Pretty fantastic episode overall. It easily lived up to the hype for me. This and Snorlax last week are my two favorite XY episodes, and I’ve liked every single one beginning with the Fat Chespin episode. Next week looks great too, so that’s a streak of six excellent episodes in a row. That’s not a common thing to see in any series.
I don’t get why people are upset Team Flare didn’t actually show up. A cameo ala Team Galactic in DP036 would have been a nice bonus, but when you take everything that was revealed right at the end of this episode without explanation - Malamar’s Pokemon army, the “soon our grand plan will begin and we will take over the world” without saying who the “we” and “are” is - there is no way this isn’t foreshadowing either Team Flare or an anime-exclusive antagonist controlling Malamar.
That’s what really brought this episode a step higher. The plot itself was fairly standard “Pikachu and other Pokemon are controlled” fare, which we saw plenty of in Episode N, but this time it actually went somewhere instead of Pikachu magically breaking the control every time (which is why Team Plasma’s Pokemon Manipulation! and Meowth, Colress and Team Rivalry! are my favorite of the “controlled Pokemon” Episode N episodes.) What this episode did that it had to accomplish was kick off something ongoing in XY. That’s why I thought the early episodes felt so forgettable, without any rivals or real ongoing storylines there wasn’t really much going on. This episode, by blatantly setting up Malamar and whoever controls it as recurring villains, fixed that.
And Malamar makes for one hell of a villain, too, judging by this episode. They weren’t kidding in the title for once, Malamar really was pretty terrifying. The little touches they put on it, such as the unnatural way Malamar moved around, the zombie voices of its victims, and the way it stalked Clemont and Bonnie in the hall helped boost up the unsettling atmosphere, not to mention that weird “organic” room at the end and Malamar being intelligent enough to set off the traps when the plan was blown.
Intense from beginning to end, thankfully not derailed with Team Rocket’s humor (and their one real joke moment, the realization that Inkay evolves into Malamar at the end, was actually well done and pretty funny), this episode was just what XY needed.
On the technical side, the music choices for this episode were excellent. It’s a shame the dub will probably ruin it all. The animation was great, too. The artwork was unfortunately not up to par again - it reminded me at times of the Butterfree and Noivern Da! episodes - but judging by how good the last four episodes looked, this is an anomaly. Next week’s episode looks like it’s back to the improved norm, too. I’m not worried.