ENGLISH NAME	JAPANESE NAME	POKEMOPOLIS NAME	DODGINESS RATING	ANIMATION	STORY	TEAM ROCKET	MORAL LEARNT
674: The Lost World of Gothitelle!	680: Sukai Aro Burijji to Gochiruzeru!	The Bridge to Somewhere			The twerps get lost in a Goth's mind	Didn't even miss them	Stop living in the past you jerk!

Today finds the twerps in - what else? - a forest. According to whatever passes for a PokéNav in Black and White, Cilan tells them a huge bridge is coming up, and that on the other side is Castelia City! So they're leaving the forest! And all they have to do is cross a bridge! And we can actually SEE Castelia City so SURELY they must arrive there in like 2-3 minutes time, right? Oh you silly Dodgers, Ash never met a distraction he didn't like, and he'll find a way to fall into....



They approach the bridge from an angle, it's not just large, it's HUGE! Ash spots a Pokémart ahead of him and tells them he's going to go and give Professor Juniper a call (why? To tell her he saw a bridge?) and rushes ahead, almost running into a woman who is lost in memories of how the area used to be. He apologises and politely lets her enter the Mart ahead of him, and Cilan and Iris tell him he needs to learn to calm down and stop getting so over-excited (yeah, then he can be neutered and boring like Team Rocket!). He heads inside and calls Juniper, telling her that he caught a Sewaddle isn't that cool! She happily agrees, probably wondering why he thinks telling her every little thing he does is something she'd be interested in, not knowing that he's used to Professor Oak taking a very fatherly interest in everything he does. She tells him she's gotten all the info she needed about Pidove (....it's a chubby bird....) and asks to transfer it back to him in exchange for checking out his Sewaddle. He agrees without talking to Sewaddle at all first, and then they sign off before noticing that the woman from earlier is currently lost in thought looking at old photographs of the bridge and harbour.

They step up and look; apparently the picture of the boat is from before the bridge was built. The woman tells them that it was called a Water Taxi, and they ask her if she is from around here. She vaguely tells them not exactly then tells them she has to go and promptly does just that, not even telling them a distracting story about something she needs to be done before they cross the bridge. They leave the Pokémart slightly confused about the lack of distraction, and are surprised (secretly delighted!) to have a fresh distraction pop up in the form of a fog that has come up out of nowhere. Officer Jenny pulls up and notes mysteriously that the fog has returned, stepping off of her bike and calling out a Swanna. It's a graceful looking Swan Pokémon, the evolved form of Ducklett (but they weren't ugly duckletts! How did they turn into Swannas?), and its Pokédex picture makes it look like a disapproving Granny in a sexy bra, HA!

Officer Jenny has it de-fog the fog with its powerful flapping wings that.... don't do anything! Jenny stands bravely posing for a moment before realising that the fog is still there, then a car zips by and she forgets the twerps to chase angrily after it like a dog, barking that cars are NOT supposed to drive through when there is a fog. Swanna flaps after its batshit owner while the twerps nervously laugh, then Cilan asks now what? Ash says there is no point in stopping because of the fog, they KNOW the city is on the other side so all they have to do is cross. They start heading across, surprisingly proactive despite all these distractions jumping in their way.... and promptly run into another when a Goth-chick Pokémon gets in their way!



It's Gothitelle!

After blasting at them with Psybeam, it lowers down and throws up a warning arm in their direction. Ash yells that they just want to cross the bridge but it shakes its head and blasts another Psybeam at them. Cilan is smart enough to know that it doesn't want them to cross, and Ash is stubborn enough not to care! He calls out Snivy and has it use Leafblade, but Gothitelle protects itself with... well, Protect! Ash calls for a Leafstorm now, but Gothitelle blasts Psybeam at it, the two moves collide and the twerps.... fall into a white void of nothingness! Oh sweet nihilism, what sweet dark sorrow nips at your cruel embrace!

They find themselves on a grass bank, confused and seemingly back at the start of the bridge which is.... still being built? A very familiar looking young girl smiles and waves to them, telling them she'll give them a ride on the Water Taxi, hands them a ticket and then calls to her Gothitelle to bring them across. The twerps, who apparently suffered MASSIVE brain damage in the fall, decide to just go with it and get onboard, saying the Gothitelle looks familiar but different somehow to the one they were fighting. They set off across the water, offered food and drinks from a snack tray by the little girl. Two of the other passengers, older ladies, ask the Captain if it is true that the Water Taxi will be shutting down. This seems to be the first time the girl has heard about it and she looks upset, while the Captain (perhaps cursing the incredible lack of subtlety of the two women) admits that there isn't much he can do about it, while looking at the bridge that is daring to offer Castelia City hugely improved convenience and safety. The girl and the Gothitelle settle down to eat together, while Cilan stares at the unfinished bridge and finally comes to a startling conclusion... that's the Sky Arrow Bridge they were crossing earlier!

Cilan is the smart one.

He tells them that they've been transported to "a different world" where the bridge isn't yet complete, and Iris simplifies it by asking if he means they've been sent back in time. Cilan says there may actually be another explanation though (might it have something to do with the PSYCHIC EXPLOSION they were involved in? Hmmmmm), but then the Water Taxi arrives on the other side and they leave the boat without exploring the mystery any further since apparently they're in a "fuck the character of the day distractions" mode today. However, as they climb the bank they realise.... they're back where they started on the opposite bank of the river to Castelia City!

