ZETA: "Change of Heart".
In his quest to find one of his "father", Zeta runs afoul of Bennett, who comes within a harlot's hair of nabbing him with an electronic jamming device that renders their car inoperable. As it's traceable, the fugitives ditch the heap and proceed to the nearest town on foot.
They find themselves at some sort of technology fair where apparently their quarry is a guest. Immediately Zeta gets into deep chozzerai with an electromagnet.
Now right in the first ten minutes of the show a plot point crawls right up my butt. If the government is intelligent enough to build battle droids capable of infiltrating any public gathering, why aren't they bright enough to use non-metallic alloys, plastics, and alluminum in the body? I'm sure in the future there are suitable metals strong enough to assemble a warrior droid of, natural or manmade; why use archaic steel? Seems to me it'd be a lot more effective to have a warrior droid whose cover can't be blown with a fifty-cent refrigerator magnet, much less Big Bertha. But maybe I'm just in a really gripey mood today.
Z meets a capticating young child named Cora (the name is a pun on the Spanish word "corrazon", apropos because of all the talk about hearts).
Zeta is in many ways a child, so appropriately enough, he disguises himself as a little boy. And like a child, corporeal colloquialisms like "heart's desire", "broken heart", and "you are in my heart" confuse him. (Foreigners are the same way; I once had a devil of a time attempting to explain to a Japanese girl I was dating what a "redneck" is. But anyway....)
I don't recommend eating during the scene where Zeta, Ro, Cora, and Cora's mom ride the trolley through the giant mock-up of the human digestive tract. [shudder]
Cora wanders into a cold fusion demo booth and nearly gets baked like a red russet potato, but Z saves her. Now after that altruistic display one would think Bennett would reconsider his position on terminating Zeta--I mean, after all, even Lt. Gerard had a modicum of respect for Dr. Kimball--but, in true one-dimensional villian fashion, his bloodlust gets the best of him, and he ends up looking both foolish and a loser.
Zeta makes several hints to Ro's past, which brings me to a point I made several weeks ago: she doesn't strike me as a girl who's had it so bad. She has a sense of style clothing-wise, she speaks articulately, and she has all her teeth. She looks to me like a snotty little rich girl who ran away from home because Daddy wouldn't let her date the guy she wanted to or took away her gold cards or some d*** silly reason. She's not the sort of girl who looks like she ever ate out a dumpster, or sold her body to buy crack and "speedballs" for her "stable", or watched a junkie drop dead of a "hot shot". (Note to self: stop reading Iceberg Slim's "Pimp: The Story of My Life" before bedtime.) Still, she refuses steadfastly to talk about her home life, which makes one wonder what skeletons she's got buried.

POK JJ: "The Superhero Secret"
This episode looks like what Stan Lee would see if he dropped a couple tabs of acid.
In the first five minutes Team Twerp falls into one of Team Rocket's ubiquitous pits, and in a weirdly sadistic turn Jesse and James and Meowth produce a hose and try to drown them like unwanted kittens. Aack.
Lo and behold, Batman swoops out of the trees and smashes through the grate over the hole, saving Togepi. Okay, not Batman exactly, but a middle-aged, paunchy guy in fruity lavender long johns who looks like some bizarre fantasy of James' come to life.
Watch TR deal with Gligarman's pet--it's hilarious. First it attaches itself to Jessy's face, and James isn't sure which is more deadly: the pink bat's scorpion tail or Jessy's evil-looking spit curl (cut down on the hairspray, honey; there is such a thing as *too* much body). Then as Meowth goes in for a scratch atttack, Glingar moves, and Jessy gets her pretty face clawed up. Not that Jessy's a slouch in the nails department--she does a number on the puss' puss. Finally we hear James crying, in one of the dodgiest lines in this ep, "It's behind me, and it's not my face I'm worried about!" I imagine, as one who must have spent his misbegotten youth serving time in every juvie hall from the Indigo Plateau to the Orange Archipelago, that isn't the first time James has worried about his butt.
When Latoya, a pretty little number from the town, shows up and inquires about Glingarman, Brock goes into his old libido shuffle. First he gets an ear pull from Misty that makes his eyes water (for a tiny little thing, Misty must be pretty strong), then, surprisingly and maybe a bit out of character for the boy, he gets hollered at by Ash. When Mr. Laid-back yells at you, you *know* you've gone too far.
Team Twerp learns that Lotoya is the daughter of a Parker, a local toy merchant who originally concieved Glingarman as a promotional gimmick to sell action figures, but got a little too into prancing about in pink panties and decided to be a crimefighter. Did anyone else think Parker looked like an out-of-shape Wolverine?
Parker shows the Twerps a film by Robert Smigel that tells the origin of Glingarman, and reveals that he and the Dork Knight are one and the same. Team Rocket crashes the show--dressed as Metapods?--and start swiping toys left and right. Then a mysterious pink lady--no, not the band, or the drink--swoops in and mops up the Metapod Gang. Brock demonstrates quite a bit of Ash-like density in commenting how much she looks like Latoya, and by the way, where'd she get off to? Ash wonders aloud who she is, but unconvincingly--I think he was, uncharacteristically, being sarcastic here.
Well, Parker wanted a male heir to carry on the cape-and-cowl business, but I guess a daughter will do. And, let's face it, she wears those tights much better than her old man. [slavers; wipes drool from chin hastily]
In the end, Brock wonders if he blows the whistle, will "Batgirl" come running to service him at a second's notice. Misty says something to the effect of Latoya blowing the whistle on him as she yanks his pinna. I have a feeling the actual Japanese phrase would translate roughly to Misty suggesting that if Brock doesn't quit being a doofus, she'll put that whistle where the sun doesn't shine.

