Pokemon S01E49-50 Review: Duck Wars

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 49: So Near, Yet So Farfetch'd; Episode 50: Who Gets to Keep Togepi

The concept of Farfetch'd is an... interesting one. Based on a proverb about how you shouldn't trust something that looks too good, the focus Pokemon in this episode is a Farfetch'd used by some jackass called Keith (Keita in the Japanese version) who helps his trainer to steal people's Pokemon by using Farfetch'd as bait. Misty and Team Rocket fall prey to this, and it's all fun and hijinks until our heroes finally catch up to Keith and basically get him to realize that Farfetch'd is actually an awesome Pokemon that can fight, and he doesn't have to resort to stealing people's Pokemon.

Except... except that the whole point of Keith's crimes isn't that he doesn't see the potential in his stupid duck, it's that he's tricking and stealing people -- more people than just Misty and Team Rocket, in fact. That's some genuinely bizarre writing fallacy there, and throw in the fact that the plot itself honestly doesn't make too much sense... and this is even talking by Pokemon anime standards! I'm someone who's watched a good chunk of the Jotho and Hoenn seasons, and even I recognize that this particular episode is horrible.

After discussing the sightings of the rare Farfetch'd nearby, Misty ends up encountering one and chases Farfetch'd before bumping into its trainer, Keith, who is all friendly and stuff before going off... but turns out Misty's bag got swapped by Keith, which means all five of her Pokemon are gone and replaced with rocks. So let's break down the nonsense here, yeah? Somehow, Keith has prepared a bag with the exact same make and weight as Misty's and filled it with rocks, and then he bumps into Misty so hard that she... doesn't see the bags being switched. Fair enough, but we don't even see Keith holding a bag until later on.

And then Keith tricks Team Rocket, but with a completely different trick -- he goes all about how he wants them to take Farfetch'd off of his hands, and he totally has this bag full of Pokeballs... trusting that Team Rocket will steal Farfetch'd and his bag and jump into the nearby sabotaged boat. Which, of course, sinks... and somehow, they were counting on the crash dislodging Jessie and James's pokeballs (which, of course, happens), and Farfetch'd just swims by and picks those three up... and somehow, the current that's calm enough for Farfetch'd to swim around and casually scoop up the Pokeballs is also strong enough to wash Team Rocket off of a waterfall.

Team Ash reports this to the very blase Officer Jenny, who tells us that she's been hunting the Farfetch'd trainer with no success, and that Misty is Keith's fifth victim.

So... so what was Keith's goal, really? Honestly, those Pokemon he stole are presumably not going to listen to him (presumably Team Rocket has alternate means of 'brainwashing' those they stole). Plus, he can only use six anyway in a league, and presumably the league will know what's up if you use stolen Pokemon, unlike Team Rocket and their black market dealings. Oh, and also, Psyduck can still just pop out of his Pokeball for no reason other than comedic value. We get this whole hilarious bit where Psyduck wanders off and Misty tries to interrogate Psyduck, but of course Psyduck is a dumb duck.

Keith is accosted by Team Rocket, but he hands Team Rocket like a bag full of Pokeball, and returns their Pokemon. Somehow, Team Rocket doesn't check it out (although I'll buy that they're too dumb to do so)... but then they open the Pokeballs and inside is a massive swarm of Voltorbs. Presumably these are Keith's own Voltorbs, so why resort to stealing Pokemon if his stupid fake sob-story excuse is that he can't win with Farfetch'd?

Team Ash, co-starring Officer Jenny, shows up and blocks Keith's way, and he ends up giving this stupid sob story excuse about how waaaah he's so misunderstood, all he wants is to be a trainer, but Farfetch'd is too weak. Look, jackass, just because my bicycle is broken doesn't give me an excuse to steal my neighbour's Porsche. The episode continues to showcase Keith as someone who misunderstands Farfetch'd, and that misconception is what Ash and Misty have to shake, when that's not the problem. His whole stealing scheme is.

Ash sends out Bulbasaur to battle and Bulbasaur whacks Farfetch'd around with vine whip, but then... Farfetch'd somehow pulls some speed out of his duck ass, zips around and starts rapid-fire poking Bulbasaur so hard the poor onion frog gets defeated. NO! Misty demands to fight next... but then goes all "oh, right, I don't have my pokeballs back". Why are you of all people acting like this is okay, Misty? Demand for your Pokemon back! Hell, why are they still even battling? Jenny should just arrest Keith and his criminal punk ass up.

At least Farfetch'd gets his dumb duck ass fucked up when he keeps hitting Psyduck in the head multiple times, while Psyduck shows off just why he is the superior duck pokemon, using confusion to telekinetically throw Farfetch'd onto Keith and onto a tree.

