EP235

Talkin' 'Bout an Evolution (Japanese: ワタルとあかいギャラドス！  and the Red Gyarados!) is the 235th episode of the Pokémon anime. It first aired in Japan on February 7, 2002 and in the United States on February 15, 2003.

Blurb
''Ash and friends discover a red Gyarados, unknowingly uncovering a plot by Team Rocket to control the secrets of Pokémon evolution. To ensure their silence, Team Rocket attempts to capture the children, but is foiled by a member of an elite Pokémon defense organization, who releases the children with instructions to continue on their way and leave the dangerous job of ending this Team Rocket experiment to adults like himself. Ash and friends assent at first, but before long, unable to ignore the compassion he feels for the red Gyarados that seemed to be in such pain, Ash decides to return and lend a hand.''

Plot
and are walking down the road to Mahogany Town when all of a sudden  feels sick, followed soon by. Ash starts to wonder what's going on, but he thinks it's probably just a thing that comes and goes. Soon some Bug Pokémon drop in near Misty, but they appear sick too. A sick looking and  also appear. They all wonder what's going on. The group reaches the Lake of Rage and try to see if there's anything about the lake that could be causing the sickness. All of a sudden a Red Gyarados appears from the water, startling everyone, first because it's a Gyarados, and second because it's red. Within moments of its appearance, Gyarados fires out a towards the group, which misses.

Soon an unfriendly-looking group of people comes by. Ash notices it's Team Rocket, and the leader simply laughs wondering what a bunch of kids are doing. He sends out a to take care of them and Ash releases. Just before Totodile can do anything, he suddenly grows tired but the Fearow remains strong. The Fearow dives in with a but just before the Pokémon can hit, a beam fires towards the Fearow from a newly-arrived  and its Trainer. Seeing this, Team Rocket decides to flee. The Trainer takes Ash and his friends to another part of the forest around the lake and Ash thanks him. Misty notices that the man is Lance from the Pokémon League. They all wonder what he's doing in a place like this and comment on their progress towards becoming Pokémon Masters. One last thing Ash mentions is to help the Red Gyarados, which immediately Lance says no. He explains that it would be too dangerous for Ash, especially since the Team Rocket members were no ordinary grunts. Ash protests, but Lance still refuses.

Somewhere else along the forest around the lake, Jessie, James, and stumble along, groaning about their next meal and win. Meowth notices something in the distance that looks like a building. With a building, there's got to be some food around there they can swipe. The building however is a Team Rocket HQ, and inside is the man from before, Professor Sebastian, addressing himself to a superior, another major Team Rocket leader,, who is assigned to capture the infamous Red Gyarados. Upon further inspection of the security systems, Jessie, James, and Meowth are caught on camera. After walking in a hall, they fall for a trap that seals them in a hallway behind two walls of bars. Then Tyson comes by only to see who exactly they are. Jessie, and James say they're a part of Team Rocket obviously and a grunt walks by and says that they are legitimate Team Rocket members, but have been demoted to rookie rank for making little to none contributions to the organization. Jessie and James negotiate for a while and convince Tyson that they're the important ones.

While Ash and friends walk along the road to Mahogany once more, Brock tries to talk with Ash. However Ash seems like he can't stand there and wait for things to get better. He wants to help the Gyarados, whether or not it is dangerous.

Back at the base, a boat's getting ready for the operation to begin. Just behind one of the docking hangers, Lance hides and waits for a chance. An unsuspecting Rocket grunt walks by and Lance grabs him, takes his uniform and goes onto the boat disguised. Back on the boat, Professor Sebastian explains that Project R is about to begin, but he needs a couple of "expendable" grunts for the first part of the job. Tyson knows the perfect ones. He goes over toward the mess hall where Jessie, James, Meowth, and Wobbuffet are stuffing their faces and he says that they get an "important" assignment: find the red Gyarados. Everyone assembles on deck, Jessie, James, and Meowth are off to find the red Gyarados, but they all start to argue about the whole Gyarados thing. Soon enough, an angry red Gyarados comes towards them and Jessie, James, and Meowth swim off back to the boat, where all of them break surface. As soon as the target is on sight, a Team Rocket member handling a net gun fires it and surrounds the red Gyarados and Jessie, James, and Meowth! Professor Sebastian gives a signal and a power shock is delivered through the netting, shocking both Gyarados and Team Rocket.

