Take This House and Shuppet – Pokémon Season 7, Episode 41

Filler / stand-alone episodeMax befriends Shuppet

Take This House and Shuppet is the 41st episode of Pokémon: Advanced Challenge, the seventh season of the Pokémon anime, and the 354th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 357, Bulbapedia code AG081). It first aired in Japan on 17 June 2004 and in the United States on 4 June 2005. It falls within the season’s Towards Fortree: Swellow, Combusken & the Feather Badge stretch (EP79–EP85).

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

Synopsis

Blasted off once again, Team Rocket crash-land outside an old mansion and start brawling, until a grey, ghostly Pokémon with glowing red eyes calms them with a strange power. Suddenly friendly, the trio go inside in search of food, and the front door locks behind them. Later, after a wrong turn, Ash’s group are caught in a downpour that washes the afro hairstyles left over from an earlier run-in with Team Rocket out of their hair. They reach the same mansion and step inside when the door creaks open. Max wonders whether the place is haunted, frightening May, and when she calls him a know-it-all he storms off through a door that slams shut behind him. May refuses to help open it, and Max decides to find his own way out of the house.

Wandering the corridors, Max sees the reflection of a Shuppet, the ghostly Pokémon, which absorbs his anger at May and quickly becomes his friend. They play chase, Shuppet uses Psychic to stop him falling down the stairs, and it shows him a secret playroom behind a bookcase, complete with a slide and a carousel. Meanwhile, the mansion’s owner, Emily, returns to find her front door scratched and open. Max overhears May saying she doesn’t care about him and decides he won’t care about her either, and he and Shuppet use Psychic to move objects around and frighten the others. Emily confronts the intruders. After Brock explains, and is dragged away by the ear by May for the first time, she reveals that she wants to turn the house into a hotel, but builders refuse to work there because it seems haunted.

Ash’s group send out Torchic, Swellow and Mudkip to search for Max. Max and Shuppet are hiding under a tablecloth when Team Rocket and Torchic enter, and Max steps out to protect Torchic. James’s notes reveal that Shuppet absorbs human emotions, so the trio decide to capture it to soothe Giovanni’s temper. May arrives and declares that Max is her only brother and that she loves him, and Max says he loves her too. Torchic holds off Seviper and Cacnea with Quick Attack and Ember, and Shuppet protects Max from a falling cabinet. When the others arrive, Emily recognises Shuppet as her childhood playmate and apologises for forgetting it as she grew up. Team Rocket net Shuppet and flee, but Swellow frees it and Pikachu’s Thunder blasts them off. Emily decides to open the hotel with Shuppet’s help, and the reconciled siblings head for Fortree with their friends.

Major Events

• Max quarrels with May and befriends an emotion-eating Shuppet
• Emily’s mansion becomes a hotel
• Shuppet debuts

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Shuppet#0353 · AG081

Trivia

• The English title plays on "Take This Job and Shove It".
• The screenplay is by Shōji Yonemura.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Hoenn story.

Changes in the English Dub

• Jessie punching James and Meowth removed
• Pokémon Trainer’s Choice (dub only, in place of Who’s That Pokémon?): which Pokémon is best against Tyrogue? Answer: Exploud (a wrong answer, and Nuzleaf’s name appeared under another Pokémon’s picture)
• Pocket-ering Monster-ing used in Japan; Team Rocket sing the first verse of a later Team Rocket song

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