempts to cheer it up, but two quick slashes later and those thoughts are gone from their minds. Before their startled eyes Mariah's cruel prison camp walls collapse and Jesse and James leap out in two of the worst disguises they've ever worn.... we mean really, come one, they didn't even try this time.
James is wearing a small jacket over his usual costume and wearing a mask, Jesse also has a jacket and a mask over her more than evident Team Rocket outfit, and both are waving two giant fans back and forth.
We guess their wardrove budget got slashed along with that prison camp wall.
"May we have your attention please!" they cry, "We're not here to shoot the breeze!"
"That looks like..." starts Misty, but Jesse and James interrupt, sliding into shot with their hideous masks apparent. Jesse is wearing the mask of a portly Japanese housewife (about as far from Jesse as you can get) while James' mask is that of a goofy, crazy, wacky old Japanese man.
"You'll never guess whose behind the mask," laughs Jesse, confident none could penetrate this the shoddiest of all their disguises.
"That would be an impossible task!" agrees James.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US!" yells Mariah with all the belligerent fury a heartless capitalist can only feel when their profit margin is at risk.
"Prepare for trouble and a big surprise!" laughs Jesse as the camera pans lovingly up her legs from behind, giving us a lovely GAS of her from behind.
"Make it double we're in disguise!" explains James, in case no one realised those weren't their real faces.
"To protect the world from devastation!"
"To unite all peoples within our nation!"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"
"To extend our reach to the stars above!"
"Jesse!" cries Jesse, pulling off her mask to reveal, SHOCK! HORRROR! It's JESSE!
"James!" adds James, pulling off his mask to reveal, SHOCK! HORROR! It's JAMES!"
"Team Rocket blast off at the speed of light!" cries Jesse, pumping her fan up and down.
"Surrender now or prepare to fight!" warns James, pumping his own fan up and down as well.
"That's right, fans!" quips Meowth horribly, holding his own fan in paw.
"TEAM ROCKET!" gasps Ash, the only person in the entire known Universe who didn't know it was them.
"What do you losers want now!?!" snaps Misty angrily.
Team Rocket stop fanning, Meowth explaining,"We want dose Hoppip so we can start out own bidness and go legit!"
"WE NEVER DO ANYTHING HONEST!" admonish Jesse and James.
"We could still cheat on our taxes, couldn't we...?" suggests Meowth lamely.
Give it up Meowth, it won't work, going 'legit' was career suicide for MC Hammer, it'll be the same for you.
"Stop whining and start fanning!" growls Jesse, and they begin to fan up and down again, creating a large gust of wind.
The Hoppip are in a state of shock now they're free, and stand still in a prison of their own making as the wind begins to push against them. Mariah, refusing to allow her property and meal ticket be blown away, leaps in the way, telling Team Rocket, "It'll take more than you windbags to move these Hoppip!"
Jesse and James stare at her in dumb consternation, usually they come and execute their plans and people just stand around watching until they've almost gotten away, after which Ash does something stupid and saves the day.
Still, they've never crossed a money-hungry capitalist on the verge of desperation before.
"Okay sister!" growls Meowth,"Get set to meet our biggest fan!"
Jesse and James coo with delight as a giant, electronic fan that Meowth just happened to have stashed in his slacks slides up behind them.
Flicking a switch, it powers up and begins blowing wind towards The Hoppip.
"HAHA! YOU'RE ON DA AIR!" laughs Meowth. The wind begins blowing Hoppip away, but Mariah is a dab hand with a net and captures two of them before they can return to the freedom they long for. Misty and Brock grab a couple floating by, inadvertently cursing them to a lifelong existence of drab slavery to a heartless capitalist worm. Oddish snaps one to as it begins to float away as Ash decides it's time to do something stupid and save the day.
Calling out Chikorita, the Pokemon he promised could stay on his shoulder, he demands it put a stop to the giant, chopping blades of the fan, but before we get to see Chikorita cutlets Jesse sends out Arbok to battle the jealous little Grass-Type.
Chikorita tackles Arbok, then hits it with a rapid succession of Razor Leafs which pitch it backwards, crashing it into Jesse and James and trapping them to the ground.
Meowth panics and puts the fan onto Hurricane Mode, but a quick Thunder-Shock from Pikachu puts an end to that and, yep, Team Rocket's blasting off again.
"I tink dat short circuit is gonna send us on a long trip," moans Meowth as they disappear into the distance.
