-Look guys! A Generic Filler Town of Woe!
-I'm impressed that Croagunk let Brock hit on Nurse Joy for that long. Meanwhile, Ash ignores Brock's suffering and goes out to train.
-Piplup trips and falls on Pikachu, who apparently has a "send out a wave of electricity if something falls on you" reflex. Pipilup is understandably kinda pissed that Pikachu has no self-control.
-Suddenly, the universe decides to follow shipper logic and have Piplup fall in love with the one it's arguing with! (and Pikachu responds in kind) the joke here is that shippers are inheritantly illogical, therefore "shipper logic" is an oxymoron
-The humans seem mildly confused that Pikachu and Piplup are now madly in lust with each other.
-You can tell that this is a science laboratory because of the random Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers, pipettes, test tubes some sort of loopy thing that probably has one specific use, and a terribly labeled jar that conveys no information about the chemical other than "it's probably bad. See? SKULL AND CROSSBONES.", all of which are full of random colorful liquids. I HAVE TWO LAB CLASSES EVERY WEEK, SO THIS SIMPLIFICATION OF WHAT SCIENCE LOOKS LIKE MAKES ME ANGRY.
-Honestly people, where is your Personal Protective Equipment? Do I need to show you the cheesy video from the 70s I've had to watch in all three chemistry classes I've had since starting college?
-I like how one of the generic machines in the background appears to be taken straight from one of the generic machine sprites in the games.
-...what the hell is James wearing on his head, anyway?
-Quagsire VS Magnemite staredown? AWESOME!
-Meanwhile, Ash and Dawn continue to be strikingly unconcerned about Pikachu and Piplup's sudden love affair. I mean, only the absolute worst fanfiction would have love happen THAT QUICKLY, so surely they must suspect SOMETHING bad is happening?
-I love how the animation completely fails to convey that Ash and Dawn are struggling to pull Pikachu and Piplup appart, so they have to add a lot of zany "we're trying but failing!" noises.
-Please insert your own canned joke about how it's physically impossible for Piplup to be in a Pokeball here.
-Brock makes what I can only assume is a cheesy magnetism pun.
-Watching Ash and Dawn struggle to pull PikaPlup apart would be more entertaining if it looked like they were actually TRYING.
-Good lord kids, just pick PikaPlup up as a unit and carry it to the Pokemon Center or something.
-...oh hey! They decided to do that! Awesome, I can predict what will happen in a repetitive children's show!
-Meowth has evil plans for Pikaplup. I'm sure he knows all about Pokemon acting strangely towards other species, since his daydreams are filled with (EDITOR'S NOTE:Foul ideas removed to protect the innocent)
-Seriously, what the hell IS that on James' head? The worst bandana ever? A napkin? A bizarre hat? I MUST KNOW.
-They just HAD to throw an Octillery among the electric-water Pokemon relations, didn't they? Also:JOHTOJOHTOJOHTO(Kanto Starter)JOHTO(Shinou Pokemon that never got much of an episode)
-I think that thing on James' head is, in fact, the worst bandana ever.
-Clearly the animators spent too much time making TR have interesting expressions instead of having Dawn/Ash/Brock react interestingly to PikaPlup's love affair.
-As a Ground Type, Quagsire clearly had no reason to dodge Magnemite's Something-Or-Other-Electric-Attack other than pure spite for the people behind it.
-Is there some reason why Professor Science's Love Machine has to broadcast a signal all over the damn place instead of an area that just affects, you know, his Quagsire and Magnemite?
-Nurse Joy finally figures that it'd be a good idea to visit the reckless scientist whose lab is just uphill from the Pokemon center. I imagine that the other, more probable, suspects she had to eliminate first included the mailman, Officer Jenny, a blade of grass, and one of her Chansey assistants.
-Come to think of it, all the Pokemon affected by the signal are PURE water type and PURE electric type...that's totally the one factor throwing off Prof. Science's machine, isn't it?
-I like how Ash gets angry at Team Rocket when they, you know, haven't done anything wrong. (I suppose its technically "haven't done anything wrong yet", but going by this logic, Ash should have Pikachu blast off any person he comes across with red or purple hair.)
-TR steals the love machine, because...uh...actually, seeing as this is Not Japan, there are probably a lot of Not Japanese who would really like a machine that makes electric types and water types fall madly in love. Finally, TR can break out of the cycle of poverty!
-Oh god it's going to turn out that their trainer being in danger was all that was needed to bring Quagsire and Magnemite together, isn't it?
-I was right. Goddammit.
-Pikachu and Piplup are way too happy for still being on TR's balloon.
-Then again, TR didn't even try to stop Staraptor(it's been existing a lot lately. Place your bets on it making an appearance in the Sunyshore gym battle NOW!) from getting Pikachu and Piplup back.
-And now I'm sure that Professor Science learned an important lesson about something.
(plz rate & comment or else Ill stop riting nu chapters!)
Really, this episode seemed dangerously close to something a mediocre-bordering-on-bad fanfiction writer would churn out. The main difference being that the fanfic writer would have had Ash and Dawn kiss at the end.
