Japanese Title: Rocket-dan VS Plasma-dan! Nyarth and Achroma!!
Original Airdate: March 28, 2013
US Airdate: June 29, 2013
Is this where Meowth's journey with Team Rocket really ends?
As N leaves the twerps on his own journey, Team Plasma closes in on him. As for Team Rocket, they connect with Team Plasma's head scientist, Colress, who has an interest in Meowth. The question is, who's really trying to trick who?
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Colress stabs Jessie and James in the back, and re-programs Meowth to attack them.
- Breather Episode: For Ash and his friends, anyway. Team Rocket actually deal with Team Plasma, but Ash's plot revolves around him simply trying to get something out that's stuck in Pignite's nose.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Pignite got hit by the Bullet Seed last ep, two halves of a seed got lodged between both its nostrils.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Ash accidentally gets hit with a fiery sneeze from Pignite, Ash laughs it off saying the fire wasn't that strong...which alerts everyone that something is very wrong.
- "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Meowth was duped into being Dr. Colress latest test subject for his experiment and fell to his control device. However, hearing Jessie and James voices, Meowth was able to snap out of it.
- Large Ham: When Ash calls out all his Pokémon to eat lunch, Charizard's entrance involves him giving a huge roar and shooting a Flamethrower into the air. It actually intimidates the Unova Pokémon a little bit.
- Also, Colress goes really overboard once Meowth is brainwashed and is displaying his full power.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: When Meowth is Brainwashed and Crazy, he has glowing red eyes.
- Squick: We are treated to a view from inside Pignite's nose, and later after Pignite finally sneezes the objects out, Axew, Ash, and Iris actually handle the Bullet Seed shards that were inside!
- Worst Aid: One of Ash's ideas to help dislodge the foreign object in Pignite's nose is to have Charizard use Seismic Toss on Pignite then catch it just before it hits the ground. It doesn't work.