"You did great Pikachu," says Ash to his favourite Pokemon, and Chikorita quickly leaps in the way, slamming Pikachu aside and glaring with wide eyed adulation at the boy who breaks promises and tells lies to get what he wants,"You did just as great as Chikorita."
Chikorita beams with happiness at Ash's belated statement, throwing one little leg up for a high five that never comes.
Meanwhile Misty is informing Mariah that, once you get to know Team Rocket, they're really not that scary. They look down at the assembled Hoppips, that have discovered to their horror are institutionalised, unable to accept the freedom that is now theirs.
Before they can come to terms with the possibility of escape, unfortunately, they sense something big coming and huddle together, pressing their leaves together.
"Oh no!" gasps Mariah,"A big windstorm is coming!"
"How do you know a windstorm is coming?" asks Misty.
"And how do you know it'll be big?" asks Brock.
She explains that Hoppip only place their leaves together in a huddle format like that if a huge windstorm is approaching, and that such a sight is very rare indeed.
Taking them all inside, she starts going through her expensive equipment to double check the prognosis. Outside it's getting dark and stormy and Mariah explains that all of her equipment is warning her of exactly the same thing.... there's a tornado coming!
"Just once I'd like to make a dramatic exit that didn't involve a life threatening explosion," sighs Jesse as she, James and Meowth move through the woods, bruised and battered following their explosion and long fall through the sky.
Something never considered by those children who delight in Jesse and James defeat, of course, is that it hurts like buggery to be electrocuted, blown up, blasted off and crashed into the ground.
And you children better pray you never learn what buggery hurts like!
Unfortunately for Jesse, the laws of comedy are against her and a loud rumbling sound begins to grow louder and louder behind them.
"Hey, what's that sound?" asks James.
"A tornado?" suggests Meowth.
They turn and.... damn Meowth, he's gained the elusive ability to change the laws of time and physics via speech, an ability Ash has been striving for for months.
They run in terror from the tornado but it scoops them up with ease and within a few minutes of their last time, Team Rocket are blasting off again!
Meanwhile, at Mah-Rye-Ah's dark little capitalist workshop we find the doors and windows bordered up as she jealously guards her investment (her weather equipment) and her property (the poor little institutionalised Hoppip) from the fury of an enraged Mother Nature.
Falling back on the filthy lies of an arrogant US Government, Mariah suggests they duck and cover to hide from the fury of the upcoming tempest, since doing so is enough to make your skin impenetrable to the full force of a nuclear blast.
Or so it would seem.
The Hoppip - sharing an affinity with nature - huddle together in fear as Mariah, Ash, Misty, Brock and Pikachu look about nervously from their hiding place beneath the desk.
Togepi, suspiciously, looks amused, as it it finds the whole process laughable. After all, it once weathered Nature's attempts to destroy it during Pikachu's Rescue Adventure, and thus it has nothing to fear.
But Mariah does, as the roof of her capitalist prison is torn away by the fury of Nature and the Hoppip torn away to blessed, sweet freedom.
But Mariah, like all big businesses, isn't going to let a little thing like nature get in the way of her profit margin, and she leaps after her property with a vengeance.
Brock, like all good males, isn't going to let a prime piece of ass get away and leaps into the air, grabbing Mariah and pulling her back down to the ground before the tornado pulls her away.
"I've got you, Mariah!" he cries, as an excited Oddish is pulled airborne at last and pulled away. Misty screams for it to grab her hand but it ignores her, thinking that it has finally gained the power of flight, and Misty finds herself being pulled up into the heart of the tornado as well.
Action Hero Ash to the rescue!
Tenaciously clutching his cuddly little rodent in one hand, Ash leaps high and wraps an arm manfully around Misty's waist, pulling her back down to the ground. All that is needed now is a rough kiss and a swing across a deep chasm and their romance is secured, but alas the foolish Ash doesn't follow through on what could have been a beautiful moment.
The tornado moves on, leaving Mariah's gutted wreck of a house behind and her dreams of heartless capitalist glory in tatters. "We're a lot luckier than your house was, Mariah," notes Brock.
"We're lucky, but I wonder if Oddish and the Hoppip are?" asks Misty.
Foolish girl! They're free! FREE! FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!
....
Well yes....
Ahem.
"Well, the only way to be find out is to find 'em, and make sure that they are Misty," proclaims Ash, enjoying the big macho act but not realising he's missed his chance to climb aboard The Misty Train O' Love, "Is that okay with you, Mariah?"
