Mystery at the Lighthouse – EP013

Last time: Sunglasses are the coolest.

I adored this episode as a kid. It was one of those episodes I missed the first time around and watched a repeat of after having seen like a hundred episodes. First of all – that’s magical in and of itself. Finding a new part of a thing you love rules, this was in the 90s where if you missed something it was gone.

For good.

You were entirely at the whim of the television channel. No catch up, no on demand, no jumping on iTunes to buy an episode or download it somewhere. If the TV channel didn’t decide to re-air it, you’d never see it.

So finding a new episode of Pokémon I hadn’t seen was amazing in and of itself. 

The other thing is this episode was built around a lighthouse. I think lighthouses are cool. Is that weird? I think it goes back to my inherent tendency to be a hermit. Living alone at the edge of the world with only some random sailors and the sound of waves to keep me company? Sign me up!

(I can’t swim though so maybe living somewhere entirely surrounded by water may not be the best idea)

The third thing was this episode was based around a Dragonite. It’s probably not unusual to think Dragonite is the coolest – but my love probably comes from how mysterious Dragonite seems here. It’s treated as a pseudo-legendary. Plus it’s adorable, like super adorable, and a total badass. So you build an episode around Dragonite seeming all interesting and enigmatic and I’m immediately on board.

Stray Observations 

– Who’s that Pokémon? It’s Krabby. Don’t feel crabby if you didn’t get it! 

– This episode starts with a little catch up of the show premise, how many badges Ash has and how many Pokémon he’s caught. This is notable because Brock and Misty mock Ash because most of his Pokémon followed him rather than him catching them. I saw the latest Pokémon movie this weekend and that undercutting of Ash as a goof was sorely lacking. 

– Of course Ash caught Krabby in this episode – he did so by distracting it with a stick and chucking a Pokéball at it. This was intended to show that he could in fact catch a Pokémon but it just made him seem like a bit of a goof. 

– Add Bill to the list of creeps who lives by themselves in the middle of nowhere hunting for Pokémon. 

– Bill specifically mentions that there are over 150 known species of Pokémon in this episode but they knew what they were doing. Bill suggests there could be way more. Those wonderful con men.