Disaster of Disguise – Pokémon Season 7, Episode 21

Plot episodeThe PhantomVerdanturf, part 1

Disaster of Disguise is the 21st episode of Pokémon: Advanced Challenge, the seventh season of the Pokémon anime, and the 334th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 337, Bulbapedia code AG061). It first aired in Japan on 29 January 2004 and in the United States on 11 December 2004. It falls within the season’s The long way round: Torkoal, Manectric & Verdanturf stretch (EP57–EP62).

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

Synopsis

In Verdanturf Town, May and Skitty are preparing for the Contest when Drew appears with bad news. He will not be competing, because his Roselia was badly hurt in a battle with the Dusclops of a masked Coordinator calling himself the Phantom, and he warns them to be careful. Team Rocket are training nearby, with Jessie planning to enter Dustox. Before long the Phantom himself confronts Ash’s group and demands a battle. Pikachu accepts, but its Normal-type moves pass straight through the Ghost-type Dusclops, which hits back hard. The match is cut short when a car pulls up and the Phantom flees into the woods, cutting his hand on a branch as he goes. The car’s passenger, a formidable middle-aged woman named Mrs. Grimm, chases after him but soon loses the trail.

Mrs. Grimm explains that her son Timmy has been neglecting his studies to spend time with this Phantom, and the group agree to help her unmask him, while Team Rocket, overhearing, start their own search in the hope of a reward. At the Grimm mansion, Timmy is writing notes about a tough Pikachu he battled that day, and he has a cut on his hand, details that make his mother suspect the truth. She tells the group that she does not want Timmy to become a Trainer, because he is to run her company one day. Timmy’s father, Tommy, then quietly shows the group a Phantom costume. He was once a gifted Coordinator who gave up competing when his wife objected to Pokémon, secretly carried on as the original Phantom until the double life became too hard, and later made a new costume for Timmy after the boy found a stray Duskull.

To get Timmy into the Contest without his mother’s interference, the group stage a deception. Brock dresses as the Phantom and challenges May to a battle in front of Timmy and Mrs. Grimm, so that she will believe her son cannot be the masked Coordinator. The plan is working until Team Rocket, eager for the reward, try to unmask “the Phantom” themselves. Jessie’s Seviper wraps around Brock and pulls off his mask, and although Skitty’s Blizzard blows Seviper away, Brock falls and his face is visible for an instant. Pikachu’s Thunderbolt then strikes Team Rocket’s balloon and sends them flying, and in the confusion Mrs. Grimm becomes convinced that Timmy is not the Phantom after all and returns to work. Timmy resolves to enter the Verdanturf Contest, setting up a showdown with May.

Major Events

• Arrival in Verdanturf Town
• Drew withdraws with an injured Roselia
• The masked Phantom is Timmy Grimm
• Brock impersonates the Phantom
• Aired in Japan on the day FireRed and LeafGreen were released
• Dusclops’s TV debut

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Dusclops#0356 · AG061

Trivia

• The English title plays on "master of disguise".
• The screenplay is by Junki Takegami.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Hoenn storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• Jessie’s skirt lengthened in a fantasy shot
• The Poké Ball design removed from Timmy’s pen
• Pokémon Trainer’s Choice (dub only, in place of Who’s That Pokémon?): which Pokémon is best against Crawdaunt? Answer: Chinchou (Volbeat was also correct)

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