Warning! As per policy, all spoilers are unmarked.
- The Slowpoke Well battle goes well enough for Gold and Kris until Proton and Petrel surround them, and then, Bugsy comes in with Scizor and the battle goes into awesome with a few stand outs:
- First, Bugsy shows what happens when a Gym Leader can go all out like the Kanto Gym Leaders and brings in Scizor and Heracross to knock out some Grunts' Pokémon.
- Kurt, who didn't do anything to help in the games due to his injured back, joins in with Hitmontop and knocks out some more.
- Kris' Chikorita uses Razor Leaf to attack a Machop, eventually evolving into Bayleaf as he continues to attack the latter. And then Machop faints. Meanwhile, Gold's Mareep uses Thundershock while blitzing past Petrel's Drowzee and evolving into Flaafy to finish the job.
- While Silver doesn't join the group in person, he still helps out in the shadows with Croconaw, stopping a group trying to flee with Slowpoke Tails and driving them away.
- The wild Slowpoke join in by using Growl to weaken Team Rocket's Pokémon, giving our heroes more of a fighting chance.
- And the icing on the cake of this battle? The music is an orchestra arrangement of the original Pokémon Johto theme song from the anime! Pedro has always been good on picking music for his animations, and this is another example of his choices.
- Whitney and her Miltank have been hyped as all but invincible since her brief cameo in Red. Here they finally appear... And not only she lives up to the hype, she does so with Miltanks of strength matching her challenger's ability:
- Silver is the first we see challenging her, leading with a Gastly. Her weakest Miltank (that fights alone) flattens said Gastly, makes short work of Silver's Zubat, and is barely slowed down by Croconaw using Rage.
- In episode 10, Ethan challenges her for his third Badge, and gets flattened six times in a single episode (the last five in a montage scored with the Ultra Instinct theme) and is left broke.
- We also see that her other Pokémon aren't weak either, as her Clefairy puts up a good fight against Quilava after Mimicking his Cut during the first attempt and in a later one manages to defeat Quilava when a use of Metronome generates Bubblebeam.
- In episode 11, an Ace Trainer shows up and challenges Whitney for his eight Badge. She's positively giddy when she can finally cut loose. Her Blissey and Clefable take out most of the opponent's team (that includes a Machamp. Annihilated by Clefable with Psychic), that is finished off by a Snorlax... And then she shows off her strongest Miltank, properly ripped and Shiny to boot.
- At the end of the episode the Ace Trainer tries again... And is horrified when Whitney's Pok´mon start recovering health by using Rest, and is left in tears when Miltank does the same with Milk Drink.
- In episode 12, Gold procures a male Nidoran with Double Kick, a Fighting-type attack, to hit Miltank with super effective moves. Miltank starts spamming Attract.
- In episode 13, Gold with a full team finally defeating Whitney's third Badge Miltank through judicious use of status effects to throw off her aim, diminish her ATK and DEF stats, keep her asleep enough to hit her ATK and DEF stats a bit more, and straight up Paralyze her, Type advantage to hit harder, and two female Pokémon immune to Attract.
- Gold's Nidorina deserves to be mentioned in particular for causing an Oh, Crap! to Whitney when she fired a Poison Sting and made her realize that this time Gold was fighting smart.
- In the same battle, Miltank defeating five of Gold's Pokémon, including the female Machop that Gold exchanged a Drowzee for specifically to fight Whitney, and coming back from the brink multiple times with Drink Milk (the first time it happened, Gold realized the fight was going to be even harder than he thought). Had Gold not brought multiple Revives to send his Pokémon back in the fray and Wooper not started evolving into Quagsire during the fight, thus getting more power for his Ice Punch, Miltank would have likely won this battle too.
- Episode 21 shows why Team Rocket has no branch in Kanto: every time they try to go back with their balloons, an unknown Pokémon, implied to be Red's Pikachu, uses Thunder to shoot them down right on the border.
- Kris was fighting a losing battle against Eusine... but then her Shellder performed a Fusion Dance with her Slowpoke, causing Slowpoke, who previously lamented that he won't be able to evolve, to finally evolve... into Slowking. Everything afterwards was, much like Charmeleon evolving into Charizard, a love letter to Dragon Ball Z, in this case, to Gohan's final battle against Perfect Cell. Including the father-son Kamehameha, which is referenced here by the Combination Attack Slowking and Suicune unleash on Eusine's Gengar.
- Episode 26. Where do we begin?
- After getting a call from Claire about her Dratini's suffering from Team Rocket's radio waves, Lance decides that enough is enough and goes to Johto to stop them personally. He leaves Blue to temporarily fill in as Champion until he comes back.
- A subtle detail in addition: If Lance is leaving Blue as Champion, then who ends up as Viridian Gym Leader? Why, none other than Leaf.
- To get through to Johto, Lance crosses through a barrier created by members of Red's team: Hypno, Gengar, Mew, and Mewtwo! It seems that Red has anticipated Team Rocket's return as well and has his Pokémon create another way to keep the criminal organization from going back to Kanto.
