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Review S16 EP22: Meowth, Colress and Team Rivalry!

This episode was actually good for the most part and I actually liked Team Rocket here. Meowth in particular was awesome. How he was so devious and sophisticated when talking to Colress, trying to get him to join Team Rocket. Jessie and James were also great with their plan to trap Team Plasma in the forest.

I loved how Team Rocket actually thought Colress was going to join them and he was like “Nope.” So Meowth’s training to not get controlled was counting Mareep? Even the last time he counted Mareep he fell asleep? Weird. Anyway, Meowth under the control of that machine was awesome. It makes me wish he’d do that Fury Swipes tornado thing more often. So counting Noctowl makes him wake up? Also weird.

N’s appearance with the Genesect was nice I guess. We got to see him communicate with more Pokémon at least.

The worst part of this episode had to be that little side plot with Pignite. How the hell can a Flamethrower not totally destroy a little Bullet Seed. Not only was that ridiculous, but just totally boring. The only things I did like about it were that we saw all of the Pokémon eating together and we saw Charizard use what looks like the closest to a Seismic Toss that we’ll get.

Anyway, overall this was a great episode and Team Rocket was amazing here. 8/10.
 
This was such a bizarro episode. Team Rocket was awesome here (strange to be actually able to say that :p) but the whole side-plot thing was so weird. At least we got to see some interaction between Charizard and Pignite. Oh well, pretty good episode anyway.

Also, pretty sad the only thing we get to see of the Genesect Army outside of the movie is this extremely short scene in this episode, I was expecting a lot more back then when the Japanese episode aired
 
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So another episode dealing with Team Rocket VS Team Plasma.

Very glad that Team Rocket is still being serious. Like, they weren't even hiding from Team Plasma. They're shaping up to be some true villains.

And Meowth himself is always good to see being serious given how clever he is. I really liked his interactions with Colress.

Then Jessie and James are able to trap Team Plasma? Very nice display of them having a legitimate plan.

Ok, so I am now to assume that Team Plasma was chasing Jessie and James for a REALLY long time for Ash, Cilan, and Iris to cook a meal AND eat it that quickly.

So Meowth tried to outsmart Colress, but he ended up outsmarting them. I also found it interesting that Team Rocket mentions that they just take what they want because the can. Like, do they legitimately ONLY want Pikachu?

Alright, so WTF was that with Pignite? Like, are you serious? A whole side plot dedicated to fixing his Flamethrower? Was there REALLY nothing else they could have done there? Oh, and then "Let's Jumping!" REALLY?! Ignoring the fact that they could see in his nose, this was seriously beyond stupid.

Next we see N, and his strange inclination to stare at people (or Pokemon, in this instance) remains. Seriously, dude, cut that out. It's creepy. I really wasn't expecting to see the 5 Genesect there. Guess now I know where that movie plot's coming from. And because of that, there is NO WAY they can write the events of that movie out of canon! (Unless that's done somewhere in the remaining Episode N, but to my knowledge, that isn't the case).

Back to the interesting plot: once again we see that Team Plasma has the capacity to kill people. C'mon, a Fury Swipes Cyclone doesn't just not kill anyone. Speaking of which, that was just the coolest thing ever. Like, Meowth should start doing that more often. That was like some Wind Sythe Jutsu awesomeness.

I have to wonder why James sent out Amoonguss over Yamask knowing that Meowth only carries Normal-type moves. But, no matter. And I guess, counting Noctowl backwards wakes him up?...Ok...

Now back to Ash: This is stupig (yes, I actually typoed that and it still makes sense). Are you frickin' serious? Bullet se- ok, no, I’m done.

It's a shame this great episode is ruined by only the crappiest side plot EVER! Episode gets a 5/10. Actually, I'll make this fair: Team Rocket gets 10/10. Ash gets 0.
 
I just found the whole pignite thing to be gross!Anyways I really like the hatred that has built up between Team Rocket and Team Plasma;)
 
I think we all agree that the Ash & Pignite sideplot was both dumb and useless. On that note: I'm surprised about how chipper Ash is, given the events of the last ep and the overall arc. I'm guessing that boy can't even spell "gravitas." And BTW, Brock would never have administered that kind of worst aid.

The TRio was surprisingly competent--planning both a diversion and a trap for Angie and her goons, prepping an anti-brainwashing defense (and a countermeasure in case the first defense failed). To be honest, I was kinda hoping for more of a struggle when it came to snapping Meowth out of it, possibly having it go on for a few more eps. This could then force J&J to team up with Our Gang, something we haven't seen since...since I can't remember.

And what about Colress? What does he truly want? He's not interested in TR, and he's not fully happy with Plasma, so...again, what does he want?
 
Colress was his true form here, being more interesting and closer to his game self than in previous episodes. I LOVED that scene with Meowth! Major plot twists for both of them.

Then Ash & co had to butt in stupidly and ruin everything...

