>>46546399>Go didn't go back with the intention of catching it , he went to give back its stick. He only swiveled around to wanting to catch it after Grookey visibly resisted going back to TR and Meowth let it slip that it wanted to be Goh’s instead.Goh very clearly wanted to have it for himself. He was visibly upset when Grookey was being taken back by Jessie, and didn’t want to accept that it was gone. He got all sad and mumbled because of how much he missed a Pokémon that wasn’t even his. Bringing back its stick was just an excuse for him to see it again, just look at how concerned he was when Yamper picked up its scent and how he embraced it when he found it.
I don’t like Goh. I think he gets everything handed to him on a silver platter with no effort. This Grookey literally just popped in his bedroom and immediately grew a connection with him and Goh didn’t even do anything. In fact, rewatching the episode made me realize that they didn’t even bond over anything, Grookey spent majority of the time just clung Go’s arm, but he never interacted with it more than Ash did, in fact they both did the absolute bare minimum which was play chase. Goh spent more time telling Ash how much alike he and Grookey were than Goh saying why he actually wanted Grookey for himself beyond just having it.
I don’t care to argue though because my opinion won’t change. Just telling you how I thought the episode was dumb.