Review S18 EP39: A Trip Down Memory Train!

[PokémonGamer]

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Discuss the dub here. Please use spoiler tags when talking about future events.

 

[Sakuraa]

For a flashback episode, I thought this was a good one.


Ok, this has to be one of TR's most pathetic appearances yet:/ Love how they prepared themselves with just one of those nets that was only impervious to electricity and nothing else. Sigh… Anyway, moving on to the plot, I like how Bonnie brought Clemont an apple when he was hungry. Omg, did Clemont and Bonnie really jump down that hole surrounded with construction stuff, without even knowing how deep it was? Wow and then after all of that Clemont just doesn’t even care anymore? Seriously? You jumped down into this giant hole to try to catch Bunnelby…and then when you get down there you’re just like “forget it”. Well then what was the point? Wow, lol at Bonnie having to pull Clemont up from off the rail tracks. Damn, Bunelby can cut apples with his ears. That's pretty cool. Aw, I loved when Clemont had Bonnie on his shoulders to see inside the train.


Ok, I don't even get what was up with Digugly. That damn dick rabbit just came out of nowhere to steal Bunnelby and buddies' apples for no reason. I'm glad Bunnelby was so insistent on standing up and fighting for his friends (since it's not like they did anything:/).


Geez, that ear injury looked brutal. Well, Clemont and Bonnie's method of teaching Bunnelby to beat his foe sure was...interesting. And rather funny at that. Woah, they jumped into that rematch pretty fast. I thought they'd go having to find Digugly and all that, but whatever. Seeing Bunnelby thrash his hideous evolution was awesome though. I can't believe Bunnelby was actually worried about Digugly after beating him and tried to befriend him.


Oh Clemont shut up. You did not know you’d ever be in a situation where you’d need to move a train with a generator. I like how Bunnelby was helping Bonnie when she was getting tired. I like how Bunnelby seemed so conflicted on whether or not he wanted to go with Clemont at first and that his Pokepals encouraged him to go. And lol at Clemont not wanting to mention that he cried when he caught Bunnelby.


Overall this was a pretty good episode. 7/10.

 

[Aggron989]

This episode was good, but somewhat disappointing in some ways. I was really looking forward to having Bunnelby get some legit development, because it hasn't really had the spotlight yet in the series, so it was a bit of a letdown that this whole event with the train happened in the past. I'd have been happier if Clemont and Bonnie (or just Clemont) had somehow gotten separated from the rest of the group and Bunnelby was the star of the show in that storyline instead. The whole thing just had less impact for me because it was a flashback. Even better, though, it would have been really cool if the flashbacks had been intermittent in a present-day storyline, say, pointing out the parallels between something that Clemont and Bunnelby had experienced in the past and what was happening in the present - maybe a challenge that they tried and failed to overcome together, and this time, it turned out differently.

But back to what the episode actually was, given the confines of it being a flashback episode, it wasn't bad. I like that Bunnelby has an actual backstory, but to be fair, the story about the bullying wild Pokémon picking on somebody's friends is a bit old - it reminds me a lot of Hawlucha's story, to be perfectly honest. I like how Clemont used science to get Bunnelby and the others out of their situation, but Diggersby's sudden turnaround was a little out-of-place and didn't really make sense to me, especially given the way it treated Bunnelby after Bunnelby defeated it in battle. But the problem is that the way the group fell into the train area in the first place was a little forced. Team Rocket conveniently chose this time and place to return to their pitfall trap, which was right over these underground tracks, which made the group fall into the tunnel, which made Clemont and Bonnie remember the time they first met Bunnelby, and then the rest of the episode was just the story about that past event, with the result that nothing much really happened in this episode. All things aside, I liked the story about the train, and I think it was very creative how they finally got the train above ground and also very much in line with the sort of solution Clemont would come up with. Bunnelby has always been very loyal to Clemont, and now we know why, so I like that we have this information that explains how the two of them met. I will confess that I had been wondering for a long time why Clemont would catch a Normal type that evolves into a Normal/Ground type when he prefers Electric types.

I'd give this episode about a 6/10. It wasn't bad at all, there were some very nice moments in it, but some parts of it just didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I do like the ending with Bonnie teasing Clemont about getting emotional, though - that was very cute.

 

[EvilChameleon]

One of those classic episodes where a pit Team Rocket digs at the beginning of the episode somehow leads the twerps further down into underground adventures, except those adventures took place in the past.