ENGLISH NAME	JAPANESE NAME	POKEMOPOLIS NAME	DODGINESS RATING	ANIMATION	STORY	TEAM ROCKET	MORAL LEARNT
584: Stopped In The Name of Love!	589: Shinka! Sono Toki Potchama wa!?	Piplup is Jeffty			Piplup fights evolution, Dawn completely misses the point	Set collectors!	There's nothing wrong with being happy with yourself as you are!

The episode begins with Piplup sitting underneath a waterfall, water cascading over it before suddenly it begins to glow white! Is it evolving? No, it strains like it’s trying to take a shit and the glow fades, it seems whatever was about to happen has been stopped? Why? Fear? Hate? Love? Has it....



The twerps arrives at a lovely countryside style Pokémon Centre in the middle of a small forest town. Dawn has called out her Pokémon and Piplup tries to join them but staggers and bumps about, seemingly suffering from dizzy spells.... and then Barry comes bursting around the corner screaming and smashes straight into Ash! Before they have a chance to figure out what the hell happened, Barry snaps at Ash that he is going to fine him and then Kenny - Dawn's old childhood.... friend.... - comes around the corner with a fat-faced smirk and asks "Dee-Dee" if she is going to enter the Pokémon Contest.

Barry is surprised they know him; he claims he and Kenny are best friends, though Kenny admits they've only just met for the first time. It seems that they both come from Twinleaf Town and therefore according to Barry they're buddies! He says that Kenny is going to enter the Contest and win, while Barry himself plans to enter a Ping Pong tournament with his Empoleon and win that. He and Empoleon practise their moves in front of the befuddled twerps, which is when Piplup begins to glow white and hops about from foot to foot in consternation, not at all excited by the possibility of an upcoming evolution!

It strains and uses Bide and finally, the evolution stops, Piplup panting and then collapsing. They rush it to Nurse Joy and Barry, Empoleon and Dawn's abandoned Pokémon all give chase.

At the Pokémon Centre, Nurse Joy has Piplup hooked up to monitors and tells them that it just needs some rest. They head away for a meal elsewhere in the centre, Pikachu unhygienic ally sitting its fat rat ass on the table eating out of a bowl. They discuss Piplup's upcoming evolution, Dawn psyched for it while Kenny and Barry talk up how great it is going to be when it evolves but how much extra work it will be as well. But as they chat, Brock appears troubled, though he doesn't give voice to his opinion as the only one who has noticed that Piplup doesn't seem all that keen on a sudden growth spurt and weight gain.

Listening from behind a window (that clearly shows their silhouette in direct line of sight of the twerps!) are Team Rocket. They're delighted - they've got themselves a twerp trio! The Twerpette, a Contest Twerp and Fining Twerp! All in one place, and combined they have the entire Piplup evolutionary set! And surely the Boss would love that!

Yeah he can throw it on the pile!

That night, Piplup wakes up to look out at the moon, surprised when Dawn comes in with a bowl of food. She offers him a meal but it turns it down, and Dawn completely fails to read the mood as she begins chatting about how great it will be when it evolves into Prinplup. It struggles angrily in her hands and then starts to glow white, and uses Bide again to fight it off. Dawn can't understand why, and says exactly the wrong thing by telling Piplup that once it evolves it will be bigger and stronger and they'll be able to win more contests and..... well Piplup has heard enough, and with a squeak of "Fuck you, Mum!" it slides the window open, leaps out and takes off into the forest.

Meanwhile, Barry is being a menace.

He's decided that they're all going to enter Pokémon Ping Pong with him and it is time for training! Whether they want to or not! Just then, Dawn rushes around the corner to tell them about Piplup, and they head out into the forest where Brock finally voices his opinion - Piplup doesn't want to evolve, and that is why it has been so dizzy and tired recently, it has been doing everything it can to fight off evolving.

They all separate to try and find Piplup, Dawn spotting a glowing white something in the far distance of the forest and heading after it. She finds Piplup sitting under the waterfall using Bide before falling out into the pool of water at the bottom.



Haha look at how fat that fucking thing is!

Hauling its fat ass out of the water, Dawn completely fucks up once again by saying that she doesn't understand, surely it WANTS to evolve, right? It jumps out of her arms and blasts Bubble at her, then rushes into the bushes where it runs straight into a web and gets tangled up. Dawn rushes towards it and gets blasted off of her feet by an Ariados, which blasts at her again and again till Piplup slams it with Bubble, giving Dawn a chance to rush for Piplup. Ariados fires at her again and she barely ducks, the blast knocking Piplup out of its web and through the air. She manages to catch it, but then they look up and find themselves facing not one, or two, but at least seven Ariados! All firing up Hyperbeam!



Their reaction is smooth, cool, calm and collected.

Piplup leaps into the way of the Hyperbeams and absorbs them with Bide (oh that's ridiculous!) then in an impressive showing wipes the Ariados out with a massive burst of white light that sends them flying through the air and plummeting to the ground.

Meanwhile, Barry and Kenny are still looking for Piplup in a different part of the forest when suddenly two horribly 3d arms whip out of the darkness and grab Empoleon and Prinplup. They try to blast their way clear but the hands whirl about and send the attacks awry and also leave the two Pokémon dizzy. A furious, fining Barry demands whoever it is (guess, Gentle Dodgers) show themselves, and what is revealed is... a colossal something from deep ancient times before man had knowledge and the dark places of the world ran deep!



