I love how, in the anime, we get such bizzare names. Lara Larmie, Pete Pebbleman, Fiorella Cappuccino! I'm not kidding, EP052 confirms someone in Pokearth has 'Cappuccino' as their family name...
My favorite OS episodes are under the cut! Since OS is kind of long, and I want to organize these lists by region, I’ll be breaking these episodes up into Kanto, Orange Islands, and Johto.
ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S2 EP052, ‘Exceptional Risk’
- An okay episode, though not great. We were given a tidbit of horror rather than a full mouthful, and the fact that the statement giver was a thoroughly unsympathetic character didn’t help. I couldn’t get into his shoes because his shoes were nothing I wanted to stand in.
No spoilers, please!
- Seriously, about Brown, I think he may be the least-sympathetic statement giver yet, even more so than Lee Rentoul from ‘Piecemeal.’ Yes, I know, prison guard having to keep an eye on dangerous prisoners, but the gleeful way he talks about the excessive force he used in keeping them in line just makes my skin crawl. There’s something about the kind of person who will milk whatever power, however petty, they have for all its worth, who only see power over another person as a thing to use and abuse as they see fit, that makes them truly contemptible. I was hardly surprised to learn that, after losing access to prisoners to abuse, he turned to abusing his wife instead.
- One thing Brown and I agree on is that I did not expect Robert Montork to be that big. I had figured him for a tall man, but 6’6” and beefy was not what I had expected.
- I’d say Brown getting an eyeful of a real monster was just desserts for making himself into one, but it could only be just desserts if something had actually happened to him.
- The interlude with Basira was hilarious. (It’s nice that it doesn’t read like they’re in denial, but that they genuinely don’t feel that way about each other. I’m kind of sick of the “just in denial” trope at the moment.)
- Interesting how you immediately assume people are talking about Martin when they mention your assistant, Jon.
- Oh, Jon, don’t worry; the scars will make you look like a rock star someday.
- Christ, Tim. I kind of have to wonder what’s up with him, as I have a hard time imagining him feeling particularly charitably towards Jon at the moment, considering Jon’s behavior lately. Does he think his boss having a new girlfriend he’s canoodling with in the office will make him less difficult to deal with, or something?
- So Basira hasn’t listened to any of the tapes they found around Gertrude’s body? Even considering they could be evidence? I’m pretty sure you can still buy a cassette player pretty easily, online if not in stores, so… So yeah, that sounds sketchy.
- After listening to this episode for the first time, I went back and listened to ‘A Father’s Love’ again, and I’m not quite sure I can make sense of Maxwell Rayner’s behavior in that episode, as opposed to this one. According to this episode, Rayner is the ally of the thing that Montork was keeping at bay by killing all those people, but in ‘A Father’s Love’ it sounded like Rayner was Montork’s ally in keeping it at bay. So what happened? Was Rayner stringing Montork along? Was Montork obfuscating his exact motives to Rayner? Did Rayner jump ship in between that phone call in the earlier episode, and his visit to Montork in prison?
The thing is, the hatred between the two men illustrated in Rayner’s prison visit seems well-established, and Rayner, as the leader of this cult associated with darkness, seems like the sort of man who would very much not want to curtail the activities of a darkness-monster. He clearly has some powers associated with darkness himself, as Brown looked at his eyes and judged him to be blind, but Rayner didn’t need a cane or a seeing-eye dog or a human guide to get around. So what happened there?
- The moment during Rayner’s visit where all the light bulbs blew out was probably the most genuinely scary moment in this episode, to me.
- It sounds like the brackish water really is the herald of whatever this darkness-monster is that killed Montork.
- Philip Brown, you are lucky you’re the POV character, because if any other person was the POV, you would have been the asshole killed by the monster to prove the situation’s serious.
- Supplemental: “Boyfriend,” I’m so sure. Definitely a boyfriend, and definitely not communion with doll-people.
- This episode was a bit of a let-down, especially since I enjoyed ‘A Father’s Love’ so much, but they can’t all be winners, I suppose. Next time sounds like it should be a Gertrude recording, so that should be good.
I’m not the same anon as before, but do you have a list of team rocket heavy episodes? And/or, can I ask where you usually watch episodes?
much like my previous answer, that list lives in my head, but i do not at all mind unearthing it for the good of humanity.
same deal as before: this list is organized by rocket with a more general collection of episodes at the end. bolded are VERY rocket heavy episodes, as in, ones where team rocket carries the a plot & the kids carry the b plot. nonbolded are episodes where team rocket have a bigger presence than usual but carry the b plot or share equal focus. yeehaw!
i also don’t include a lot of jessie’s contest eps because even tho she competes in them she’s basically always the catalyst for the heroine to win, esp in hoenn where she never wins & kalos where she rarely wins onscreen =/ but if you want those i can edit the post.
to answer your second question, i have the whole series downloaded and usually just watch it like that. for dub episodes, though, i usually watch them legally–through the pokemon TV app & on pokemon.com, which is free for everyone as far as i know. i also sometimes watch on netflix, which has season 1 and some of the later seasons.
before i had the sub downloaded, i mainly watched it on kissanime, which has every subbed and dubbed episode. but nowadays i just download new episodes as soon as they’re out.
ANYWHO episodes below the cut
JESSIE:
Holiday Hi-Jynx (This episode is a Weird Christmas Special that aired out of order so it has, like…….. no official numbering but its early OS)
EP052/Princess vs. Princess
EP073/Bad to the Bone
EP129/Ignorance is Blissey
EP196/Control Freak!
AG008/A Tail With a Twist
AG021/Which Wurmple’s Which?
AG048/Zig Zag Zangoose
AG168/Three Jynx and a Baby
AG174/New Plot, Odd Lot
AG175/Going For Choke!
DP022/Borrowing on Bad Faith!
DP073/Crossing Paths
XY063/A Fork in the Road! A Parting of Ways!
XY082/A Festival Trade! A Festival Farewell?
SM038/Mimikyu Unmasked!
SM093/Lillier and the Staff!
JN019 (no english title yet)
JAMES:
EP020/The Ghost of Maiden’s Peak
EP048/Holy Matrimony!
EP157/The Fortune Hunters
EP245/Will the Real Oak Please Stand Up?
AG080/That’s Just Swellow!
AG084/Who’s Flying Now?
AG147/Sweet Baby James
AG159/Off the Unbeaten Path
DP054/Once There Were Greenfields
DP139/A Faux Oak Finish!
DP153/The Treasure Is All Mine!
XY054/Facing the Grand Design!
XY084/Mending a Broken Spirit!
SM058/Fighting Back the Tears!
SM132/Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Strategy!
Here is my cover of the song Bulbasaur sings in "Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden" (EP052) from the Pokémon anime, which first aired in Japan on July 2, 1998 and in the United States on April 3, 1999!