Healing the Healer! – Pokémon Season 24, Episode 5

Plot episodeGoh catches Suicune

Healing the Healer! is the 5th episode of Pokémon Master Journeys: The Series, the twenty-fourth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 1133rd episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 1139, Bulbapedia code JN053). It first aired in Japan on 29 January 2021 and in the United States on 10 September 2021. It falls within the season’s Chloe’s Eevee & a new year of research stretch (EP49–EP55).

Released on Netflix in the US on Friday 10 September 2021 with the rest of Part 1; Teletoon had premiered it in Canada on 10 July 2021, followed by e.tv in South Africa on 31 August 2021 and POP in the UK on 7 September 2021.

Synopsis · Major Events · Trivia · Dub Changes · All episodes

Synopsis

Goh catches the Legendary Suicune to save it from Pokémon hunters who have been polluting a Johto lake to wear it down. After a storm muddies a lake in Johto, Suicune appears and purifies the water, but Chrysa and Ren point out that it keeps returning to the same lake instead of moving on, which is unusual. Professor Cerise sends Ash and Goh to investigate. They find the lake reeking and choked with garbage, and a gang of men dumping waste while their Pokémon fire Sludge Bombs into the water. Ash charges in before Goh can call Officer Jenny, and a fight is about to break out when the gang’s boss notices Suicune arriving. Suicune cleans the lake again and attacks the dumping trucks, but the boss is unworried: Suicune’s repeated purifying has drained its stamina. Goh realises the men are Pokémon hunters who polluted the lake again and again to weaken Suicune enough to capture it.

The hunters’ Pokémon bombard Suicune with Sludge Bombs and tie it down with ropes and nets. Desperate, Goh throws a Poké Ball, which shakes three times and clicks: his Rotom Phone confirms that he has caught Suicune. As the furious hunters move to take it by force, Ash sends out Lucario to hold them off and tells Goh to run to a Pokémon Center. Goh trips on the way and drops the Ball, and the distrustful Suicune freezes it with Ice Beam and retreats into a tree, where forest Pokémon grateful for their clean lake stand guard. Goh assures them he is no hunter, leaves Cinderace and Alolan Exeggutor to watch over Suicune, and returns with Raichu, whose Pecha Berries cure Suicune’s poisoning. He treats an injury on Suicune’s hind leg with a Potion and binds it with a cloth Chloe gave him, then catches a Drowzee to counter the hunters’ Poison types.

The hunters return, and Goh holds them off with Cinderace and Drowzee until the boss’s Houndoom knocks Drowzee out with a single Crunch, mocking Goh for assuming they used only Poison types. The hunters net Suicune, drag it from the tree and beat it while Goh begs them to stop; Ash rejoins the fight, Cinderace is poisoned, but Goh refuses to give up. Moved by his determination, Suicune breaks free and fights alongside him, defeating the hunters’ Pokémon with Hydro Pump and Ice Beam and freezing the hunters in a block of ice for Officer Jenny to collect. Goh then sets Suicune’s Poké Ball on the ground and tells it to continue its journey, but Suicune looks into his eyes and returns to the Ball by choice. At the Cerise Laboratory, Cerise, Chrysa and Ren are amazed, before Suicune bounds to a hill in Cerise Park and vanishes in a gust of wind. Goh insists it is still with him.

Major Events

• Goh’s Suicune. In Johto, Pokémon hunters pollute a lake to wear Suicune down
• Goh catches Suicune, which roams free but chooses to stay his
• Goh catches a Drowzee, the first pure Psychic type caught by a main character outside Team Rocket
• Suicune’s first appearance in 644 episodes

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Suicune#0245 · JN053

Captures and evolutions

• Suicune#0245 · Goh · caught to save it from hunters; it roams free but chooses to stay his
• Drowzee#0096 · Goh · to counter the hunters’ Poison types

Trivia

• The screenplay is by Akemi Omode.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Kanto, Galar & beyond storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• The Japanese caption naming Johto is removed, so the region is never named in the dub
• Netflix’s description of the episode names Johto, though the dub never does

Part of our Pokémon Master Journeys: The Series guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.