"One noodle from the Noodle Nosh and you'll never nosh anywhere else!"
Score: 7/10
The heroes have finally reached Ever Grande City. May wants to go to the Noodle Nosh, a restaurant famous for its chicken noodle soup. As they walk through Ever Grande City, where for some reason every single female except May wears a dress or skirt (Japanese women do wear pants sometimes, right?), they get attacked by several hundred evil Murkow, who hate outsiders. They're saved by another trainer in the Hoenn League, Tyson, and his Meowth.
You can't tell from that picture, but yes, it walks upright and wears boots. Even though Meowth's origin episode established that regular Meowth can't walk upright and indeed are actually better off on all fours because they can run faster, and Meowth in particular learned to walk upright just to seem more human. Tyson mentions that his Meowth could evolve, but it chooses not to. Good for it: the only cat with a better evolution than its first form is Glameow, and of course, May's Skitty will never evolve (I checked).
At Ever Grande City's pokemon center, Ash calls Oak, who offers to send Ash any of the pokemon he'll need, but Ash wants to stick with his six Hoenn pokemon because that's incredibly stupid. I mean, hell, at least bring Snorlax. At least send back Torkoal! Goddammit, Ash. Goddammit. What if you hadn't happened to catch a Snorunt recently? I hope you get knocked out in round one.
Just then, an alarm goes off: someone has stolen the Hoenn League torch. Of course it's Team Rocket, disguised as Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy. They do their motto imitating Jenny and Joy's voices, and inexplicably, Jessie mimics Jenny's old accent instead of her current accent... and she actually does a pretty good job of it.
After Ash forgets to use Swellow again, Tyson sends out his Metagross to stop Team Rocket. Eventually, it all comes down to Meowth versus Tyson's Meowth, because there was no way they were having another Meowth without it meeting Team Rocket's Meowth. Tyson's Meowth insults Meowth, defeats Meowth with fury swipes and iron tail, and then uses thunderbolt to blast off Team Rocket.
Tyson and Ash agree to have a good competition, which means Tyson will defeat Ash, and no, I didn't check ahead. Well, at least he's more believable than Richie. At least he has a Metagross and not a Charmander.
--
Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005