Review HZ120: Dot and Botan! Secret Mission

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ET eat your freakin' heart out.

She just keeps delivering man. Even when things haven't been as good as earlier, Dot always somehow keeps finding a way to make her episodes that damn good. Here's another one to add to the list.
 
What an epic episode for both Dot and Penny undercover mission to steal data from Exceed. But not without discovered by explorer before making a great escape with Gimmighoul evolve to Gholdengo.

At the same time, Fredie reveal to be at space. How the world he get from there?

Overall rating: B+
 
I half expected that the Friede in space thing was trolling, but no.
And the data they got from the heist was just about the strong sphere/laqurium, I was hoping for some more hidden secrets there, but that is good too I guess.
And I really was hoping that the kids would search for Friede by themselves not literally wait for him to fall from the sky...
I hoped we would learn more about Agate in this episode, but otherwise,

this episode was epic. The action was top notch IMHO.
We finally have that evolution into Gholdengo.
The whole infiltration bit was hilarious.
This is what I watch Horizons for.

I might have more thoughts later, but in general, good episode
 
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Love the E.T. reference. Couldn't care less about Indy and Rubella. And the plot thickens for Chalce's plans. I have honestly been enjoying these Dot and Penny episodes. They are a fun duo to watch, and it makes me wish we had more episodes with a main character and a side character accomplishing a goal. Also, Gimmighoul evolved. Hopefully, it will be more endearing as a Gholdengo. Otherwise, a solid episode.
 
Gholdengo arrives, Dot and Penny are the duo ever and like with episode 66, we got information just like how the Explorers did at the Naranja Academy. Also, there really expecting us to think Friede was up in space going into to next week's episode, insane stuff around.
 
The tech duo of Dot & Penny infiltrate the Exceed Museum to steal their data and get into wacky hijinks along the way! As always, Dot is my favorite among the cast, and her chemistry with Penny is fun to watch since they have so much in common. Penny making Dot wear the frilly dress because she didn't want to was funny.

Agate was really showing off her intelligence this episode. She made great utilization of her move-set and controlling the battlefield to her advantage. Separating the two of them using the fire shutter, using Teleport to really mess up Dot's strategizing, and using Power Swap on Tinkaton so she wouldn't be strong enough to hold her hammer. She was really outsmarting Dot for quite a while.

Too bad no amount of intelligence can outcompete with a sudden and cool evolution sequence. Gimmighoul has seemingly been fairly controversial around here. Some people didn't really care for it's gag of controlling people to collect coins. I never really minded that, it is just a fact of it's species to collect them, and it had a few funny moments with that. I thought the fake-out of Rubella and Indy going to capture it, only to cut back and they're collecting coins for it, was the funniest usage so far. But with it evolving into Gholdengo, the gag is presumably over. Seeing it skateboard over the ground at high speeds is cool to watch, definitely fit for the cool attitude it seems to have, along with learning Make it Rain.

We're then left with a cliffhanger - Friede has been in space all along! Of course, he had merely forgotten to mention that somewhat important detail when he left his original message a while back. I'm as shocked as everyone else was that "in space" is genuinely where he has been this whole time. But our boy is coming home, presumably with some important lore to drop.
 
three back to back evolutions is insane to me

anyway this episode was stellar, the animation was really good the character writing is great as always (especially because our headlining duo bounce off each other really well) and the battle segments were well done!! also really gay

anyway how the hell did friede get to space
 
What a neat episode. Love that an underrated pokemon like Xatu got to play an important role with its teleport trick! In fact this is the first time in the anime where it properly battles, it only took like 20 years gosh! The evolution was also very well done and a great way to escape from the building. Also, I’m the only one that kinda likes Dot’s disguise? lol Anyway, best episode of this arc imo.
 
Completely minor detail:
All this time, i was wondering, why Agate had 3 pokeballs on her belt, and what was in the third one.
In this episode, she clearly took out a different, 4th pokeball from somewhere, while the 3 pokeballs on her belt were still attached.
(I don't remember if she always did it that way, but i only noticed it this episode.)
So they might be just for show, (or she actually secretly has more hidden pokemon, but very unlikely)
 
I feel like Gimmighoul was used quite cleverly here. It still had that gag of making people find its coins, but it also had that small character development it had during the Tinkaton evolution episode where it struggled a lot due to it being a small Pokemon with a big box of coins. Gimmighoul knows it can distract enemies by making them find its coins and also wants to prove its worth by protecting Quaxwell and Tinkaton by taking the attack meant for them.

The evolution was good! I liked that Ghouldengo feels so confident and chill now that its body is bigger and can be of help to Dot without going OCD with the coins.

Also, Indy and Rubella are frauds if they lost to a Fairy type while having two Poison types and a strong sphere boost.
 
Dot and Botan infiltrate the Exceed Museum, Botan in a unconvincing disguise while Dot is in a frilly dress because Botan didn't want to wear it, but somehow convinced the even more tomboyish Dot to do so (embarrassed Dot is adorable, so I have no problem with this oddity). Somehow, they find time to change out of their disguises, and then they get to work hacking Exceed's servers. Instead of calling the police or something, Agate, Indy, and Rubella try to stop Dot and Botan themselves. Agate manages to separate the two and defeats Dot's Quaxwell and Tinkaton (her Xatu even gets to use moves that aren't Teleport), but Gimmighoul finds the last coin it needs to evolve, and Dot retrieves it. The newly evolved Gholdengo has no problem helping Dot and Botan escape. At the same time, Botan defeated Indy and Rubella off-screen (Despite Botan's ace being Fairy-type and the two of them using Poison-type Pokémon for this battle). Agate is not worried about the data having been stolen. Dot returns to the airship, and Botan heads back to the Academy. The episode ends on the reveal that Friede is in space for some reason (I suppose it makes for an unexpected and therefore highly effective hiding place, but how did he get there?)

We've had a ton of LikoAnne in the Hattrem evolution episode, and this was a DotBotan episode where Gimmieghoul evolved. So, when are we getting another LikoDot-focused episode (Hopefully soon), and will a Pokémon evolve in that one as well (they both still have Pokémon that can evolve, and they could always catch more)? More importantly to the plot, but less importantly to me, will we get an explanation as to how Friede acquired a spaceship, or will the next episode gloss over that particular detail (on the one hand, it's nice to have answers; on the other, Friede just inexplicably having access to space would be kinda cool)? Will the end of Roy's Pikachu rental be a big emotional moment (probably not)? Less immediately relevant, but more important, will Liko and Dot ever catch Pokémon that can Mega Evolve and acquire Key Stones (Sooner would be better than later, and later better than never)?
 
Love that Gimmighoul ended up using its "make-people-search-for-coins" ability for something good, tricking Indy and Rubella. I'm not a fan of Friede being reintroduced in the story out of nowhere like that. It does feels like him though, I guess.
 
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