The Wallace Cup has begun! Ash, May, Dawn, Zoe, and Jessie have all entered into the prestigious event to see who can emerge victorious. However, Dawn's nerves are starting to show, especially as the competition proves to be one of the most difficult batch she's faced so far.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Call-Back: A nervous Dawn starts messing up her hair like at her first contest, which Zoey notes.
- The Cameo: Max, May's parents, Drew, Soledad, Harley, Kenny, and Dawn's mom are all seen watching the contest on TV.
- Epic Fail: Jessie's performance lands with a thud, knocking her out of the first round. Not even a single audience member claps.
- Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Dawn's nerves almost get the better of her until Piplup intervenes with a well-placed Bubble Beam. This snaps her back to her old self.
- Idiot Ball: Jessie gets so overconfident in herself that she uses Wobbuffet in her contest appeal round. Not only does he have only two moves, but she uses an almost exact recreation of her previous routine in the last contest. Her elimination is thus not surprising considering.
- Laser-Guided Karma: A disguised Jessie continuously mocked Dawn for twice failing to make it past the first round. This time, not only does she fail to qualify for the second round, but no one in the audience cheers for her.
- Precision F-Strike: James gets away with using "Bloody" once again when Jessie assumes that she won the previous contest with his and Meowth's help.James: We didn't do a bloody thing back at the Caleleon contest, you won it on your own reconnaissance!
- However, unlike in the previous episode he said the word in, this usage of the word was re-dubbed in regions where the word is classified as swearing, with James saying "Single" instead of "Bloody".
- Reduced to Dust: Played for Laughs, but Jessie falls apart this way when she learns she's not making it into the second round. According to James, this isn't the first time she's done this.
- Running Gag: Croagunk once again punching Brock after flirting with a girl in the food stand. This time, in front of May.May: Well whaddya know? Croagunk's doing Max's job.
- Subverted Catchphrase: When Dawn is messing up her hair again, she notes that there's a "big need to worry".
- Took a Level in Badass: May's Squirtle is revealed to have evolved into a Wartortle, growing further confidence in itself and developing more powerful moves than before. Brock even Lampshades how much it had grown since he last saw it.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Jessie tries the "flying in the air" trick she pulled with her recently-released Dustox in the last contest, this time with Wobbuffet and his counter. It doesn't impress anyone, especially since Wobbuffet only knows two moves overall. This is especially in contrast to Dawn, who takes Zoe's and Wallace's advice to heart and scoots through the first round easily.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Paul being Paul, he looks rather disdainful at Ash performing in a contest when he sees it on live TV.Paul: What does he think he’s doing?!”
