I've been looking forward to this one since its Japanese airing. Honestly, Popplio is adorable, and Brionne is both adorable and pretty. So I was happy to see that they were the stars of the episode. And Popplio can finally use a Z-Move now, putting Lana's Z-Ring to good use.
"How do you search the bottom of the ocean?" asks Ash, someone who's been in many a diving vehicle. That was funny in a forgetting-about-past-experiences kind of way. Also, Rosie Reyes, who normally has a serious problem with underacting so much so that she sounds like she could belong to the JP cast, did very good in this episode. For once, she actually did something more than underact: she actually acted. I hope she can keep that up.
I heard that atrocious "Pose!" song (which is indeed bad, but there are worse JP songs) was used in the JP episode, so I'm glad that's gone. And as I'm currently playing Ultra Sun (as of this post), I find it beneficial that there's only one JP track in it, as I don't have to hear the truly good G7 tracks get ****ed up by a has-been. The M20 dub soundtrack sorely outclasses the TV dub music, so I'm just going to remove it from the equation and discuss the episode's music on its own merits. It was great hearing Popplio's theme gain such promincence. Brionne's theme was as lovely as the Pokemon herself. And while the Z-Move Theme had been heard before, it once again belonged. That is how to properly re-use music cues.
After last week's borefest, this was a much-needed episode. Because hey, **** actually happened in this one, and it was great to see.