JN072

Everybody's Doing the Underground Shuffle! (Japanese: 地下迷宮シャッフルパニック！？ Shuffle Panic in the Underground Labyrinth!?) is the 72nd episode of Pokémon Journeys: The Series, and the 1,157th episode of the Pokémon animated series. It first aired in Japan on June 25, 2021, in Canada on November 20, 2021, in South Africa and the United Kingdom on January 11, 2022, and in the United States on January 21, 2022.
==Blurb==
Ash and Goh are in Driftveil City, disappointed that a rumor of a new Pokémon is a hoax. Joined by Chloe, they start eating some cookies, but their snack time ends when Grookey and Eevee jump down a huge hole! Our heroes chase after them, and Team Rocket follows, too. But it’s not long before everyone gets separated into different groups…and when Meowth realizes how nice Chloe is, he decides he wants her to catch him! After reuniting, everyone manages to escape—including a friendly Durant who agrees to join Goh’s team. Although it didn’t work out for Meowth, he still thinks back fondly on Chloe’s kindness.
==Plot==
, Goh, and Chloe have traveled to Driftveil City, following a report about a new evolution of . However, to the boys' dismay, the whole thing turns out to have been just a marketing trick for Klink-shaped cookies. , who had also followed the rumors to Driftveil, is feeling grumpy about having come all the way to Unova for nothing. However, upon spotting the twerps, they decide to use the opportunity to steal .
As Ash, Goh, and Chloe sit down to eat the cookies they bought, they notice and examining a big hole on the ground nearby. The two Pokémon excitedly jump into the hole, prompting the three s to follow. Team Rocket, seeing this, station at the entrance with a net to capture Pikachu once it's chased out of the hole, before following after the twerps. In the cave below, Ash, Goh, and Chloe find Grookey and Eevee. Jessie calls for the Hyper-Capture Machine to be activated, but says Jessie broke it. Jessie angrily replies that Meowth should've fixed it. As the two argue, James accidentally drops 's , and the emerges in its . The commotion is more than enough to make Ash, Goh, and Chloe notice them, so the trio decides to resort to force instead. Jessie throws down a smoke bomb, which results in everyone blindly stumbling around. When the smoke clears, Ash is alone with Morpeko, Jessie and James find themselves having run away with Eevee instead of Pikachu, Goh is wandering around with Pikachu, Chloe discovers herself with Meowth, and Grookey is left wandering alone.
Each mishmash group interacts with their unexpected companions in different ways: Ash tries to handle Morpeko's near-constant hunger by reluctantly feeding it some of his Klink cookies; Goh tries to tell Pikachu to move around with more planning; Chloe questions why Meowth does evil things; Meowth starts falling in love with Chloe upon witnessing her kindness and caring towards him; Jessie and James decide to convert Eevee into a Team Rocket member to spy on the twerps; and Grookey discovers a tunnel leading back to the surface.
Goh and Pikachu notice an awful stench in the air and discover it's coming from a sewer that the tunnel is connected to. In the sewers, they're attacked by a . After Pikachu tries to battle it on his own, only to have his fail to do anything due to Seismitoad being part type, Goh instructs him to use instead. The attack hits, but before Goh can throw a Poké Ball to Seismitoad, Pikachu hits it with another Iron Tail, causing it to fall into the water and swim away. While Goh is dismayed, he realizes that Pikachu's way of taking the lead reminds him of Ash, showing that Pokémon indeed tend to take after their Trainers.
Chloe asks Meowth how he learned to , and he explains that he did it a long time ago to impress a girl he liked. Meowth tells Chloe that he likes kind girls, and she says that if he wants someone to be kind to him, he should be kind to them back. She even suggests that he should quit doing bad things and make up with his friends if he's had a disagreement with them. Chloe's words touch Meowth deeply, and he decides to leave Team Rocket and let himself be caught by her.
While Jessie and James try to teach Eevee their routine, with James having second thoughts about replacing Meowth, Grookey wanders back to the surface and ends up stealing Wobbuffet's net to play with it. Each underground group, meanwhile, ends up running into a swarm of , the Pokémon who nest in the tunnels, and run away from them. On the surface, Grookey accidentally angers a group of , which starts chasing after it and Wobbuffet. Everyone ends up reuniting underground, with Eevee reuniting with Chloe; Meowth, Morpeko, and Wobbuffet rejoining Jessie and James; and Grookey rejoining Goh. As the Durant and Heatmor start fighting, everyone uses this as a cover to escape from the tunnels. Upon getting out, Goh discovers that one of the had followed them, and catches it after gaining its approval. Meowth attempts to confess his love for Chloe, but accidentally ends up facing Jessie during his confession, which Jessie takes as an apology. Morpeko, still in its Hangry Mode, glares at everyone. Unfortunately, Ash has dropped his bag of cookies, and before James can recall Morpeko, it uses to send both groups blasting off.
At sunset, Ash, Goh, and Chloe walk through a street and consider the day a success, despite the roughness they experienced. Team Rocket, meanwhile, is hanging from a tree while Morpeko eats below them, with Meowth still longing after Chloe.
==Major events==
* and Goh visit Unova again, while Chloe visits the region for the first time.
* Goh tries and fails to a .
* Goh catches a .
===Debuts===
====Pokémon debuts====
==Characters==
===Humans===
* 
* Goh
* Jessie
* James
* Chloe
* Citizens
* Vendors
===Pokémon===
Who's That Pokémon?: 
* ()
* ()
* ()
* ()
* (; new)
* (; )
* ()
* (Professor Cerise's; Rotom Phone; ×2)
* (Team Rocket's; Rotom Phone)
* (multiple)
* 
* 
* (×3)
==Trivia==
* Get Inspired! Let's Solve a Poké Riddle!!: 
* Chloe, , and Goh read the title card for this episode.
* makes a reference to Go West Young Meowth and Meowzie as he tells Chloe how he learned to to impress a girl he liked.
* The tunnel seen in this episode is similar to the one seen in Battling the Leaf Thieves!, as they are both home to a group of .
** The tunnel could also be a reference to Relic Passage from , which also connects Driftveil City to a sewer system.
* Ash, Goh, and Chloe blast off along with in this episode.
** This marks the first time since Training Wrecks, 787 episodes ago, that Ash and any of have blasted off.
* Goh, Ash, a , , and an narrate the preview for the next episode.
===Errors===
===Dub edits===
* The Japanese text depicting Driftveil City's name is edited out.
* In the n dub, Meowth says Chloe reminded him of "a friend named Dianita" as he yearns at the end of the episode. This line was added as a tribute to Diana Pérez, the actress who voiced Jessie since the character's debut up to JN048, before passing away in April 2021.
==In other languages==
072
Category:Episodes written by Michihiro Tsuchiya
Category:Episodes storyboarded by Noriaki Saitō
Category:Episodes directed by Yoshitaka Makino
Category:Episodes animated by Akihiko Oka
Category:Episodes in which a main character obtains a new Pokémon
Category:Episodes which aired in Canada before the United States
Category:Episodes which aired in South Africa before the United States
Category:Episodes which aired in the United Kingdom before the United States
de:Im Untergrund geht’s rund!
es:EP1161
fr:LV072
it:EP072
ja:新無印編第72話
zh:宝可梦 旅途 第72集