AG008

A Tail with a Twist (Japanese: ハブネークVSキモリ！必殺のはたく攻撃！！ VS ! The Strike Offensive of Certain Kills!!) is the eighth episode of Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire and the 282nd episode of the Pokémon animated series. It was first broadcast in Japan on January 16, 2003, and in the United States on December 6, 2003. 
==Blurb==
Ash's newly caught Treecko may be a bit standoff-ish, but the little green Pokémon is quite a fighter. When Team Rocket sees Treecko knocked down and hurt by a Seviper, they decide that they must have that Seviper. Jessie is very impressed with its "sneaky, snakey ways." Meanwhile, Treecko escapes from the Pokémon Center where Ash brought it to recover. When the gang finds Treecko, it is practicing its attack moves. Again and again, Treecko jumps from the top of a waterfall and tries to break a rock at the bottom with its tail. Ash is very impressed with the rigor of its training. All of Treecko's hard work appears to have paid off—when Team Rocket attacks and catches Pikachu with the help of their new Seviper, Treecko is able to save the day.
==Plot==
 has prepared a delicious stew for lunch, so everyone calls out their Pokémon. Upon their release, , , and are surprised to see 's newly . Nervous about the attention it is receiving, Treecko quickly climbs a tree and refuses to come down. It plucks a twig from the tree before settling itself on a branch. The group eventually returns to their food, as do their Pokémon. From its perch, Treecko spots a in the bushes. Meanwhile, Torchic is overexcited and rushes around with an apple on its head and a bunch of grapes in its mouth. Seviper trips Torchic up using its tail, causing Torchic to drop the grapes and the apple. Torchic runs off after the apple before noticing the serpentine Pokémon standing in front of it. Seviper promptly eats the apple and Torchic gets angry. Seviper opens its jaws wide as it prepares to attack Torchic, but Treecko spits out its twig to get Seviper’s attention. Treecko leaps down from its perch in an attempt to save Torchic. However, Seviper slithers its way over to Torchic and begins bouncing it on its tail. 
Torchic's shrill cry alerts and the others to the squabble. opens up his Pokédex, which alerts him to Seviper’s angry disposition. As the others call on their Pokémon to help, Seviper uses its attack so that they can't see what it's doing. As the others struggle to see, Treecko spots a gap overhead, so it climbs back up into the tree again. From its new vantage point, Treecko spots Seviper attempting to take Torchic. It promptly jumps down and strikes Seviper's head with its tail, causing the Fang Snake to lose its grip on Torchic. Treecko picks Torchic up and delivers it straight to May’s waiting arms. However, Seviper returns with a vengeance. It batters Treecko into a tree trunk with a powerful . As Seviper is about to bite Treecko, Ash commands Taillow and to use and respectively, while Brock's Forretress uses . The triple attack combination forces Seviper to flee. Yet Treecko appears to be in bad shape, as it holds its shoulder in agony. Ash and rush Treecko to the nearest Pokémon Center, where Nurse Joy treats it.
Meanwhile, has been watching Seviper almost effortlessly dispatch the twerps' Pokémon, so they decide they want to catch it. They see that it likes fruit, so they lure it with a basket of fruit left on the other side of a pitfall trap. However, Seviper just picks up the basket with its tail, stretches over the pit, and slithers away. Team Rocket is left red-faced, and in their anger, they stand directly over their own trap, which soon gives way. However, they don't let it discourage them. The trio put another plan into action, but their net doesn't work either as Seviper just bites through it. 
The Rocket trio breaks for lunch, during which they fight over the last rice ball. When they accidentally send it flying into the nearby brook, James and freak out, but Jessie calmly reveals a rice ball she'd kept hidden, angering her partners. However, Seviper sneaks up on her and swipes the rice ball just seconds before she chomps down on it. Jessie is infuriated, and Seviper’s poking tongue only angers her more. James and Meowth remind Jessie that now is her chance, so she sends out to teach Seviper a lesson. The two opponents engage in an intense stare-off. James soon points out that Wobbuffet needs an oncoming attack to make any move, and a frustrated Jessie recalls Wobbuffet, grumbling that he's never useful when necessary. Jessie hurls Meowth at Seviper, commanding a attack. As he soars toward Seviper, Meowth screams that he doesn't know that attack just before the Fang Snake Pokémon smacks him across the face with its tail, sending him flying backward into his comrades. As all three hit the ground, another rice ball is knocked out of Jessie's pocket and rolls towards Seviper. James and Meowth are surprised by this revelation as Jessie chases after her snack, though she fails to get it back. To the trio's horror, Jessie's hair gets caught in Seviper's jaws in the process and a large chunk of her locks gets bitten off. Enraged, Jessie proceeds to give Seviper a merciless beating with her own renditions of "" and "". James and Meowth are left terrified by the outburst and grip onto each other as the scene unfolds. The ferocious onslaught knocks Seviper out cold, and Jessie, still seething with anger even though she has calmed down a bit, seizes it by the neck. Fortunately for Seviper, James and Meowth quickly remind Jessie that she is supposed to catch it. This calms Jessie down, and, as James and Meowth sigh with relief, she tosses a at Seviper, catching it at last.