"Sure!" smiles Mariah, all ready thinking of way to get HER property back into their dank little prison, more than happy to have a bunch of crazy, mixed up kids working for her for free,"Thanks for volunteering."
They head out on their search, coming across the wreckage of Mariah's roof. The money-hungry capitalist charges in, looking about desperately for something he can salvage her business with.
"At least it didn't land on anybody," she mutters, terrified by the prospect of a crippling lawsuit.
"Odd-ish," moans an Oddish from nearby.
Looking about, Pikachu discovers the upside down and very disorientated Oddish lying on it's head. Mariah leaps forward and scoops it up, figuring it might know where her investments can be found.
"Got a little turned around in that twister!" Brock explains needlessly, and after a moments silence from the others, Togepi bursts into dark, contemptuous laughter at the foolishly squinty gym leader.
Misty notes that Oddish appears to be worried, which you wouldn't expect to find from a Pokemon that had just been blown and buffeted through the air by a F5 Twister, would you.
It is then that Mariah reveals just why she has been allowing a non-profit making Oddish to live amongst her imprisoned, money-spinning Hoppip.
Yes it seems that a month earlier one of her Hoppip had actually made it's escape and the naive Oddish, meaning well, had tracked it down and helped Mariah recapture it.
So the Oddish is the architect of it's friends imprisonment, killing with kindness, fighting with friendship, battling with buddiness etc, etc et al, n'est ce pas!
Or words to that effect.
So The Oddish leads them on a journey, inadvertently leading The Hoppips cruel jailer unerringly towards them.
It comes across the first, hiding in a tree and looking dismayed as a mother-fucker (believe us, if you're fucking your mother, you're dismayed) at being found out.
Oddish leaps high, trying in vain to reach it's fugitive friend, but it's too little and sucky to help out and Ash makes to hit Action Hero Ash mode again when a love-struck Brock gets in the way. He climbs up the branch, arms and legs wrapped tightly around the trunk with the practised grip and tug of a life-long dendrophiliac. Grabbing The Hoppip he pulls it back down to the ground, where it looks delighted and happy until he places it into Mariah's hands, and it's grin fades away to zero, nothing, nada, zip. Don't believe us? Watch the episode for yourself, sunburned children of The Dodge.
As Brock basks in Mariah's pleasure, Misty congratulates Oddish and directs it to find the other six. Leading them away, it finds the second Hoppip trapped in a raging river, where it had been attempting to mask it's scent from it's well meaning but treacherous little Oddish friend.
Oddish makes to leap into the raging river, but Ash grabs it in time and once again it's Brock to the rescue, surging through the water and grabbing Hoppip firmly by it's crotch before getting it back to Mariah.
With two down and five to go, however, Oddish is beginning to lose the scent until it looks up and notices the third Hoppip frantically trying to fly away on a gentle breeze. They give chase immediately as the desperate Hoppip flees from them, so close and yet so far from freedom.
Meanwhile Team Rocket are back after blasting off twice in one episode, finally happy as they note that every cloud has a silver lining, or in this case, four Hoppip!
Yep, sitting in the bottom of the basket of their Happy Buddha Face Meowth are the four fugitive Hoppip, who have found freedom from Mariah only to get captured by Team Rocket.
Jesse and James hit out with the terrible quips, Jesse noting that they've had quite the windfall until Meowth once again tries to resurrect the stinking corpse of his Overnight Delivery Service.
"Oh give it up, Meowth!" sighs James in his best 'Bitch-Queen' voice.
"I've got a more artistic suggestion!" coos Jesse as she clutches her hands together and closes her eyes wistfully, "Give each Hoppip a little tiny pinwheel!"
Ecstatic Hoppip float through the air, pinwheels whirring in the wind.
"What do you two think of that adorable idea?" she asks as her vision fades and her eyes open to reveal big ol' sparkly shimmers of joy.
James and Meowth look away to the side, stroking their chins and trying not to burst out laughing, "Hate it!"
Man! James can be a bitch!
"Ha?" asks Jesse, confused, then becomes enraptured again, "AHHHH! Another Hoppip! And it's heading this way!"
Yes, the retreating Hoppip has escaped from Mariah but finds itself growing ever closer to Team Rocket's clutches.
"Let's get... the net!" rhymes James for no apparent reason. The happy Hoppip, thinking it's got away, slams right into the net and is captured by Team Rocket, just as Mariah and company arrive.
