Ash and Paul's full battle continues from the previous episode. Pikachu faces Magmortar but nothing it does seems to work in its favor. Things only get worse from there and as Paul continues his onslaught of powerful attacks and expertly timed substitutions, he decimates Ash's team until only Chimchar is left. Chimchar manages to finally take out Ursaring and even evolves into Monferno, learning Mach Punch in the process, but its luck ends there when it faces its rival, Paul's Electabuzz.
Tropes
- The Bad Guy Wins: Paul ends up winning the battle against Ash by a large margin.
- Barrier Warrior: In a departure from its usual role in battles, Paul's Electabuzz functions as this for most of the match. Its first two appearances, one of which was in the previous episode, are very brief, only appearing to set up Light Screen and use Protect. However, it goes back on the offensive in the final round of the battle, against Ash's newly evolved Monferno.
- Bears Are Bad News: Paul's Ursaring takes out half of Ash's team and gets especially dangerous after its Guts ability boosts its attack power.
- Character Development: Prior to this battle, Paul was prone to belittling Ash. During the battle, and even after defeating Ash, Paul spends the majority of the two episodes silent, barring when he’s giving his Pokémon commands. He doesn’t even insult Ash, or give him any sort of grief during their battle, nor does he rub it in Ash’s nose upon winning. However he doesn't acknowledge Ash afterwards either, showing his opinion on Ash hadn’t changed.
- Curb-Stomp Cushion: Ash loses the battle after only being able to knock out two of Paul's six Pokémon.
- Downer Ending: The episode ends with Ash having lost his full battle by a lot and with all of his Pokémon severely injured. He tries to hide it, but he is extremely depressed about the outcome.
- Heroic BSoD: Ash goes into one at the very end after losing and does not get over it until halfway through the next episode.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Pikachu's Static ability ends up paralyzing Ursaring. Unfortunately, this actually makes things worse for Pikachu since being paralyzed activates Ursaring's Guts ability, causing its Attack power to spike to dangerous levels.
- Status Effects: Pikachu gets burned by Magmortar's Flame Body ability, Buizel is poisoned by Magmortar's Smog, Ursaring gets paralyzed by Pikachu's Static ability, and Monferno gets paralyzed after getting hit by Electabuzz's Thunder.
- Wham Episode: Ash gets absolutely demolished by Paul in their full battle with Ash's confidence being destroyed for a good while. On the bright side, another major moment of this episode is that Chimchar finally evolves into Monferno.
