Word spreads quickly that the Champion League Master, Cynthia, is in town. Our heroes are excited to meet her, but Paul is also present and eager to challenge Cynthia to a battle. This leads to an important lesson for both the heroes and Paul that they will carry with them.
This episode contains the following tropes:
- Blocking Stops All Damage: Cynthia's Garchomp is able to prevent damage from Weavile's Blizzard and Torterra's Frenzy Plant just by covering herself with her fin.
- Curbstomp Battle: Paul challenges Cynthia to a full battle and loses four Pokémon to her Garchomp, who barely gets a scratch on her, before deciding it's not worth continuing. Justified in that Cynthia is the Sinnoh Champion and Garchomp is her signature Pokémon.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Despite Paul’s team getting wiped handily, one of Paul’s strategies and attacks actually momentarily brought Cynthia’s Garchomp down on one of her knees. Considering Cynthia’s Garchomp can No-Sell attacks from The Elite Four, this is an impressive feat, even if it still didn’t win Paul the battle.
- Idiot Ball: Paul is usually an intelligent trainer, except when it comes to utilizing Chimchar. Paul first chooses Chimchar to battle Cynthia’s Garchomp, which had a huge advantage over Chimchar, in terms of experience, type-advantage, stats, and evolutionary status. The end result is…rather predictable. Averted when Paul sends out Murkrow as Murkrow's able to use Haze to get behind Garchomp and the collision between Sky Attack and Giga Impact leaves the Mach Pokémon unable to move even though Murkrow was knocked out.
- Ignored Epiphany: Cynthia advises Paul to take better care of his Chimchar, a tip that Paul would just blatantly ignore.
- Jerkass: Paul once again displays how horrible he is to Chimchar when he says it's Chimchar's fault it got kidnapped, despite the fact that Chimchar was sleeping, and its injuries don't concern him.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Deconstructed. Paul does this after his Chimchar, Weavile, Murkrow and Torterra are beaten but the spectators insult him for this.
- Luminescent Blush: Croagunk gets one when Cynthia notices him, which allows Brock to continue flirting.
- Never My Fault: Paul tells Chimchar that it "ought to be ashamed" after losing to Garchomp, even though he, as the Trainer, should have realized that there's no way Chimchar would even be capable of scratching Garchomp, given its type disadvantage and unevolved status.
- Red Herring: For most of the early episodes, viewers came to the conclusion that Paul is a beginning trainer. This episode throws that theory out the window, as he has actually traveled through Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn.
- Rock Beats Laser: Cynthia's Garchomp taking Scratch Damage from Weavile's Blizzard and then defeating Weavile in a single hit. Normally, an Ice-type move will do 4x damage to a Ground/Dragon type and Blizzard is the strongest Ice-type special attack; however, Garchomp is simply so strong that she can shrug off even Weavile's Blizzard.
- The Worf Barrage: Paul's Torterra uses Frenzy Plant, the Grass-type equivalent to Hyper Beam, and Garchomp brushes it off like it was almost nothing.