At the Pokémon Center, Brock informs May that the resident Nurse Joy is in fact the younger sister of the second cousin of the first cousin of the Nurse Joy in Oldale Town. However, the convoluted family connection leaves everyone baffled. rushes in and indicates that Treecko ran away from the Center. Ash and his friends rush outside and begin calling for it. Max soon notices some discarded bandages on the ground, and the evidence leads Ash and his friends to a nearby waterfall. The group spots Treecko leaping from atop the waterfall and aiming to hit a rock. Max notes it looks like Treecko is , trying to break the rock with its tail. Brock affirms this and explains that Treecko is probably disappointed about its earlier loss to Seviper. After a few more jumps, Treecko changes its technique. It spins to increase its power before striking the rock with its tail, finally breaking it, much to the amazement of the group. Ash congratulates Treecko and runs out with Pikachu to meet it, but Pikachu gets captured by Team Rocket’s grabber hand.
The Rocket trio recites their , and the delay allows Meowth to trap Pikachu inside an electricity-absorbing cage. Ash, enraged, sends out his Taillow. James orders out , but the Pokémon gives him a spiny hug before launching a . However, Taillow flies through the attack with ease. Jessie sends out her new partner, , and the group is surprised to see that it's the same one they had faced before. Treecko steps forward. Ash halts its advance, reminding Treecko that it isn’t alone and has friends it can now rely on. Treecko replies with an affirming grin before returning its attention to Seviper. Seviper prepares to lash Treecko with a Poison Tail. Though Treecko evades using before delivering a attack to the face. Seviper attempts another Poison Tail, but Treecko leaps into the air and strikes back with its new spinning maneuvers. The blow sends Seviper flying into Team Rocket and Pikachu's containment chamber rolls away. Pikachu emerges and happily leaps into Ash's arms. Treecko declares that it has now had its revenge, having defeated Seviper, and says Pikachu can finish things off. Ash orders Pikachu to use , and the attack sends Team Rocket blasting off. Ash thanks Treecko for battling for him and finds he's won Treecko's trust when Treecko holds out its tail. Ash and Pikachu shake hands with Treecko's tail, laughing happily.
==Major events==
* Jessie catches a .
* Ash's Taillow is revealed to know .
* Ash's Treecko is revealed to know .
===Debuts===
====Pokémon debuts====
* ()
==Characters==
===Humans===
* 
* 
* 
* Max
* Jessie
* James
* Nurse Joy
===Pokémon===
Who's That Pokémon?: 
* ()
* ()
* ()
* ()
* ()
* ()
* ()
* (, new; debut)
* ()
* ()
* 
* 
==Trivia==
* This is one of the rare occasions in the 4Kids dub that rice balls have been referred to as such instead of something more Western.
* This episode is featured on Volume 12: Treecko from VIZ Media's series.
* The title of this episode references "a tale with a twist".
* This is the second time a Pokémon has taken a chunk of Jessie's hair, the first instance being a in Tracey Gets Bugged.
* This is the first episode where an instrumental version of Advance Adventure is used as the new action sequence in the English dub.
* This episode is one of only three times in the where a is caught during a battle with a human. The other times occurred in Mystery at the Lighthouse and Facing Fear with Eyes Wide Open!
* This is the first episode in which hurts James when it is released from its .
* Despite having been introduced in Generation I, this episode marks the first time it is used in the animated series.
===Errors===
* As slips back into the bushes after trips on it, the end of its tail is cut off.
* After the few seconds where she is off-camera between throwing her Poké Ball and picking it up, Jessie's hair is back to full length, when it was just off by Seviper. This is an example of animation physics.
* tells to use "Spike attack" instead of attack.
** Furthermore, Forretress's Spikes attack caused direct damage to Seviper, despite Spikes being a non-damaging move in the games.
* In one scene, when is spying on and in the bushes, says that Seviper defeated , even though it was that was injured.
* When Ash and his friends run into the Pokémon Center, a line is briefly layered over them.
* When Treecko escapes from the Pokémon Center and everybody runs out, only Ash, , and Max's feet can be seen leaving before the door shuts.
* When May calls out her Torchic, her gloves disappear for a second.
* As Team Rocket is blasting off, can be heard even though he was not out at the time.
* In the English dub, when Jessie is attacking Seviper, James says Jessie used "Megaton Kick" instead of . "Megaton Kick" is the move's Japanese name.
* In the dub, when Ash battles Seviper, its is mistakenly called .
* In the dub, is referred to as Investida, the most common, and now official, name for .
AG008 error 3.png|Seviper's tail error
AG008 Error.png|Jessie's hair is back to normal
AG008 Error 2.png|May's missing gloves
===Dub edits===
* When Jessie uses Fury Swipes on Seviper, the first second of the attack is obscured by a full screen 'impact star'. This edit is only present on American airings, while most other international and digital versions of the episodes play the scene without any edits.
* As Jessie angrily glares at Seviper for biting off her hair, Meowth says that "it knows not what it's done". In the original Japanese version, Meowth says Jessie is using "her attack".
== In other languages ==
008
Category:Episodes written by Shinzō Fujita
Category:Episodes storyboarded and directed by Yūji Asada
Category:Episodes storyboarded by Yūji Asada
Category:Episodes directed by Yūji Asada
Category:Episodes animated by Masaaki Iwane
Category:Episodes focusing on Jessie
Category:Episodes in which a main character obtains a new Pokémon
de:Ein neuer Freund
es:EP284
fr:AG008
it:RZ008
ja:AG編第8話
zh:宝可梦 超世代 第8集