The boat starts to go with the catch, but Ash and his friends come just in time. Ash sends out Totodile, and Misty sends out. They both swim to the net, and Totodile the net and Jessie's hair, while Poliwhirl tries to rip it. Lance notices them, thinking Ash is crazy. Seeing the two Pokémon, Sebastian sends out for another device, which triggers a giant Radar back at Team Rocket Headquarters that sends waves out towards to the area. Soon Totodile and Poliwhirl get tired and let go of the net. Ash realizes it's something at the HQ that's doing this. They start to go over there. Before anything can happen, Tyson catches them and hands them over to the hands of Sebastian. Ash demands to know what's going on and what are they going to do with the red Gyarados. Sebastian explains the whole concept behind Project R, short for Project Revolution. The whole idea was that the Gyarados had a strange property in it that made it red. The aim of Project R is to force Pokémon into evolving or try to achieve the "red" state. Thus, the whole Rocket faction would achieve an army of evolved and above-average Pokémon at their disposal. Later Tyson congratulates Jessie, James, and Meowth for their work, but it seems he has other plans for them.

The Gyarados is later loaded onto a truck which Lance is on, along with Tyson and Sebastian. It drives off, leaving the lake, and Ash, behind.

Major events

 * and meet Lance, the Pokémon League.
 * Ash and his friends encounter the Red Gyarados at the Lake of Rage, which is a result of Team Rocket's latest scheme of forcing Pokémon to evolve.

Humans

 * Lance

Pokémon debuts

 * Red Gyarados

Humans

 * Jessie
 * James
 * Lance
 * Professor Sebastian
 * s
 * Lance
 * Professor Sebastian
 * s
 * s

Pokémon
Who's That Pokémon?: (US and international),  (red) (Japan)


 * ('s)
 * (evolves; flashback)
 * (Red Gyarados; newly evolved)
 * ('s)
 * (evolves; flashback)
 * (Red Gyarados; newly evolved)
 * ('s)
 * (evolves; flashback)
 * (Red Gyarados; newly evolved)
 * (Red Gyarados; newly evolved)

Trivia

 * The episode title seems to be a reference the song "".
 * In this episode, Team Rocket uses a variation of their.
 * This episode is similar to Ya See We Want An Evolution!. The title of this episode is also similar to said later episode.
 * Lance disguises himself as a Team Rocket member in this episode. In, one of the Team Rocket s, Proton, is named Lance in Japanese. It should be noted that Lance also disguises himself and the player as a Rocket member as well in the said games.
 * When learning of Team Rocket's plan to force evolutions, states that "Real evolution needs both a Pokémon and a Trainer!", despite wild Pokémon being known to evolve without the help of a Trainer.
 * The Persian statues in Team Rocket's Base also appear in the games at Team Rocket HQ, serving much the same purpose.
 * In Professor Sebastian's first appearance, the text on the screen is Greek, but mirrored.
 * Music from Pikachu's Vacation, Mewtwo Strikes Back and The Power of One are used throughout the episode.
 * Face Forward Team Rocket! is used in the Japanese version of this episode.
 * Jessie, James, and Meowth do not blast off in this episode.

Errors

 * The narrator says, "Ash is determined to earn his final Badge at the Mahogany Gym." This is followed by Ash saying, "Yes! I can't wait to get my sixth Badge, then it's on to the Johto League!" However, the Mahogany Gym is actually the seventh out of eight Gyms.
 * At the same time, Pikachu can be seen missing the red spot on his right cheek.
 * Lake of Rage is referred to as "Lake Rage".

In other languages
Gefährliche Radiowellen EP237 EP235 無印編第235話 精灵宝可梦 第236集