Poetry Commotion! – Pokémon Season 7, Episode 15

Plot episodeFlannery debutsSlugma evolves into Magcargo

Poetry Commotion! is the 15th episode of Pokémon: Advanced Challenge, the seventh season of the Pokémon anime, and the 328th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 331, Bulbapedia code AG055). It first aired in Japan on 11 December 2003 and in the United States on 20 November 2004. It falls within the season’s Mt. Chimney & the Heat Badge stretch (EP52–EP56).

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

Synopsis

Arriving in Lavaridge Town, famous for its hot springs, the group are tempted by the sand baths where visitors are buried up to their necks, but Ash insists on going straight to the Gym. There they find the Gym Leader, Flannery, running around with her coat on fire. Brock’s Mudkip puts her out, and when she takes off the coat Brock is smitten until Max drags him away. Flannery eagerly accepts Ash’s challenge but nearly starts on a non-regulation field, and the real battlefield is riddled with holes left by a previous challenger’s Dig. Brock is surprised, having expected the Leader to be an old man called Mr. Moore. Flannery explains that her grandfather left three days earlier on a poetry tour of Hoenn and Johto, handing the Gym over to her, and Ash offers to help repair the field.

Unknown to Flannery, Mr. Moore has not left at all. He lurks nearby in a series of disguises, worrying about how she is coping. When she cannot find her Badges, one disguised “stranger” reveals where they are, and when Max notes that there is no referee, Mr. Moore turns up as a supposed official from a Gym-judging committee and offers to judge the match and help fix the field. Team Rocket also arrive disguised as helpers, planning to steal Flannery’s Torkoal, but Mr. Moore recognises them and catches them in the act. Jessie’s Seviper fills the Gym with Haze and the trio escape to their balloon, but Mr. Moore’s Wingull punctures it and they crash. He then sends out his Typhlosion, and Flannery begins to suspect who he really is, while her Slugma blocks Cacnea’s Pin Missile with Ember.

Typhlosion defeats Cacnea with Flame Wheel and Seviper with Flamethrower. Meanwhile May and Max slip away to rescue Torkoal. Meowth spots them, but Flannery’s Slugma, Mag, stops him with Flamethrower, drives back the returning Cacnea and Seviper, and then evolves into Magcargo. Mr. Moore congratulates her, and Flannery finally calls him Grandpa, confirming his identity, to Team Rocket’s disbelief that a man would spy on his own family’s Gym. Magcargo and Typhlosion combine their Flamethrowers against Cacnea, and Pikachu’s Thunderbolt sends the trio blasting off. With the battlefield repaired, Mr. Moore suggests postponing the Gym battle until the next day and buries the travellers in the sand baths, while Ash and Flannery trade excited promises about tomorrow’s match. It is the first episode of the Ruby and Sapphire series in which Wobbuffet does not appear.

Major Events

• Arrival in Lavaridge Town
• Flannery and Mr. Moore debut
• Flannery’s Slugma Mag evolves into Magcargo
• First Ruby and Sapphire episode without Wobbuffet
• Banned in South Korea
• Torkoal debuts

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Torkoal#0324 · AG055

Captures and evolutions

• Slugma → Magcargo#0219 · Flannery’s Mag

Trivia

• The English title plays on "poetry in motion", and Mr. Moore’s poetry tour.
• The screenplay is by Yukiyoshi Ōhashi.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Hoenn storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• Team Rocket’s boss fantasy loses the shot of a fireworks lighter being used on Torkoal
• Asuna renamed Flannery
• Pokémon Trainer’s Choice (dub only, in place of Who’s That Pokémon?): which Pokémon is best against Tyrogue? Answer: Togetic

Part of our Pokémon: Advanced Challenge guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.