- The theory that the old man is Nidothing lost some momentum. While Liko was watching a stream in the Pokemon Centre, the old man was fishing.

Turns out I was onto something.

Anyway, the other member is called Dot and is the ship's information expert so will likely be full of convenient knowledge for the sake of plot advancement. They also created the app the crew uses to communicate. Dot wasn't particularly impressed with Liko and Roy's battling skills but came around to them enough by the end to inform them Rayquaza was in Paldea, so I'm expecting to be a blunt character (lack of social graces, probably) who's probably nicer than they let on.

Hopefully, this episode will go a long way towards assuaging people's concerns about Liko being a battler. It was her idea to consult Friede and Cap about training and she's determined to not be a liability to them. Whether she does gyms or anything of the sort is neither here or there, as the important thing is she knows the importance of handing herself during battles. She also now knows the key to battles isn't spamming the same move over and over and actually watching what your opponent is doing. Baby steps.

This is a unique situation because we've never had two complete novices on the cast at the same time and I'll be curious to know if their rate of progress will differ. Liko leans towards strategic thinking and caught on to what Cap was doing quicker than Roy did, but Roy did nonetheless absorb the same lesson and only lost because Sprigatito learned Quick Attack. Deciding to have Liko win outright rather than end it in a tie seems like something that'd be relevant later on.

(I swore to not compare Horizons to OS if I could avoid it, but I just find it funny how Liko and Roy got actual coaching whereas Ash was told to strap Pikachu up to a generator and juice it up to get over a type disadvantage. OS was a wild, wild time.)

On the whole, I found the episode... okay? I expected something relatively lowkey since we're coming down from the tension of the last six episodes, but this was arguably the first episode that could stand on its own and it felt a touch too safe, for lack of a better word. The whole "find the real Pikachu!" thing wasn't the most compelling thing they could have done for training, especially as the answer was something as simple as chasing the clones down until they found the real one. Captain Pikachu, as a concept, is absurd, but the most interesting thing it did was pull a funny face. The lesson was fine, but also very specific to battling and I don't know if it'll have any greater relevance in a show that isn't centred on that.

I guess I'm just used to Pokemon being a little more outlandish with its scenarios. It's not bad at all - better for Horizon to do its own thing rather than imitate what came before - but I do hope not every scenario is going to played so straight going forward.