An Aesop: Never try to steal someone else's food or you will cause conflicts.
Funny Background Event: When Corphish and Torchic attack each other while Pikachu and Mudkip are standing directly between them, Pikachu accidentally shocks everyone in the camp with Thunderbolt in a panic. While all the other humans and Pokémon react too being shocked, Grovyle, sitting under a tree sleeping, continues calmly doing so even after being shocked.
Grew a Spine: May's Torchic is not only through being a coward but also decides to stand up to the Breloom in order to protect Corphish, who kept doing it for it, and evolves into Combusken because of its resolve.
Hot-Blooded: When the Breloom confront Ash and Brock, Ash wants to battle them, but Brock insists that they run away because they don't have a quarrel with them. Ash listens at first, but eventually gets tired of running and tries to fight back, leading to a Big Ball of Violence when the Breloom physically jump on him. Ash's flailing around while Brock tries to drag him away results in both of them falling off the cliff.
Let's Split Up, Gang!: Most of the party splitting in this episode is involuntary, but there is one example of this: when Pikachu and Swellow are searching for the rest of the team from the air, they find the group of Max, Corphish, Torchic, and Meowth about to be attacked by the Shroomish and Breloom. Pikachu decides to go down and help them while Swellow returns to get Ash and Brock and bring them there.
Literal Cliffhanger: The same branch hanging off the side of a cliff gets landed on multiple times:
The first time, May and Mudkip land on it, but manage to get off safely.
Jessie and James plunge over the side of the cliff and also land on it safely.
Unfortunately for them, Ash and Brock also fall off the cliff, and the combined weight breaks the branch and sends all four of them falling to the bottom of the gorge. Luckily, Brock has Forretress break their fall.
Corphish steals most of Torchic's food, causing a fight between them that gets so bad that their trainers are forced to recall most of their other Pokémon. After Torchic and Corphish send Pikachu and Mudkip, who were trying to calm them down, flying, Grovyle finally breaks up the fight by slicing a Leaf Blade right between them.
Team Rocket, who haven't eaten for days and are starving, steal some apples from a group of Shroomish. This angers them enough that some of the Shroomish evolve into Breloom and start angrily chasing them, causing them to stumble into the twerps' camp. Unfortunately, the Breloom then attack everybody even though the twerps didn't do anything to upset them.
Mid-Battle Tea Break: When Team Rocket stumbles into the twerps' camp, they start to recite their motto, but only get about a line and a half into it before they notice Brock's stew, and promptly eat the rest of it while the twerps just stare. As soon as they've finished eating, they pick up the motto where they left off, and even lampshade this trope. ("Team Rocket ate your lunch at the speed of light.")
Not What It Looks Like: When Max, Meowth, Torchic, and Corphish are trying to find the others, they happen to stumble on a giant stash of fruit stored by the Shroomish and Breloom, and Meowth quickly realizes that the wild Pokémon think that they're trying to steal the stash.
Party Scattering: After Jessie further angers the Breloom, they Mockpunch the entire group, sending them all flying and splitting them up into numerous groups:
May and Brock's Mudkip end up caught on a branch hanging over a gorge. They climb up only to encounter Jessie and James running away from the Breloom, who run straight off the cliff and land on this same branch.
Ash, Brock, Pikachu, and Swellow land in a different part of the forest. Pikachu and Swellow then head off together to search for the others by air while Ash and Brock continue searching from the ground.
Corphish and Torchic get paired together, as do Max and Meowth. Shortly afterwards, both pairs meet up with each other.
Pet the Dog: Despite Corphish stealing Torchic's food, getting into a fight with it, and being exasperated by its crying after it gets separated from May, Corphish still takes a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from the Breloom defending it. This prompts Torchic to evolve into Combusken to protect it in turn.
When Team Rocket steals their apples, the Shroomish only angrily yell at them. Then some of the Shroomish evolve into Breloom, making them much more dangerous and a serious threat to both the Rockets and our heroes.
Torchic, who's probably the weakest Pokémon on May's team, evolves into Combusken, arguably becoming the strongest.
