I enjoy any contest episode, and I've been waiting for the Grand Festival to get here. ^^ *looks around* Yeesh... where're all the Contestshippers?? ^-^;; Now let's see:
Things I Liked:
Harley, because he's awesome. Why is he so awesome? Because he adds a kind of pompous flair that no one else does. That and he's sneaky and underhanded; which makes for good entertainment. I get so bored watching all those goody-two-shoes on the screen.
Drew. Drew is another fun person to watch. He can be rude and blunt, and yet he can also be considerate and friendly. He's a strange person, I sure wish they'd do some more backstory on him. It would be fun to see how/when he got Roselia and his *spoiler pokemon that will be coming up sometime in the future*.
May being tricked. I don't think that May being fooled by Harley was too unbelievable. This would only be his second chance, right? Ash and co. have seen many people turn around their fiendish ways, so I don't doubt that they could be easily tricked by a sincere-sounding individual. What I don't get is why she didn't take Drew's advice more seriously than Harley's. It must have been the ego-boosting of Harley that buttered her up.
Beautifly. Beautifly hardly ever gets screentime anymore, so to see it was cool.
Things I Didn't Like:
Team Rocket doing a lame sceme. Seriously, I love Team Rocket, could someone PLEASE give them a cooler storyline?? Please.... It's fun to see them dress up, but it would be funner if it was something completely new and different. Incidently, why were all of those trainers giving them their pokemon and then standing around looking stupid? Wouldn't you just drop your pokemon off and then leave? It was kinda... odd. o.o
May's appeal. May's been training for a while for this festival... and the best opening appeal she can come up with is to fire a Silver Wind at the sun...? I know she was taking Harley's advice (sorta), but dude... I just expected something a bit more... unique? It was okay.
Overall, I really liked this episode. It had great characters in it, Snorunt was cute as usual, Beautifly was included for once, and we get to see Harley act... well... feminine. XD So I give it an 8/10.