The bird has no hope from what i saw, i'm starting to wonder why the writers evolved it at all to begin with. It's one thing to lose to a pokemon but this was a complete and total pwning, haven't seen one this bad since the Grovyle vs. Luvdisc incident.
"No Hope", that is just wrong. Ofcourse it has hope, Grovyle had won battles as a Treeko and Grovyle and then suffered the humiliating loss to luvdisc. However, this was Mukubird's first official battle. Even though grovyle suffered a bad loss it didn't lose hope, it won a few times in the hoenn league beating Katie's Walrein (battle was awesome), it evolved to Sceptile picking up a couple of more wins and even brought down Regirock to its knee. It is definitley one of Ash's strongest pokemon.
I understand what your saying but Mukubird not being able to get a hit in was because they wanted to show Gardenia's Turtwig as a real speed demon, which they did. That also makes Gardenia seem much more of a threat which will make the official gym battle really interesting.
Look at how Taillow was handled, it lost pretty badly to Brawly's Machop and never did anything, but when it evolved and picked up its first win against Winona's Shiny Swellow it had plenty of wins after that and is arguably Ash's strongest AG pokemon.
To say that it has "no hope" is just wrong. The no hope scenario is more for pokemon like Noctowl, Cyndaquil, Totodile.
I am in love with Gardenia. lol
She was just amazing, her moments with James and his pokemon were really entertaining.
Battle:
As sushi said before, there really wasn't enough time for Ash to react to speed like that. Besides you can clearly see that Ash gets frustrated, which often causes him to lose. I had a smile on my face though when Ash grabs his head because he can't get a hit on Tutwig.
Even though Mukubird lost, its battle was was funny and entertaining.
From the start when Ash calls it out and it just goes Muuukuuuuuuuu! That had me going for a while. lol
Then when it misses Aerial Ace and goes into the bushes, the noises it makes is pretty damn funny as well.
When it gets blasted by leaf storm and is yelling, man that was crazy.
Speaking of Leaf Storm, I dont know maybe it was the animation but the attack seemed to be strongest thing I have ever seen. It seems like someone is shooting their Ak-47 or something. It looked excellent and has become one of my favorite attacks.
I wouldn't mind Ash's Turtwig getting it, especially if we see Ash training it or something like that.
This episode is not just one of the best DP episodes but one of the best overall episodes.