POK JJ: "Mild and Woolly"
Do computers dream of electric sheep?
Did anyone else think this title sounds like a Chuck Jones short with Sam and Ralph, circa mid-1960 or '70s? I half expected to see a red-haired sheepdog Pokemon come up to pummel the snot out of Jesse and James?
At any rate, after last week's rather tame Poke-eps (which explains my admittedly lackluster review), I was proud to see the dodginess back in full! First, there's the idea of perpetually-libidinous Brock in a field of sheep. If he'd been left to his lonesome in that pasture, I have a feeling this ep would've seen more cutting than "Holiday in Acupulco".
Secondly, there was the scene where Pikachu was jumped and forcibly mounted by a lust-crazed Mareep, who promptly became engorged...followed by what I can only describe as a Mareep gang-bang with Pikachu playing the part of the lovely Jenna Jameson to about a dozen electric sheep at once.
Mareep love electricity; they snort it like cocaine, and their fleece plumps up. They are so addicted to it, in fact, they even stand outside during lightning storms for a fix. Barbacued lamb chops, anybody?
The sheepherder's daughter, Mary (as in "had a little lamb", folks), breaks up the little orgy and herds--um--ushers Ash and company into the house.
Here Brock makes a surprising comment, considering his passion for mature women: "Oh, Misty, if only she (Mary's mother) were ten years younger!" To which she replies, "You want a younger woman? Okay, Brock--meet me in the back bedroom! Just give me a full bottle of ripple, ten minutes and a cigarette afterwards!"
Okay, she doesn't say that--but Kojiro and I can dream, no? >8D
Ash comes off surprisingly insightful in this episode, teaching Mary the value of treating one's Pokemon humanely and not as a cold-blooded killing machine. Much like walking a dog, you have to let the little beastie rest during battle so it doesn't get overtired, and be mindful of pulling the leash too hard and causing collar burns. Or something like that. This is the first time Ash has ever had a little sister figure, and I think he likes it a lot.
James, the quintessential little rich boy, here acts like a spoiled sorority girl when he talks about growing up with a closet full of expensive Mareep-wool clothes. Seems he did everything with Mareep wool but wipe his bum. Jessy, poverty's child and nursing-school failure who never got to go Greek, hates that sort of mentality con pasion and looks ready to rip James a new one.
This must be a holiday episode--note the Meowth balloon looks resplendant in Christmas tree lights. Though beautiful, with a little juice those babies go Hindenburg in about five seconds. Like James said once, "Whoever said that beauty is fleeting must have been thinking of us!"
The Rocketeers try to make a grab for the woolly mammoths, but wind up looking sheepish when all the Mareep concentrate their power into Mary's pet Fluffy and turns their plan to steal wool into a shocking defeat. Instead, they're forced to take it on the lam.

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