Cilan ponders and guesses that they're in a loop, no matter how many times they ride the boat, they will ALWAYS end up where they started. They settle down on the hillside to take in the horror of their predicament, while down at the dock the little girl is having Gothitelle use Psychic to stack boxes of juice for the Water Taxi. The twerps approach, Cilan having decided to find out more about Gothitelle, and pump the little girl (not like that!) for information. They tell her that they heard the Water Taxi was closing down and they wanted at least one last ride, and she tells them that lots of customers say the same thing which.... well that's a fucking terrifying statement all things considered. They ask if Gothitelle is hers and she tells them that it is actually a Wild Pokémon that started hanging around and helping out on the boat, and they've become great friends. They head off to do some more work on the boat, and the twerps return to the hillside where Cilan ponders the possibility that this "world" is a creation of Gothitelle's, made up entirely of its dearest memories. He figures that once the bridge was completed and the Water Taxi shut down, the girl and Gothitelle moved away, but for whatever reason it is back now and the cause of the fog that Swanna couldn't remove. Somehow they've been caught up in its memories, perhaps due to Gothitelle's ability to alter space.

Ash stares down at the murky water, misty air and the crappy little boat, looks at Gothitelle beaming in delight alongside the little girl, both of whom are getting their heads ruffled by the Boat Captain (who is the girl's father) and then rather diplomatically states,"These are Gothitelle's dearest memories? They don't seem so great to me!"

Haha, oh Ash, you jerk!

"Maybe they're special for Gothitelle!" snaps Iris, and rightly so, and Cilan agrees that they have meaning to Gothitelle that they don't understand. As they watch, Gothitelle happily waves goodbye to the Captain and the little girl and heads off into the fog, so the twerps give chase.

As it heads across the bridge, they call out to it and immediately the happy friendly facade drops. Gothitelle knows EXACTLY what it is doing and who they are, and it is pissed off as hell at them! They try to explain what it already knows, that they don't belong in this world and they want to return to their own, but Gothitelle is a true Gothic and wants everyone to feel the blackness of its soul burning in the beautiful decay of the end of all things!

Cilan suggests that Ash have a battle with it to try and break them free, and Ash is delighted to do something that he understands and readily agrees. He sends in Snivy again, which finds itself hopelessly outclassed by Gothitelle's bleak outlook on the inevitably erotic dismay of death. It tries to power through but its attacks are blocked, turned back on it or just out and out dodged. As it uses Psychic to raise up building parts and murder the fuck out of them, a voice gets Gothitelle's attention, and it turns to see the woman from earlier in the episode, rushing up to it. Apparently the bridge is also a bridge between the two worlds and they're all currently standing in the middle ground of both.



The woman tells Gothitelle to remember her, it's Sally. The twerps astonished, she's Sally? The little girl from the Water Taxi? I don't actually remember if she mentioned her name earlier or not so I'll just take it for granted that she did!

She seems to understand that this is a world of Gothitelle's memories, and a gaping Gothitelle and Sally remember the completion of the Bridge and the last voyage of the Water Taxi. The Captain had put the boat away and Sally had brought him flowers, Gothitelle bursting into tears at the end of its happy days on the Water Taxi. They packed up to leave, and Sally spotted Gothitelle standing staring and asked it to come with her. It did so, and they lived together for years as they worked in her Uncle's factory, but as Sally got older she left home to live in a dormitory while studying to be a Doctor. Gothitelle, with nothing to keep her there any longer, left and Sally's father didn't tell her for years, presumably because he didn't want to upset her or distract her from her studies. But she's a Doctor now, and after working as a trainee for many years moving from hospital to hospital, she's been given a permanent position in a nearby hospital and came back to the bridge to reminisce, and learnt that this is where Gothitelle disappeared to. She tells it that she cherishes these memories too, they're amongst the happiest times of her life even if they mean nothing to other people (jerks like Ash!) but they can't live in the past, they have to stop wearing ruffled sleeves and Edwardian smoking jackets and get out of their parent's basement and stop listening to Goth-Rock at some point in their lives. Gothitelle wipes the tears from Sally's eyes and smiles at her, and Sally smiles and takes her hands as a wind kicks up and blows the fog stronger than ever over all of them... and then clears entirely to show that they're back in their own "world", the bridge complete.

Sally looks up and spots Gothitelle standing on top of one of the support struts of the bridge. She asks if she can come to visit from time to time, and it smiles and nods before disappearing in a wave of fog. Cilan tells Sally that Gothitelle seems happy, and has found peace with its memories at last thanks to seeing how Sally also still cherishes them. Office Jenny pulls up and notes that the fog is gone, isn't that strange (no not really, it's basic weather) and Ash tells her she could say that. She drives off to open the bridge, and Ash tells the others they need to get the fuck over it as fast as possible... and he's right, who knows what other distractions will try and prevent them getting to Castelia City.

They head over the bridge with Sally, looking down at the water below and pondering the Water Taxi that used to travel underneath it. Sally says her goodbyes and heads off, while the twerps move forward, avoiding distractions to finally do it - they're finally in Castelia City!

BEST QUOTES

"These are Gothitelle's dearest memories? They don't seem so great to me!"

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