By JC
Hey guys! I’ll be summarizing and reviewing the 22nd episode—A Venipede Stampede—of Pokemon Black and White. The episode starts off with Team Rocket, Pierce, and Dr. Zager inside their blimp examining the meteonite. It glows yellow as it gives off strong pulses of electricity. The introduction song plays and our heroes have finally arrived at Castelia City. Iris and Cilan take in the scenery and recommend that they go to Castelia Cone for some sweets. Ash, with a determined look on his face, intervenes to head to the Castelia Gym first. They take walk through the city and bump into Burgh who is looking worriedly at a tree. He says that the bug Pokemon are behaving strangely and that he must attend to them before he can battle. They head over to Castelia Cone, but are disappointed to see that it is closed. Pikachu notices a weird-looking manhole and the group decides to go down it.
They go farther down the sewers when they spot a Venipede trapped inside a pipe. Ash finds it and wants to pull it out, but Burgh warns that he may get poisoned due to its ability, Poison Point. All of a sudden, he pulls it out and the startled Venipede uses Screech in fear. He tries to calm it down and eventually earns its trust, but is poisoned in the process. Cilan whips up an antidote and cures him as well as using a potion on their new bug friend. Iris also helps out by giving it a delicious Oran Berry. Moments later, they are startled to find a huge herd of Venipede crawling through the sewers. The herd angrily attacks them and they are forced to run. They resurface, only to find that the Venipede colony is attacking the entire city. Officer Joy arrives on the scene and tells our heroes to get out of the city and that Professor Juniper is looking into the disaster. An explosion occurs in the distance at the Pokemon Center and they decide to go there. Several trainers defend the Pokemon Center, including Trip, who sends out Lampent. It along with Pignite, Darmanitan, and Pansear proceed to use Flamethrower on the massive colony. Ash intercedes and gets in an argument with Trip. The mayor arrives and allows Ash, Iris, and Cilan to help Burgh in his plan to gather all the Venipede in Central Plaza.
The group goes to the city and Burgh attempts to reason with the leader, but Trip follows them and tries to knock it out. Ash takes a hit for the leader which prompts the injured one to vouch for him. The Audino he requested for arrives with Nurse Joy and proceeds to heal the colony. Burgh then takes out his flute and plays a melody that attracts the colony to follow him. The others are assigned to assist with any stragglers. For this task, Ash sends out Pidove, Axew helps, and so does Pansage. Even Trip helps out and in doing so, possibly motivated Pidove to evolve.
Professor Juniper and her team locate an unknown energy source centering at the Desert Resort. Ominous music plays as the scene switches to Giovanni in a jet. The day turns to night and everyone successfully gets the Venipede colony into the Central Plaza. The mayor and the townspeople express their thanks. Juniper arrives via plane and explains her findings to the others. She heads out to the Desert Resort to investigate. The end.
We finally get a glimpse of Team Rocket. Boy, were they out of action for a long time! We don’t learn much, only that the meteonite (I’ve been thinking “meteorite” this ever since!) starts to generate electric pulses which can’t be a good thing. I anticipated another episode about Ash and them actually crossing Skyarrow Bridge, but they arrive in Castelia City instead. The title kind of gives away any notion that the episode will be a gym battle though. I really enjoyed the scene where Ash pulled out the Venipede in trouble. He acts all sad and then selflessly pulls it out with all his strength despite the possibility of getting poisoned. Perhaps kids will notice Ash’s kindness and big, big heart and think of him as a role model (I cringe to think of kids wanting to be like Trip).
This is another save the city type of episode that made me remember an old episode, the one about the Exeggutor march. In this old episode, Ash uses Charmander to use fire-type moves to gather up the Exeggutor stampede. He’s more caring in his approach, not like Trip’s. In that episode, Charmander actually evolves into Charmeleon. In this episode, I was happy to see that Pidove evolved into Tranquill. Is it just me or are the evolutions in Pokemon Black and White kind of lackluster? The Pokemon kind of evolve randomly. In the original, I remember evolutions only happened after an epic feat. Pidove got saved by Trip’s Tranquill, and then evolved into Tranquill. This episode actually introduces a lot of plot development, so do your best to catch this one!
Tags: Cilan, Pansage, Pokemon TV Show, Professor Juniper