There's a new movie on the train, and Carl's plans fall apart once and for all.
Tropes in this car include:
- Abusive Parents: Carl berates his son Kris for not measuring up to Ash's example and ordering him to return his Flareon, leaving him stranded in the power plant.
- Call-Back:
- Sashay's advice about being Beneath Suspicion comes up again, as Jane's sunglasses and hat gets Lexi's attention and interest.
- Miss Fisher mentions a raccoon thief that was on the Train before, referencing how Penelope Mouse heard of Sly being a passenger in Knight of the Orange Lily
- Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Lexi covers Hazel's ears and Raboot uses his ears to cover his eyes when Miss Fisher starts...complimenting Sly.
- Double Take: When Konifer mentions how the real Chloe wears "pretty pink princess dresses", this sets up Lexi's anger more than ever since 1) Chloe hates being a princess and 2) Konifer is speaking in the present tense when everyone else knows that Chloe's gone at this point.
- Engineered Public Confession: Chloe tricks Carl into exposing his plans to both Officer Jenny and a recording device.
- Everyone Has Standards: Along with Carl, the adults at the Pallet Town block party blame Ash for ruining their children's futures and for being a skilled Pokémon trainer, believing they could never become as good as him. However, when they learn that Carl's plan to hurt Ash was to unleash a forest fire that could've potentially killed a dozen children, they are horrified. And when it's revealed that Carl abandoned Kris and has been blaming Ash to avoid taking responsibility for mistreating his son, they drop him like a rock.
- In-Series Nickname: "Passenger Killers" are referred to as "Unsubs".
- In-Universe Factoid Failure: Goh gets his first laugh in a while when he learns that the movie adaptation mixed him up with Yeardley.
- It's All About Me: The kids' parents are upset at how their children didn't become Trainers like they wanted them to be, not caring about what the kids themselves want, nor that they're perfectly content with their callings.
- Large Ham: The actor playing Dr. Killjoy in the film the group finally watches.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Konifer's information on Chloe is second-handed because his car doesn't have the Internet so he had no idea that the real Chloe's been gone for a while.
- Never My Fault:
- Not only does Carl blame Ash for Kris's situation, but when his abuse is exposed to everyone, he insists that Kris deserved it for being a failure.
- He also declares that if anyone had gotten seriously hurt in the forest fire, it would have been Ash's fault for not saving them, as 'everything always turns out for the best when Ash is around.'
- Noodle Incident: Lexi starts bleeding red ink when he hears Konifer's "information" about Chloe. According to Connor, this happened once when he was significantly pissed off.
- Not So Similar: Carl attempts to compare himself with Chloe by reasoning that they both resent Ash. While Chloe does internally agree that she would have understood in the past, she had undergone given a hefty dose of Character Development since then, and learned to move on from her biased views.
- Plot Parallel: The situation with Carl and the adults is essentially an older Sara with Class 5-E, an envious person stringing around others and festering their anger at someone who seemed to be better and hoping to ruin their reputation without a single thought about the consequences.
- Remember the New Guy?: Dr. Killjoy is apparently well known in certain circles, but between being off the train for several decades and people being rather uncomfortable discussing him, Lexi and Amelia don't know much about him until they see his movie.
- Shadow Archetype: Carl is basically what Chloe would be if she never overcame her biases.
- Skewed Priorities: Carl clearly doesn't give a Raticate's ass about his son catching a Zapdos, and instead chooses to tear into him for not entering the Indigo League.
- Stylistic Suck: The Dr. Killjoy movie is said to be a black-and-white horror movie with "more practical effects than Ed Wood's filmography".
- The Unreveal: We don't actually see the 'Blossoming Trail' movie outside of second-hand sources, since neither Goh nor the Red Lotus is interested in watching for several reasons.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Amelia calls Lexi out on his taking out his frustrations on the hapless Konifer and rubbing salt in Goh's wounds in the process."We will deal with it [the fake Chloe]! I'm upset too, believe me. But that does NOT excuse what you're doing...both to a victim of some scammer and a victim of at least three traumatic experiences in a row! You are not the only person who misses Chloe on this train, so stop acting like this! Now. APOLOGIZE."
- Chloe calls out all of the adults who were willing to go along with Carl's schemes just for the sake of getting revenge on Ash. She receives plenty of backup from the children they were supposedly doing all this for.
- Carl is ripped a new one once it's revealed that he abandoned Kris for being a "failure" when he wasn't able to enter the Indigo League.
- Amelia calls Lexi out on his taking out his frustrations on the hapless Konifer and rubbing salt in Goh's wounds in the process.
- What Were You Thinking?: Patricia asks of this of Carl when his envy of Ash led to him berating and emotionally abusing his son. She then asks how she and the rest Class 5-E could ever think listening to Sara over Chloe was a good idea. Trip answers that what they wanted was validation that their envy was more important than the fact that they were seriously hurting an innocent person.
- Would Hurt a Child: On top of casually dismissing the danger posed by his forest fire scheme, Carl reacts to being exposed by attempting to physically assault Chloe, right in front of her father.