...and then an abrupt change back to the awesome villian team plot. Did anyone else think Meowth looked like Taz from Looney Tunes doing that Fury Swipes thing? All he needed to do was shout random gibberish in that zombified, possessed state. J&J were awesome here too, both handling Meowth and stopping the Plasma Grunts.

I agree with a lot of the others, the villian parts were amazing but Ash&co's scenes weren't. (except Charizard)

Yay movie reference!
 
I liked that the dub kept Team Rocket's Unova BGM at least, since they removed it from the Mareep episode last time.

But at the end it was like "the answer to come... as the journey continues!................*perpetual silence*................".
They could have made the narrator talk a little more, or lengthen any previous scene from the episode, then making the "To Be Continued" appear 3 seconds before the original, if they want to make it longer. Anything would help to make it less akward.
 
I think we all agree that the Ash & Pignite sideplot was both dumb and useless. On that note: I'm surprised about how chipper Ash is, given the events of the last ep and the overall arc. I'm guessing that boy can't even spell "gravitas." And BTW, Brock would never have administered that kind of worst aid.

The TRio was surprisingly competent--planning both a diversion and a trap for Angie and her goons, prepping an anti-brainwashing defense (and a countermeasure in case the first defense failed). To be honest, I was kinda hoping for more of a struggle when it came to snapping Meowth out of it, possibly having it go on for a few more eps. This could then force J&J to team up with Our Gang, something we haven't seen since...since I can't remember.

And what about Colress? What does he truly want? He's not interested in TR, and he's not fully happy with Plasma, so...again, what does he want?

Agreed here. Colress really lost out with how the anime made him, for the most part, solely focused on using the control machine. I wish he had been explored more. It doesn't really fit with how he's willing to investigate any means necessary to maximize the power of Pokémon (namely, the bond between kind trainers and their Pokémon)

The Team Rocket plot was the best we've had in a while. I'm surprised TR's bug wasn't set to self-destruct or something to take out the machine once they were done eavesdropping. It would have been a logical next step and the ultimate middle finger to Team Plasma. But I guess the plot wouldn't really like that since Colress would have to build a new machine, which takes time.

The Pignite subplot was the low point of this episode. Brock would have probably just did something similar to Iris' solution. I didn't see the narration at the end of the dub version of this episode ad don't know how it goes, but I remember the Japanese ending narration went something like "What will be the fates of Ash and his friends?", this dark, foreboding question coming right as they're jubilantly celebrating Pignite's good health. Took about Mood Whiplash (for lack of a better term).
 
I liked that the dub kept Team Rocket's Unova BGM at least, since they removed it from the Mareep episode last time.

But at the end it was like "the answer to come... as the journey continues!................*perpetual silence*................".
They could have made the narrator talk a little more, or lengthen any previous scene from the episode, then making the "To Be Continued" appear 3 seconds before the original, if they want to make it longer. Anything would help to make it less akward.
I noticed they kept the BGM music too! I was happy for that
 
Three words to start off my review: James. Carter. Cathcart.

Now I know what you're expecting me to do. Rant about how terrible he is as Meowth. I'm not going to do that, because, this is an episode where I feel the Zopster (my nickname for Cathcart) shined. He's finally dropped the nasally cold-sounding James in favor of a more solid, and realistic voice, for James. It sounds a lot better now. I'm able to take his performance seriously. I can only hope he retains this voice for future episodes.

His Meowth was much less obnoxious than usual and I felt he did a good job today. I liked how he said "1 Mareep, 2 Mareep, ..., 103 Mareep." That was pretty funny.

I wish he'd say POK-AY-MON though. He still keeps saying Pok-EE-mon...XD.

The Ash and Pignite Subplot was just annoying this episode.

One of Team Rocket's better episodes in BW. Suprisingly, a good episode for the dub. Keeping the BGM is a plus as well.

Only part I disliked was what the narrator did at the end, but it's a moot point.

Rating: 8.5/10
 
Its already been said so there is no reason to talk about how stupid the Pignite plot was. My question is this; how the hell did Charizard know how to help?

If I'm wrong I'm sorry because I'm not sure if I remember correctly; Ash said "Charizard, come out and help us!" first thing it does is roar, blast a Flamethrower into the air then pick up Pignite and flies into the air then launches a "pseudo-Seismic Toss) by spinning it around, tossing it but then grabbing it at the last second for the seed pellets to come out...

Um...ok...

I know its been done A LOT in the past when a character grabs a Pokeball, and when tossing it gives the Pokemon a command, the Pokemon emerges from the ball and launches the attack that the trainer called out before it came out the ball.

But in this case how the hell did Charizard know how to help out? Originally when I saw the preview for this episode when it debuted in Japan a couple months ago I think; seeing Charizard using what looked like a Seismic Toss gave me the impression that it was training Pignite because it was depressed from losing so easily to a Pokemon it had a double type advantage against (Magnezone).

Instead, it does seem sad for losing but its Flamethrower wouldn't work...strange.