"That's mine!" squeals the capitalist petulantly, regarding The Hoppip as nothing more than HER property, "Give it back to me!"
"Immm? They're not yours any more!" laughs James, then he, Jesse and Meowth execute the Japanese equivalent of giving the finger, flipping the bird, the one-fingered salute etc, etc by grabbing their eyes lids and pulling them down as they stick out their tongues.
"We'll see about that!" growls Misty and sends out Staryu, which instantly pops Team Rocket's balloon and sends them spiralling off far into the distance.
Brilliant, Misty, you just helped them get away, well done.
Sigh, the once bright and vibrant young girl has lost so much due to Togepi's leeching and Crack-Baby Ash's gross stupidity, it's a crying shame.
They set off into the forest to find the wreckage of Team Rocket's Happy Buddha Face Meowth Balloon.
Team Rocket, meanwhile, lie beside the wreckage of their own personal property, James' leg twitching as Jesse mumbles, "That Staryu certainly has a point."
They stagger up to their knees just in time to find themselves face to face with three twerps, a French Pikachu, a confused Oddish, a mad Togepi and an enraged Capitalist.
Like we haven't all been in that situation before!
"Let's have 'em!" yells Ash.
"Give us back those Hoppip!" snaps Misty.
"Oddish?" asks Oddish, confused by the constant references to it's friends as property.
"Not without a fight, twerp," promises Jesse as James pulls out Victreebell for the obligatory head-shot.
After it inevitably swallows James' head (GETCHA MINDS OUTTA DA GUTTA!) it goes after Heracross and Staryu, which Ash and Misty have called out respectively, joined by Jesse's Arbok.
But this is a fight that Oddish wants to have, and against the odds the feisty, plucky little kids from the wrong side of the tracks shows those snooty college kids that it's the one whose real, and they're living in a fantasy land!
Sorry, my tape stopped and I found myself watching bad eighties drama-dys.
Oddish does kick Victreebell's ass though, much to an astonished James dismay, and Arbok doesn't fare much better, getting put to sleep by Oddish's sleep poweder.
With a massive Solar-Beam, Oddish finishes the entire group of before the spit on Meowth's paws can even dry, and Team Rocket find themselves blasting off for the third time.
"It seems like we're doing much more flying than those Hoppip are," observes James calmly as he sails through the air.
"Hey!" gasps a suddenly startled Meowth,"Maybe we should start an Overnight Delivery Service ourselves? We all ready got de snappy uniforms!"
A large-headed Jesse monster roars into Meowth's face, telling him, "IT'S ALL OVER MEOWTH!"
And together.
"We're blasting out of businesssssssssssssssssssss!!!!"
Everybody celebrates the victory over Team Rocket and the upcoming, brutal physical pain they are likely to face.
Heading back to the prison, the kids helps to fix the roof and re-imprison The Hoppip, which watch on with happy, vacant, drug-glazed eyes as their freedom is once again stripped from them.
With her investment secured and her property back in her possession, Mariah is pleased as punch, especially since the kids have done all this work for her for no monetary repayment.
Following a sickly-sweet morality speech to Oddish about the joys and pleasures of following your heart and being the best that you can be that has children around the world weeping and projectile vomiting against their mother's startled bosoms, the twerps prepare to head off towards Azalea Town once again.
Ready to leave, Brock can't help but try one last time to capture Mariah's cold, black heart.
"OH Mariah! MY HEART IS FLYING HIGHER THAN ANY HOPPIP EVER COULD! SAY THE WORD AND I'LL STAY HERE WITH YOU AND SHARE THE WEATHER TOGETHER FOREVER...."
"Time to go, Romeo!" snaps Misty, grabbing his ear and pulling him away to Mariah's cold-hearted amusement.
Leaving behind a collection of drugged, trapped and miserable Hoppip and a treacherous, well meaning Oddish, Ash, Misty and Brock are confident that they've once again helped to save the day, little realising that today they've helped make the world a slightly darker place, a world of profit before people, a world of property rather than Pokemon, a world of the bottom line being.... the bottom line.
A world.... a world without Koffing.
| BEST QUOTES |
 "You can do it Oddish, if you just start flapping your leaves" "Why don't you stop flapping your gums!""I'll be quiet"
 "Those Hoppip could have us rolling in dough" "You want us to open a bakery?"
Mariah - "Oh Brock, you're the best!" "Well, i don't know about all that, but you could be right."
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