Original Title: The Ice Cave!
Original Airdate: May 30, 2002
US Airdate: Unaired
Ash and his friends decide to use the titular Ice Cave as a shortcut to get to Blackthorn City faster. After an encounter with Team Rocket leaves Brock ill, the gang comes across a pokemon center in the middle of the cave.
Banned due to the episode's prominence of Jynx.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch: Brock thinks the one tending to him is Nuse Joy when in reality it's Jynx.
- Call-Back: The Orange Islands Nurse Joy is called attention to. She's this Joy's older sister.
- Human Snowman: Team Rocket's disguises for the episode.
- Imagine Spot: This episode's one involves Giovanni being woken up by a Jynx's kiss, brushing his hair using a Swinub's Powder Snow and using Piloswines to clear the room.
- Near-Villain Victory: A downplayed case but Team Rocket does successfully capture all of the pokemon they were trying to steal and they successfully beat Brock and his Geodude. Thanks to Wobbuffet, they also manage to beat Ash's Totodile and Misty's Corsola. The episode presents the cold air returning as the heroes' chance to turn the tables but let's be real; The fact that Ash still had Pikachu completely unrestrained effectively meant Team Rocket was never had any real chance of victory.
- Sick Episode: For Brock at least.
- Too Dumb to Live: James' "great plan" is to sell ice cream to the non-existant hordes of customers inside an ice cave.
