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So I'm in the middle of this arc where the Alola gang and their retarded friend from Kanto go to Poni Island to do individual research projects. Kiawe wants to surpass himself, Mallow wants to get Poni radishes for her cooking, Lana wants to train with that bitch with the accent I hate, Sophocles wants to evolve his Charjabug, Ash wants to do the Grand Trial, and Lillie...does Lillie things. So far it's been pretty good, with the characters sharing screen time each episode as one of their goals takes up the A plot and the other one takes up the B plot.
Then in the middle, there's an episode where Tapu Fini's power lets people see their dead loved ones. Gladion and Lillie try to see their dead dad, but can't because he's not dead. Ash's Torracat gets to show Stoutland how much it's grown and learns Fire Blast. And Mallow gets to see her until-now-never-mentioned dead mother. Despite that being addressed only in this episode, it hits one of the emotional high points of the entire Ash canon. I think it speaks to how well the writers have built up Mallow, and her friendship with Lana especially, over the series to get to this point. Either way, I keep forgetting that sometimes Pokemon likes to go this hard.
I have a pet peeve about unaddressed absentee parents. A lot of shows/RPGs like doing the dead parents thing, which is fine, I guess. But I think a character not having family members just because severely limits the emotional depth you can give them. Most of the Pokemon protagonists (except Brock and May) have one or both parents missing, and it's never explained why. It's just expected that la-dee-da, parents are gone. So I'm glad that SM has either had complete families (Lana, Sophocles, Kiawe) or actually taken the time to explain what's up with Mallow and Lillie's mom and dad not being around. Ash's father probably abandoned him when he realized he couldn't stand to raise a kid with developmental deficiencies.