- At the Lake of Rage, Gold and Kris are horrified to see their Pokémon fight due to the radio waves and even get attacked by them. But Gold manages to calm Quilava down by calmly linking his heart to his partner's, all while the latter is biting on his arm.
- Just when the Red Gyarados has Quilava beat, Gold jumps into the water to save his friend, and the power of friendship is enough to evolve Quilava into Typhlosion.
- Hell, the evolution is awesome as well! We see a flame tornado emerge from the waters as Gold and Typhlosion jump on a hover board made of fire and do a joint Flame Wheel against the Gyraradoses before Gold lands back to shore.
- Not only does Typhlosion stop the Gyarados herd, but he also destroys the radio towers Team Rocket set up, and gets some help from Lance's Dragonite. Then, Typholsion, without a Technical Move Disc mind you, uses Thunder Punch to land a deadly blow against the Red Gyarados, allowing Gold to capture it. And did we mention he lands the attack while plowing through the Red Gyarados' Dragon Rage?
- And the final shot is something all Pokémon fans have been waiting for: Gold and Lance storm Team Rocket's Base and prepare to stop their radio wave plan once and for all.
- After getting a call from Claire about her Dratini's suffering from Team Rocket's radio waves, Lance decides that enough is enough and goes to Johto to stop them personally. He leaves Blue to temporarily fill in as Champion until he comes back.
- Episode 28 is a big Darkest Hour for our heroes as Team Rocket has the Legendaries on their side and are using them to terrorize Johto, but there is one moment of awesome in here. When Eusine tries to bring the brainwashed Suicune through the aforementioned barrier between Kanto and Johto, Hypno takes one look and leads the others in pushing the barrier back at them, even briefly shorting out the collar on Suicune. This was done as a clear message to stay out of Kanto unless Team Rocket was willing to lose the Legendaries they captured.
- Episode 29:
- Lance once again proves why he is the Champion by using Dragonite, Aerodactyl, Gyarados, and Charizard to take on the Johto Legendaries and beat them! Naturally, the Executives are stunned that they're losing to someone with regular Pokémon compared to the Legendaries they have, but Lance gives one hell of a Badass Boast in response:
"I'm Lance. Champion before and after Champion Blue and Champion Red. The only Champion of 2 Regions. Your attack ends with me!"- Kris confronts Silver in the Goldenrod Underground and dishes out the pain with only three Pokémon. Special mention goes to Bayleaf, who tosses Feraligatr through several levels up to the roof with Vine Whip before doing the same to Silver as payback for all the times he mistreated his Pokémon. And it does the latter part while evolving into Meganium.
- Upon seeing Kris joining the battle, Ariana tries to increase the radio frequency to make her and Lance's Pokémon go berserk. What happens next? Meganium resists the waves with Synthesis, while Dragonite attacks itself to come to its senses by puncturing its own ear drums.
- Last episode we saw Gold travelling around Johto after recovering from his Heroic BSoD, and it turns out he has recruited Kurt and Youngster Joey to help defeat Team Rocket.
- Just when Team Rocket has succeeded in bringing Giovanni back and overwhelming our heroes, a green beam comes and destroys the radio tower. Where did it come from? Why none other than May and her Rayquaza! Thanks to Jasmine, we have a Hoeen character joining in the fight. And that's not all. It turns out Jasmine recruited three others to help in the fight: Dawn, Barry, and Lucas from Diamond and Pearl!
- Silver finally realizing what he's done... And taking off the "R" patch from his clothes and stomping it while Giovanni watches, before taking his place against Team Rocket.
- Episode 30 (aka, the sequel episode to Pokémon Red's Silph Co. battle) features some great highlights including:
- Rayquaza using Outrage to weaken Ho-oh and Lugia and having Lance's Dragonite to knock them down temporarily.
- Joey ordering Raticate to charge at Lugia and use Bite. Sure Lugia knocks Raticate aside, but not before the latter manages to land the attack!
- The Johto Starters working well as a team against the Legendary Beasts, having each other's back despite this being the first time all three fought together.
- And when the Johto team is weakened, the Sinnoh team comes to their aid and produces a nice set of team work: Torterra using Earthquake to disorient Raikou while Typhlosion attacks with Flame Wheel, Empoleon and Feraligatr attacking Entei with dual Hydro Pumps, and Infernape using Sunny Day to boost Meganium's power so it can use Solarbeam without waiting a turn.
- One thing also to consider is that unlike last time when Red and the others fought Mewtwo, our heroes here are fighting two Legendary Birds and three Legendary Beasts with just normal Pokémon (and Rayquaza), and are winning!
- Before Ariana and Archer leave, Gold gives them one last beating with just his Typhlosion and Red Gyarados. The last one can also count as a well deserved Laser-Guided Karma for Archer as Gyarados was one of the many victims of the radio waves that forced it to evolve.
