Recap / Pokemon S 19 E 33 Valuable Experience For All

• Always Accurate Attack: Raichu tries to use her Thunder while it's still raining to damage Mega Sceptile as the move never misses in the rain. Unfortunately, Sawyer Mega Evolves Sceptile and it gains Lightning Rod thus negating the attack.
• Battle in the Rain: Both Ludicolo and Blastoise use Rain Dance, Ludicolo so it can use Swift Swim and power up its Hydro Pump, Blastoise so Raichu can unleash a never-miss Thunder. Neither works and Ludicolo and Raichu are both knocked out.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Shauna catches up to her friends, just in time for Tierno's battle with Sawyer.
  • Keanan returns with Goodra in tow, after the latter was offered a chance to rejoin Ash's team.
• Call-Back: The opening of the episode shows Ash and Astrid facing off in a battlefield based on a cityscape, not unlike the opening scenes of Pokémon: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction. This time around Ash is the victor.
• Continuity Snarl: The trainer that's beaten by Astrid during the montage at the start of the episode had previously lost to Tierno. As such, said Trainer shouldn't have been able to advance in the League.
• Dance Battler: Tierno, and all his Pokémon.
• Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: We only see the end of Ash and Astrid's battle.
• Previously on…: Malva does this In-Universe, summarizing last episode's battles in her capacity as a newscaster.
• Retcon: In the Hulu version, Raichu is changed to a female as in the original version, she's affected by Slurpluff's Attract despite having a male Raichu's tail and Attract didn't work on Blastoise as he was male too.
• Stock Footage: The shot of Astrid telling her Absol to use Psycho Cut and the Disaster Pokémon doing so is lifted straight from Mega Evolution Special I, which gets obvious when seconds later, it's shown as a Mega Absol.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Sawyer gets a short monologue about his new Mega Stone and then Mega Evolves Sceptile when Tierno's Raichu uses Thunder.
• The Worf Effect: Downplayed. Tierno is beaten 3-2 which sets up how much better Sawyer has gotten since he last encountered Ash.