Or a robot. One of the two.

Dawn settles Piplup down by a lake reflecting the moonlight and thanks it for saving her life, and asks if it remembers the same thing happening to them on the day they first met, and how this caused her to choose Piplup from Professor Rowan's research lab.

Just then Ash, Brock and Pikachu come running around the corner, and everyone "important" has been reunited! Thus, Ash wants to head back to the Pokémon Centre without bothering to find Kenny and Barry and tell them it is safe to stop looking. Before this callous idea can be put into practise, however, a mechanical arm grabs Piplup and hauls it into the shadow, and the twerps find themselves face to face with the horror that appeared before Kenny and Barry earlier.

THE BUTLER ROBOT!

Inside, they can see Prinplup and Empoleon are secured to the wall, and then Kenny and Barry rush up to join the twerps, Barry screaming about the fines he is going to charge as Team Rocket reveal themselves (not like that!) and deliver their motto...

"Chitter-chatter, is that the lurid lilt of hot air I'm hearing, whether I like it or not?"
"Putting my poor eardrums on the spot!"
"On the wind!"
"Past the stars!"
"Dere's a lot!" screams Meowth.
"Bringing chaos at a breakneck pace!"
"Dashing hope, putting fear in its place."
"Save it for someone else," grunts a bored Barry,"You're Team Missile, right?"

Furious at having their motto cut short, Team Rocket insist that they are the only ones deserving of a full evolutionary set like this, and Ash's response is standard - zap the fuck out of them!

Team Rocket have REALLY learned this time though, as they not only absorb the electrical attack but actually redirect the zap through to Empoleon and Prinplup, blasting them instead. Since the twerps have no other Pokémon whatsoever at all even slightly, this leaves the twerps completely powerless. Team Rocket head away with a laugh, their Butler Robot growing wheels out of its ass and rolling away downhill, Piplup slapped into the clear dome on its belly.

As it goes by though, Dawn leaps up onto one of the now useless legs and struggles to get the dome open before clambering up to the hatch on top of the robot's head, where she quickly leaps down dramatically as Team Rocket stare up at quite the illegal sight.

Dear Director, in accordance with the "No panties you sick fucks," rule, could you please tell the storyboard artist to stop giving us shots like this to work around?
Director Note: Fuck you.

She faces off with Team Rocket, demanding Piplup back (what about Empoleon and Prinplup?). As they argue, Piplup has been working its way through the ventilation system of the hastily constructed giant robot. It zips through to join Dawn, and Meowth translates from its angry squeaking that it intends to protect Dawn from Team Rocket, and that it can throw down with them as easily as it did the Ariados earlier. Dawn grins and tells it not to overdo things, she can protect it, and Piplup squeaks furiously at her that (thanks to Meowth's translation) it is the one that looks after her, just like it did on the first day they met all that time ago. Dawn finally realises her mistake from earlier. On that day she didn't just choose Piplup, Piplup chose her, and in a display of Ash-like incompetence, finally the other penny drops and she figures out that Piplup was using Bide because it doesn't want to evolve!

Clap clap for the handicap.

Meowth bursts into tears at their touching reconciliation, saying he always wanted to protect the Boss.... from Persian. As James and Jesse try to get the little cat to man up, Dawn tells Piplup that they will be the most special of special partners (GETCHA MINDS OUTTA DA GUTTA!) and orders it to use Whirlpool, with devastating effect!



Oh that's just disturbing.

Everyone emerges from the wreckage ready to throw down with a good old fashioned Pokémon battle, with all the usual spots like Carnivine eating James' head and Seviper getting its ass kicked. But as the fighting goes on, Piplup begins to evolve once again, infuriating James who doesn't want to wreck the evolutionary set. As he shouts at it not to evolve, Jesse tells him to let it evolve if it wants, and then points out that if they could get Piplup and Prinplup to evolve then they could give three Empoleon to the Boss and he'd be so happy he'd give them the shirt of his back!

"But I don't like his shirt," mumbles James, while Meowth looks surprisingly unimpressed by the idea of a shirtless Giovanni. Jesse insists though, and Carnivine and Seviper launch themselves at Dawn and Piplup.



Well that's going to cause a few nightmares.

But before they can hit, they're blasted out of the air by Pikachu's Thunderbolt. The twerps arrive, Kenny and Barry hugging their recovered Pokémon. As Piplup continues to try and fight off the evolution, Pikachu continues to blast the fuck out of Seviper and Carnivine, until Piplup finally fights off the evolutionary imperative and sends Team Rocket blasting off again, furious.... except for a very satisfied Meowth.

Beads of water float down over the twerps as Dawn kneels down and gives Piplup a good look up her skirt as she apologises for not thinking of its feelings. It squeaks its name and she takes this as an endorsement and eagerly hauls it up into the air telling it that it will always be her Piplup.

The next day, Nurse Joy has given Piplup, Prinplup and Empoleon a clean bill of health, but as the latter two are reunited with Barry and Kenny, Nurse Joy has something else for Dawn, something very special.

It is an Everstone, and with it Piplup need never worry about evolving ever again, as long as they have it, Piplup will remain Piplup forever. A chubby, squeaky, pre-adolescent feathery ball of lard and attitude.

A-fucking-men!

BEST QUOTES

"Save it for someone else, you're Team Missile, right?" "He'd be so giddy he'd give us the shirt off his back!" "....but I don't like his shirt...."

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