And, sure, Keith realizes that his own duck Pokemon is actually not completely worthless (way to build up Farfetch'd's self-esteem there, dickbag) but... but that does not make the fact that he duped and stole the Pokemon of seven people okay! It's a pretty terrible moral, honestly, showing that you can apparently lie, steal and cheat people's things, but you can just go on with your life without any consequence. Throw in some genuinely bizarre leaps of logic and utter nonsense in showcasing Keith's harebrained scheme, and this is probably one of the worse episodes in Pokemon.

Episode 50, is another episode that I don't really remember that well from my childhood, and rewatching it honestly makes me realize why. It's just so... inconsistent. For what's otherwise a pretty huge event -- the egg hatching into Togepi, who in itself is a mostly-unknown Pokemon to our cast, Togepi himself is just reduced to being a plot device that ends up being the 'prize' for our three heroes and Team Rocket to fight over.

And the actual fighting for Togepi is... is frankly pretty boring. After brief scene with Professor Oak upgrading Ash's pokedex and basically re-stating the mission statement (also, MUK CAMEO HOORAY) of catching all of the Pokeymans in the world, we go straight into a bit of a fantasy bit of the three heroes arguing about what critter could hatch from the mysterious egg.

And then with the aid of a bizarre skit using weird egg-baskets, Team Rocket absconds with the egg, escapes into a hut, and Meowth ends up being extremely and bizarrely paternal towards the egg, in a similar way to that Paras episode where he falls in love with the character-of-the-week for no real reason. Meowth also never displays any sort of aggressiveness over keeping Togepi in the future, so it's just for this episode's gag, I guess?

And then our heroes show up, Togepi hatches, and everyone argues about just who should keep the egg. Brock notes he did most of the legwork while caring for the egg prior to this episode, Ash argues that he's the one that finds the egg in the first place, Meowth argues that it's his intense care that causes the egg to hatch, and Misty's... Misty says she wants Togepi because Togepi's cute. All right. We then go through what's frankly the most boring tournament ever. The little gag of Meowth being his own trainer is frankly pretty boring.

Ash, of course, ends up winning the tournament (poor Onix loses to Meowth, too), Meowth gets zapped and is carried away, while Ash... ends up being unable to claim Togepi because Togepi is a baby chick and he imprints on Misty, the first thing he sees after he hatches. Ultimately, the episode just really doesn't have a whole ton of content to it, and Togepi's honestly a pretty bland "LOOKIT DIS CUTE THING" Pokemon, even moreso than other cute Pokemon in the franchise, so the whole thing just honestly feels like a pretty bland episode in general. Also, with Togepi's birth... Misty basically becomes a mom and calms down a whole lot -- as the fandom definitely notes. She ends up basically going from a slightly violent tomboy that takes no shit from no one into basically the most generic female character ever since this episode onwards, and it's... definitely very, very unfortunate.

I'm... I'm going to take a brief break from Pokemon reviews for a while. It's nothing too long, I hope, but I kinda need some variety, y'know?

Pokemon Index:

• Episode 49:
• Pokemon: Psyduck, Pikachu, Farfetch'd, Meowth, Bulbasaur, Voltorb
• Humans: Misty, Ash, Brock, Jessie, James, Officer Jenny
• Episode 50:
• Pokemon: Pikachu, Muk, Tentacruel (vision), Aerodactyl (flashback), Golem (vision), Lapras (vision), Meowth, Dragonair (vision), Pidgeotto, Geodude, Psyduck, Staryu, Arbok, Weezing, Togepi, Onix, Bulbasaur
• Humans: Misty, Ash, Brock, Nurse Joy, Professor Oak, Jessie, James, 

Random Notes:

• A significant of the "joke" in this episode is Farfetch'd origin story, which refers to a Japanese proverb meaning "a duck coming bearing green onions", which is explained in detail here by Bulbapedia, but essentially means something that is too good to be true, sometimes used to describe someone that's easily suckered. 
• A famous error in this episode found in both Japanese and English versions is that Jessie explicitly calls out her Arbok and Lickitung, and three Team Rocket pokeballs float away from them, despite catching Lickitung three episodes later (episode 52, Princess vs. Princess). This is often noted to be caused by that particular episode being shuffled around and delayed thanks to the Porygon incident.
• Interestingly, even the dub keeps in the line about how Farfetch'd is hunted to near-extinction because it's tasty. 
• So Togepi is 'revealed' via the anime, one of the Generation II Pokemon that ended up appearing in the anime before the Gold/Silver games were even announced in Japan. And while Ho-Oh is another early bird cameo from Generation II, Togepi's easily the most prominent. 
• Ash's pokedex is upgraded in this episode by... slotting it into the Pokemon Center's phone-PC things. Apparently all it ended up doing is give extra information about Togepi?
• So... what's the real connection between Togepi and Aerodactyl's brood from the prehistoric Pokemon episode? No, really? 
• This episode features one of the few times we get to see Brock's eyes open!
• Dub Changes:
• In episode 50, the dub has Professor Oak off-handedly noting how the new Pokedex upgrade includes a new voice, which explains in-universe why the Pokedex's voice actor was recasted to Eric Stuart in the dub.