-Sunyshore is shiny. And has way too many solar panels.
-Movie 7 called, it wants its city design back.
-Moving sidewalks. For when people are too lazy to walk anywhere at any time.
-Ash gets to the gym and a voice gives him a pile of badges. THIS ISN'T KANTO, WRITERS. STOP IT WITH THE PITY BADGES!!
-Oh wait, Ash has actually grown as a person(and the writers have grown as writers) and he doesn't just grab a badge and go on his way.
-Dawn connects the dots between "Paul hating the Sunyshore gym" and "FREE BADGES TO A GOOD HOME"
-Ronald McDonald appears just in time for the new Pokemon Happy Meal Toys(only at McDonalds).
-AshnCo go up a very glassy tower, and encounter...a Raichu!
-Volkner(now with 99% less hair brightness) shows up, and he's...exactly as I expected him to be. Other than the strangely dark hair bit.
-This is gonna be one of those episodes where I can't really figure out what's going on because 80% of it is talking, isn't it?
-The waiter has a very...OUT THERE...hairstyle for a generic background character.
-They're eating sandwiches, which means the dub will edit those out and replace them with rice balls. (does the dub even do stupid edits like that anymore? I stopped paying attention to it ages ago)
-Ash isn't going to be happy until he gets that battle!
-As a kid, Flint apparently got involved in shady back alley fights against thugs and random other kids. He also had a much smaller afro.
-So apparently Flint went out in the world and eventually become an E4 member, while Volkner got bored beating the snot out of challengers all the time and obsessively made solar panels for every goddamned building in town.
-...and moving sidewalks, and eleveated roads, and the huge tower from earlier, and...
-Moral of the story:If you're that bored with your job, give it to someone who will do it right and not just hand out badges like candy!
-If Volkner made any more robotic things for his Gym, I'd swear the fans got the whole "old people who tutored Cyrus a kid who was withdrawn and into tinkering with machines" thing wrong.
-You can tell Ash will lose by the way he's just ATTACKING ATTACKING ATTACKING and his opponent his just countering everything perfectly.
-Infernape vs Infernape. The writers just couldn't resist!
-And now for Ash's Lv.6000 Pikachu!
-Pikachu put up a decent-ish fight at first, but now it's just taking a beating.
-Seeing Ash's Pikachu getting beaten up has Volkner getting closer to a breakthrough!
-Aaaand there we have it. How convenient that Ash did identical things to what Volkner once did as a kid, eh?
-The waiter was the person who fought Flint/Volkner with that Houndoom all that time ago? I'm sure the writers are intending for there to be a reaction here, but I've got nothing.
-Seriously guys, just have Volkner want to battle already I'm getting tired of all these flashbacks showing him doing in battle against Houndoom what Ash is going now against Infernape.
-...I just noticed the Chiisaki Mono instrumental going on in the background. You know things are happening when I don't notice THAT!
-A James whose bottlecap has been stolen is a TERRIFYING James.
-Blah blah Volkner is happy again blah.