YMMV / Showdown in Pewter City

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Brock's mean spirited attitude when running the gym- Is it simply a facade to appear tougher, like Flannery in later games? Or is he venting his frustration towards his parents by taking it out on gym challengers, so when he insults Ash, it's everything he wants to say to his good-for-nothing father?
  • Because of the Dub-Induced Plot Hole, it's up to the viewer whether Flint was lying about Brock's mother having passed away, or if he simply didn't know what happened to her and merely assumed she had died.
• Ass Pull: Awesome as it is, Pikachu being able to hurt Onix with its electric moves after turning on the sprinklers definitely counts as this. Hilarious in Hindsight aside, getting wet doesn't just magically get rid of a Ground type's immunity to electricity.
• Broken Base: Did Ash earn his Boulder Badge? Depending on who you ask, it's essentially a pity badge that he should have worked harder for, or he deserved it since he was doing much better against Brock and had his Onix dead to rights before calling it quits meaning he had all but officially won the badge.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Pikachu shocking Onix into submission after weakening him with sprinklers definitely rose some eyebrows since that's not how things work in the games. Years later however, the Black and White games would introduce the move Soak, which would turn any Pokémon hit by it into a Water type. Yes, thanks to this, you can turn an Onix into a Water-type before finishing it off with a Pikachu.
  • Ash trying to recall Pikachu, who is stuck in Onix's Bind, with the Poké Ball but failing to seems to be another sign of Ash being at the bottom of the barrel of Pokémon Trainers since in Gen I, you can easily recall Pokémon stuck in Bind. But starting in Gen II, Bind makes it impossible for trainers to recall the afflicted Pokémon, making Ash's inability to recall Pikachu more in line with what new, inexperienced players would face against Bind for the first time.
• Woolseyism: In the Finnish dub Flint never says that Brock's mother died; he says along of the lines "Their mother unfortunately didn't have enough strength to continue that way."

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