You know, once in a while, you get an episode (a plot one), in which you have a measure of expectation and you're disappointed and then you got an episode in which you have none and it blows you away. This is the latter for me.
We have here the typical item snatching plot (which is always towards the end of the arc), but the producers -- who, apparently, were inspired Peter Jackson's King Kong as that was out at the time -- decided to play a movie theme off of it. Rather rare as most of these episodes don't have a sub-theme and that's ignoring the fact this is the second movie theme episode in a row (the Indiana Jones themed "Battling the Enemy Within"). Yet, unlike the topical issue as most would go for, they went for the classic from the moody ambience fof the omnious gates, the monkey/tree climbing mammal themed "natives", to even the non typical character design of character-of-the-day/exposition giver Taylor (whose look is clearly based on someone but it eludes me who at the moment). On the series' end of things, we have the return of Wobbuffet's maiden disguise from the previous "Giant Claydol" episode, the role reversal with May having her Ribbons snatched as the A plot while Ash's hat slips into the B-Plot (usually he takes center stage), and even the dub dialogue is done rather well (such as with "Jessie's 9/10ths of the law" line).
Of course, the homage plays out, right to the climbing of the mountain in lieu of the "big building", complete with Swellow as the "plane". We then have another sort of references as the truth is revealed: Slaking Kong is a robot. A) It's a clever reference to Mechani-Kong (of "King Kong Escapes" infamy for you Japanese monster film fans) and B) it's comes off as rather non-predictable as throughout the episode, it appeared that the Rockets had tricked the Slaking as they've done many times before.
Link to a bio of Mechani-Kong as to spare my fingers the exposition needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechani-Kong
All that, plus the Aipom returns the hat without a fuss and a nice hint at foreshadowing. The next episode begins the revving up of the series' pace as we enter the Kanto Grand Festival and shine the spotlight further on May. Since the first one was so well done, hopefully history will repeat itself here.
It's a cut above most fillers. 9.5/10 at least (docking only because of Taylor's uselessness and some odd dub lines, but the Mechani-Kong reference goes a long way).
