Our heroes arrive in Snowpoint City for Ash's seventh gym battle and meet up with Dawn's rival Zoey, who grew up there. They then meet Candice, the gym leader and Zoey's old teacher. Candice is also a teacher at the local trainer's school and asks Ash to aid her in a class she is teaching that day, for people who had to interrupt their Pokémon journeys. While Ash does impress the students with having earned six badges already, he does not do so well in Candice's rapid-fire quiz. This results in a little bit of disrespect from Mr. Jeremiah, one of the students who was previously working in Jubilife City, despite the quiz consisting of largely irrelevant information. However, when Team Rocket steals all the Poké Balls from the school and easily subdue Mr. Jeremiah's Skuntank when he tries to stop them, Ash steps in and dispatches the trio, showing that his strength lies in actual battles rather than deskwork. Mr. Jeremiah apologizes for his earlier rudeness and Ash and Candice schedule their gym battle for the next day.
Tropes
- Affectionate Nickname: Being friends for a long time, Zoey refers to Candice as "Miss Senor." In turn, Candice calls Zoey by "Zoe Zoe."
- Animation Bump: For American audiences, this was the first episode aired in HD and widescreen, though in Japan it began five episodes earlier. SD versions of Cartoon Network would still air a pan-and-scan 4x3 version of later episodes for a while.
- Book Dumb: Simultaneously invoked and subverted for Ash in this episode. While it is true that Ash does much better in battles than with theoretical coursework, Candice's quiz consisted of insanely twisted and largely irrelevant questions.
- Brains and Brawn: Comes into this well in the episode between Ash and the character of the day, Jeremiah. While Ash doesn't have the brains for quizzes, he is a battling genius while Jeremiah, though extremely smart and proud of it, has zero knowledge when it comes to participating Pokemon battles themselves requiring Ash to give him some pointers.
- The Bus Came Back: Zoey finally makes her return in this episode since appearing in "Playing the Leveling Field" exactly 33 episodes ago.
- Call-Back: Zoey mentions this is her first time seeing the group since Ash's first battle with Fantina back in the episode "Playing the Leveling Field."
- This episode also reveals the reason why Zoey used to be annoyed at trainers that wanted to compete in both contests and gym battles: Zoey and Candice decided that a trainer should focus on one goal (Zoey went with being Top Coordinator and Candice being a top trainer) and felt like those that wanted to pursue both goals at once isn't taking either of them seriously. Even Candice chimes in saying it was actually her idea saying that it just sounds like too much work.
- Genki Girl: Candice, rather than being a cold, harsh person like Pryce, who was much more like what you'd expect from an Ice-type gym leader.
- Heartfelt Apology: After seeing Ash battling and helping out his Stuntank, Jeremiah genuinely thanks and apologizes to Ash for his Kick the Dog moment earlier in the episode.
- Kick the Dog: Not in a particularly mean way, but Jeremiah did put down Ash when he failed at the quiz saying that a trainer with 6 badges should've done better. It was kind of hypocritical on Jeremiah's part when it's later revealed he has no idea what to do in Pokemon battles themselves. Fortunately, Jeremiah does apologize to Ash for his rude behavior.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Invoked by Candice, who even explains that she became a teacher at the trainer's school specifically because she had enough free time due to the infrequency of trainers challenging her gym.
