Sorry for the delay my keyboard broke.
Exploud and Clear - Our character of the day today is a guy named er well Guy who a really crazy Loudred. Ash uses his Treeko against him who has been more of loner then usual. During the battle both Loudred and Treeko evolve. Wow what are the odds. Grovyle even gets a new bigger twig to put in its mouth. Even worse Exploud goes crazy and runs away. We have a pretty funny flashback of all the terrible encounters Team Rocket had with Loudred only for Meowth to of course convince them to try and catch it yet again. Exploud betrays his trainer during there battle and I can already see where this is going. Of course Guy saves his Exploud from Team Rocket and starts obeying him again. Yeesh even Ash admits this is getting old Team Rocket doesn't even get to do there motto. This episode just got good because of that even though we don't fnd out who wins the battle at the end of this episode which this entire episode was leading up to.
3.5/5
Go Go Ludicolo - Something I never understood as a kid was why episodes with Jynx were banned but this episode wasn't for having Ludicolo be a Mexican Stereotype. But like the situation with Jynx this is just my cultural ignorance, Ludicolo is actually based off of Kappa and other Japanese monsters. This episodes lead in is the same as the previous episode, May and Max talking about how excited they are to return home, Ash says how excited he is to battle his dad and Max calls Ash pathetic and he stands no chance, yeesh that is getting old. Ash is having trouble deciding which pokemon to use. for the gym battle since Ash has already battled Norman this is understandable because he's already battled him. This leads to Ash's pokemon to compete for his affections briefly. Max really has gotten annoying about Ash's battle with Norman I can understand why he'd want his dad to win but yeesh he's a gym leader he should hand out at least one gym badge once in a while. This is foreshadowing though so I'll give the writers credit. Nine minutes in and we finally we see Ludicolo. It''s trainer's name is Pancho, yes seriously and his voice actor is just ethnically accurate. Pancho wants to battle so he can have the groups sandwiches, yes seriously. Pancho ends up wining easily because Ash and Corphish were't in sink, what? Maybe Ash should have believed in the hart of the cards er whoops wrong anime. Team Rocket then shows up to steal Ludicolo because
however, Corphish has shown up to get a rematch but instead manages to free them from Team Rocket's trap and Team Rocket is defeated and it's the end of the episode. Ash has a rematch with Pancho using Torkoal instead of Corphish it's said he's now able to work better with his pokemon now whatever that means, seriously they've gone over that enough. And for the second episode in a row we have a battle without an outcome how lame.
4/5
A Double Dilemma - Our gang comes across a town with a bunch of trainer obsessed with Norman and his family. Team Rocket scam a part of the town by dressing up like them, hilarity ensues. Ash talking about how he wants to defeat Norman gets challenged by all the towns trainers he wins hilarity ensues. Seriously I'm pretty sure everyone in this town is crazy. May eventually finds her self being forced into battling Ash, however all of his pokemon are completely exhausted. This eventually leads to May using Torchic for once and they fight and defeat Team Rocket. This episode was meh I really had trouble tolerating the town in this episode. My god I'd rather visit Silent Hill then this place, there seriously must be something in this towns water.
3/5
Love Petalburg Style - Out of all of the plots in this show this has to be the weirdest, extra marital affairs!? Really Pokemon? Really? In a kids show about pokemon we have to worry about whether Norman is cheating with Nurse Joy? Really? How about he just save that creepy idea for the fan art. At least we're done with fillers finally because the last few have been really terrible but this one takes the cake. Caroline some how knows who Brock is also. Kenny and everyone else are trying to cover up everything else up and Caroline is angry. I like how May points out that her Max were never allowed to watch there dad's gym battles because he was afraid it would distract the trainers and they weren't bothered by it, and this makes sense after all May never cared too much for pokemon in the beginning. Caroline seriously looks like she's close to leaving. Brock wants to interfere. Yes, Caroline is seriously leaving Norman yeesh how dense can you be Norman? I'm lucky to have parents that are still married but I'm not sure divorce is this common then again he's the only married couple in this show. It turns out Norman was only spending time with nurse Joy so he can make real fireworks, no that came out wrong. Seriously why is a nurse Joy a Professional Pyrotechnition? According to google that's not even a real word! Basically Norman is putting together a fireworks display for Caroline. Of course Team Rocket plans on stealing Norman's pokemon yet again. Well that was ridiculous but was nice seeing a May and Max interact with her family.
3/5