DP007: Like It or Lup It!

is the 7th episode of Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl.
==Synopsis==
It's a rough day for hero and villain alike, as Dawn's Piplup struggles to perfect a move for the upcoming Pokémon Contest and Team Rocket struggles to find something to eat. Team Rocket lucks out and finds a giant pile of berries in the middle of a field, but nearby footprints suggest the berries already belong to someone—or some Pokémon. Team Rocket steals the berries anyway, but a slip-up lands some of the berries in the possession of a Ludicolo trio. Then the berries' real owners, a Golduck and its Water Pokémon friends, show up and mistake the Ludicolo for the real berry thieves!
Team Rocket steps in and defeats Golduck, all part of their plan to get the Ludicolo on their good side so they can snag them for the boss. Alas, this plan is quickly abandoned when the grateful Ludicolo turn out to be too energetic for Team Rocket to bear. As for the dejected Golduck and its friends, they have the good fortune to run into Piplup. Piplup take charges and goes right up to the Ludicolo, determined to show them the error of their ways. Team Rocket watches it all while feasting on their ill-gotten berries and, unsurprisingly, decides this is a great opportunity to steal a whole lot of Pokémon at once.
Team Rocket pounces on the gathered Pokémon with the help of their Magikarp submarine. Piplup tries to save them, but Team Rocket launches a swarm of robot Remoraid that are just too much for Piplup to handle. That is, until Piplup finally pulls off a Contest-worthy spinning Bubblebeam move that wrecks the robots and turns the tide in our heroes' favor! Once it's revealed that Team Rocket had the berries all along, Golduck apologizes for falsely accusing the Ludicolo and the Pokémon join forces to beat Team Rocket. And with an amazing new move mastered, Dawn and Piplup can look forward to their upcoming Contest with newfound confidence!
==Episode plot==
Dawn is in a Contest and presents Piplup. Piplup spins and uses Bubble Beam to make an dazzling sight. Suddenly, Piplup is very confused, as it spun too much and bashes to the ground. This was Dawn's imagination and Piplup is confused, while Ash and Brock tell her it was not very impressive. Dawn does not give up and Piplup does the same, but gets confused and attacks everyone, then bashes to the ground once more. Meanwhile, Team Rocket is still depressed from hunger and begin to scout. They do see a bulk of fruit. Meowth goes to eat it, but Jessie stops him, as she sees footprints and thinks someone who gathered this would be very angry... but they steal the fruit, nonetheless.
A Golduck, Wooper, Quagsire and a Poliwag came with the fruit, but see only remains of the bulk they gathered. They are sad and angry about this. Team Rocket is getting the fruit into the submarine. A fruit is dropped from a basket and Meowth goes to grab it, but he falls on a plank and a different basket (that was on the plank) blasts off. Team Rocket searches and they hear something. They see three Ludicolo dancing in front of the berries that blasted off. Though their footprints do not match the ones they saw before, Meowth thinks the boss would like them as the ones who'd make his day cheerful. Suddenly, they see a Golduck arguing with them. Team Rocket thinks they could side with the Ludicolo, then run off with the berries. They disguise themselves as judges and Jessie intimidates Golduck, as there is no proof the berries are its own. So, they leave, but Golduck challenges them.
Jessie sends Seviper and James his Carnivine. Seviper uses Poison Tail on Golduck and Carnivine bites it. Golduck is defeated and Seviper uses Haze, so Wooper, Quagsire and Poliwag escape with it. Team Rocket turns to Ludicolo as "friends". The Ludicolo are very happy and spin them around, so they leave without any berries. The heroes have lunch and suddenly Piplup leaves. The others see Piplup gone and wonders where it could've went. Meanwhile, Piplup finds a spot to practice its Bubblebeam, and tries to do it again, but gets spun too much, and falls back down to the ground, with all of the bubbles it made falling down as well. Piplup, who wasn't happy about that, stands up and tries to do it again one more time. But just as he was about to do so, Golduck, Quagsire, Wooper and Poliwag, came out of nowhere and ran over Piplup. Piplup gets mad and asks the Pokémon what was the big idea, running over it like that, and what was the problem. Golduck then gets up and tells Piplup that it and its friends could really use some help, and explains how their berries were stolen and that they still think that the 3 Ludicolo had stolen them. After hearing Golduck's explanation, Piplup can really see that they all need its help, so it patted his chest, saying to them not to worry, and that it will help them figure out this situation. Golduck and its friends were surprised with Piplup, who then tells them to follow it. They look at each other, and then went with Piplup to deal with this problem. The heroes, meanwhile, find Piplup with the Pokémon, wondering what it was doing with them, and soon realizes that Piplup must be leading them all to somewhere, and they decided to follow them and see where. Meanwhile, inside Team Rocket's submarine underwater, they eat the berries they collected, though Jessie thinks the Pokémon will return. And Meowth says that giving Golduck to the Boss will be way better than the Ludicolo.
