*sees DC's new avatar*
O_O
......*ahem*
You mean "Nando", also another reason not to leave the Professor's names as their Japanese form. Yeah, I agree with the comparison, though, except he seemed more like Drew would if he was older (chew on that for a while, ContestShippers!), with his attitude and all. I know most of that's coming from the dub choices, but it just seems that way. We also know that eventually Dawn is going to be facing down a Roserade, true to May's footsteps, but that's a discussion for much later...
I dunno, I think Carnivine's debut was so-so. At least he got SOMETHING, though I agree that Budew's involvement was a bit much. On the other hand, somebody had to pop in and save the novice Dawn, and Ash coming in would have probably caused some problems...*cough*... What surprised me a bit, though, was that I don't think Ash, Dawn, or Brock were all that surprised about Carnivine's appearance.
And then the final battle. Of course Ash was going to fight Nando here. After all, hadn't they made fun of Dawn's novice status enough for one episode :P ? At least Ash won the battle, which was a "you win or you're a weakling" kind of thing, granted, but once Budew evolved, well...We've seen Roselia pull off unlikely wins before thanks to Drew, so the writers could have had Roselia win out of nostalgia, or because most of the times that we see a Pokemon evolve it becomes a come-from-behind win. But nope, we get a double-level of payback courtesy of Pikachu. No complaints. At least we finally get to see Mega Drain the way it should work, as opposed to a physical bite *coughindigoplateaucough*.