At first when I was watching it this morning I thought this was going to be a throwback to Ash's Sceptile not being able to use its attacks because it was depressed about the Meganium it loved choosing Tropius instead so it needed to get its mojo back and after seeing Ash try to fight off a swarm of Beedrill fueled with a following TR attack it was able to use moves again.

That was what I felt Pignite would do in terms of Ash doing some special training with its "big bro" Charizard to get its confidence back because let's get real; Pignite goes its ass handed to him on a "pork platter" by Magnezone and pretty easily as well.

It was mentioned above about how the seeds should have been burnt up with the flames being held back and I agree. Remember in its debut the only fire move it could use was Ember as a Tepig; now its snout was tied up with rope so to me the flames were stopped up explaining why the ropes wouldn't be burnt up because well the flames had to come out to burn the ropes the ropes weren't in its nose like the seeds were.

Remember in the Whirl Cup; Totodile bite down on a Kingdra's nose/snout whatever you wanna call it and its Hydro Pump got "clogged" and the water pressure built up so when Totodile let go it went flying around crazy and fainted most likely due to the pressure inside of its body.

This was different being that seeds should be burnt I mean didn't some flames (small) come out of its nose? If so that should have been more than enough to burn the seeds.

Well that's all I have to say about that.

TR was AWESOME and that is something I can rarely say about them. Favorite part was the Fury Swipes cyclone! Just looking in awe about the potential of Meowth's power. That made his Fury Swipes of Love look like nothing compared to this!

My favorite reaction in the episode was TP going "They would attack their own teammate?!" yeah they don't know the TRio well at all haha

Doesn't the scientist (forgot his name the one with the weird hair) remind you of Galactic's Charon in that he only works for his own motives; both are scientists and they could care less about their leader's plans?

Well anyway the twerps seemed to take the TR role this episode in that their appearance seemed "forced" and "ridiculous" to take away from the seriousness of the episode. Really if I watched this again, which I probably will, I'd probably skip over the twerp portions (even Charizard sad to say) just to watch TR and Plasma.
 
Not a bad episode. The team plasma / team rocket part was good and i liked how we are starting to see the leadup to the Genesect movie now. The Ash and friends part was completely and utterly pointless. I think they could of left that part out honestly. I think the only reason it was there was because Ash needed to be in the episode somehow(which isnt really a bad one normally but he it made no sense). Colress is pretty badass.
 
I was looking at the cast from last week and I noticed something Lipica Shah was not in it so Aldith had to be Voiced by Lori Gardner. And Shah must be Voicing Jenny now I think.

Also I liked the EpISODE it was good weird but good to me.
 
After years of Team Rocket having funny irrelevant scenes during Ash's big moments, it sure is strange for Ash to be the one intruding on Team Rocket's moment. In fact I find Ash more annoying here than Team Rocket ever were in that regard!

Anyway, this was a good episode. What I like is that it's technically a Team Rocket filler. Unless you want to count the Genesect scene and the small set up with Team Rocket's tracking device, it was all filler really and it's the single most unique Team Rocket filler out there. Not even the TR fillers from BWS1 broke out of the usual formula.

I really don't like serious Team Rocket but they actually seemed very likeable here. It might be because they have a bit more personality than they did pre-League and because the super seriousness seems fitting for this situation. It also helps that their serious plot was actually a good one, something I can't say for their stories pre-League. It was great seeing Meowth fight like that, and I loved how Team Rocket managed to pull off a countermeasure in the event Colress had taken Meowth away from them.
 
For me, it's a great episode, because it's one of the few episodes when Carter Cathcart's Meowth did not get on my nerves.

He usually annoys me to no end in the role, but he seemed much cuter and realistic this episode than he usually is.
 
I think we all agree that the Ash & Pignite sideplot was both dumb and useless. On that note: I'm surprised about how chipper Ash is, given the events of the last ep and the overall arc. I'm guessing that boy can't even spell "gravitas." And BTW, Brock would never have administered that kind of worst aid.

The TRio was surprisingly competent--planning both a diversion and a trap for Angie and her goons, prepping an anti-brainwashing defense (and a countermeasure in case the first defense failed). To be honest, I was kinda hoping for more of a struggle when it came to snapping Meowth out of it, possibly having it go on for a few more eps. This could then force J&J to team up with Our Gang, something we haven't seen since...since I can't remember.

And what about Colress? What does he truly want? He's not interested in TR, and he's not fully happy with Plasma, so...again, what does he want?

That would be pretty cool to see Ash and co. team up with Team Rocket. I can't even recall the last time that happened outside of a movie. Team Rocket actually had a clever plan for once; it's nice to see them when they actually have a really well-thought plan, even if it backfired on them. I was also a bit (albeit, pleasantly) surprised by their lack of reluctance to attack Meowth once he was put under Team Plasma's control.

And yes, the Pignite sideplot was one of the dumbest sub-plots I've seen in a long, long time.
 
I know this has nothing to do with the episode itself, but when I recorded it, the description used the characters' Japanese names for some reason.
 
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