After walking a little more far, Piplup comes to a stop with Golduck and its crew and see the Ludicolo dancing happily as always. Piplup asks Golduck if those were the Pokémon it was talking about, and Golduck nodded its head, saying yes. Piplup comes to the Ludicolo and bargains with them. Meanwhile, the heroes caught up with them and saw Piplup speaking with the Ludicolo. Dawn wonders what Piplup is doing, and Ash predicts that maybe Piplup isn't happy about something those Ludicolo did. Piplup was still talking to them, but they are not interested in what it's saying, and spray it with Water Gun. Piplup becomes angry and attacks by pecking, but gets stopped by the Ludicolo's loud voice and fall down. Piplup fails, but will still continue. Dawn, who was still watching Piplup dealing with the Ludicolo, thinks that it's trying to help Golduck and its crew by acting as its leader. Meanwhile, Team Rocket was watching close by, and sees that Piplup has befriended those Water-type Pokémon. And Jessie says soon they will all wear themselves out, and they will grab Golduck. Piplup attacks again, but misses, due to the Ludicolo dodging it, and was flown out to sea and couldn't stop until it smack onto the radar of Team Rocket's submarine. James tries to spin the radar to get Piplup out of it, but gets pushed off by Jessie, who spins the radar real hard, causing Piplup to get off of it. The heroes come after seeing that and Jessie thinks this is a good opportunity to capture the whole bunch. After the heroes arrive, they see something behind Piplup that's about to come out from underwater. And out came Team Rocket's submarine, with Piplup flung away after it rises. They then recite the motto. Ash asks them what they're up to this time, and Jessie says they're doing the same thing they ALWAYS do: capture Pikachu. Piplup comes out of the water and joins the group, and turns to Team Rocket and pats his chest again. Meowth translates that Piplup acts as a leader for the Wooper, Golduck, Quagsire and Poliwag. Dawn finally realizes Golduck and its friends needed someone to fight for them, and Piplup agreed. Piplup pecks the submarine, but with no effect. Ash tell Pikachu to use Thunderbolt and shock Team Rocket, but they quickly go back inside the submarine and are protected.
Two nets are released and all Pokémon (except Piplup) are caught. Piplup sees this and goes to free them and even peck the submarine, but with no effect. Dawn says she knows Piplup promised to help the Pokémon and all, but that she hopes it wasn't a BIG mistake. Inside the submarine, watching Piplup above trying to wreck it, Jessie says that that Pokémon is a pain, so Meowth has something to ease it and he releases a mechanical Remoraid, who attacks Piplup. Piplup uses BubbleBeam to destroy them, but there are too many of them, while Team Rocket were dancing around in their submarine, as they were soon about to have their victory. After getting beaten up by the Remoraid more, Piplup is depressed, so Dawn reminds it promised to help the Pokémon, and that it can do this. So it jumps and performs the combo - it spins and uses BubbleBeam and destroys them (This time, Piplup didn't get dizzy and fall back down to the ground like it did before). Ash and Brock were surprised, and so was Dawn. But it wasn't over yet. Piplup performs the combo again to spin the submarine. Jessie turns to Meowth, asking him that now that the Pokémon are free and Team Rocket has been taken over, were there any other bright ideas. And Meowth's response was, "Since we're all going down the drain, I suggest we dance!" Jessie then says, "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, A LUDICOLO?!" before getting all dizzy inside, with the berries they stole rolling all over with them. Dawn hugs Piplup, meanwhile, after successfully doing that combo while Brock unties the Pokémon, and Ash gets Pikachu back. Team Rocket emerges from the submarine, and comes out from the top, and states that sometimes air is as good as food, especially when haven't been breathing much. Ash and Pikachu sees the wiped-out team, and Ash tells Pikachu to use Thunderbolt on them again. And the result ended with the submarine exploding because of it. Our heroes and the Pokémon then see all the berries falling down. And Golduck catches one. Ash picks some up, too, and says that this is weird, and wonders how Team Rocket manages to get them all. That's when Golduck finally realizes that it wasn't the Ludicolo who stole their berries after all, it was Team Rocket. And so, it and the others apologize to the Ludicolo, who accepted it, and Golduck shook hands with them, and are now friends. 
Meanwhile, Team Rocket gets out of the lake, with Jessie saying, "And to think I loved swimming as a girl", and encounters the Water-type Pokémon, who gets really angry with them for all the trouble they caused. Team Rocket gets scared and tries to explains they were actually holding them for them for safekeeping, and that the Pokémon couldn't blame them for wanting to have a snack. However, they don't believe their story, and together, they all blast them off with Water Gun. While about to be far gone, Jessie was cracking up a little, and James tells her that it was not the time to do so. Jessie gets mad at him and says if she wants to crack up, she will do it when she FEELS like it without him keeping her on a schedule, and Meowth says, "And you wonder why we're a team.", before soaring up to the sky. Golduck and its crew, and the Ludicolo, celebrate their victory, and soon decided to share the berries with each other, making them all back into a big pile, like it was in the beginning. After that, the Pokémon wave good-bye to the heroes, who were about to leave to continue their journey, and Dawn says to them to take care before taking off, and Ash says that if it wasn't for Piplup, this whole event wouldn't have gotten straighten out. 
Dawn tells Piplup it was awesome, and says to it they should try that move of theirs again, Piplup agrees and performs the combo and succeeds. And so, because of the result of Piplup coming to the aid of some Pokémon in need, this whole thing ended putting its contest skills over the top, and into competitive form.
==Trivia==
* The title is a pun on "like it or lump it" or "like it or love it".
==Gallery==
==References==
Category:Episodes focusing on Dawn
Category:Episodes focusing on Piplup
Category:Episodes focusing on Team Rocket