Good episode.
Of course Gladio has to get the honors of beating Hapu's strongest Pokemon, Golurk.
Lillie cut it pretty damn close mastering her z move right around the corner from the league. Although, Mallow hasn't mastered hers yet, so uh, yeah.... In hindsight, it's also weird that Sophocles mastered his before Lillie but whatever. There's more important things to worry about.
Zoroark, huh? And it being captured by Gladio of all people. Oh boy. It better partake in the league; otherwise, it doesn't have much use making its debut now. The timing is horrible, though. At least when Satoshi caught Gible it had several battles and training sessions. It's just going to have its power scaled to match the opponents'. However, while late as hell, i'm looking forward to a Zoroark being used in a league and by a recurring character, unlike what didn't happen at the Unova League.
Alright, writers, c'mon. Kukai got his goal, now let Satoshi get his this time. Eh, well, remotely in this case, since there isn't a Champion League for Satoshi to beat and become Pokemon Master. Still, don't give us another Alan nonsense, whether it be contradictory motivations, forced motivations to attempt justifying the opponent's victory, or winning purely because he's older and has more experience. Satoshi gave a Champion a run for her money (Diantha mega evolving her Pokemon, her ace at that, was the start of the serious battle, so yes), did well against Elite 4 members, and regularly beats older trainers in the form of gym leaders and other-characters, and we've seen pre-evolved Pokemon beat their fully evolved form enough times as well....
"Special Exhibition" match after the tournament is over. Okay... so confirmation Satoshi wins league but faces and loses the exhibition match is naturally my first theory. But damn would it be awkward as hell for the champion to lose to a non champion (who didn't even so much as enter the league. Or enter the island trials?). The first half of my theory should hold true, since no other character has as much motivation to fight Royal Mask as Satoshi from what I remember. Between how blatantly excited and fired up Torracat gets at Royal Mask merely being mentioned throughout the series, Torracat's rival actually being RM's Incineroar, the lack of a professional battle/rematch between the two if Satoshi weren't to become champion, among whatever else I left out, Satoshi should actually win this league.
Looking forward to the battles the guy with the Alakazam has (Fabu or whatever his name is), considering how overpowered he's come across the few times he was shown in action. And if James seriously enters oh gawd i'm scared that Bewear will possibly fight this time rather than take the crew back to the forest. That Pokemon is seriously broken. Like, screw Machamp, Turoh, Rypherior, and other other heavy weight, strong Pokemon, Bewear is in a tier of its own.
... Wait, I almost forgot about Satoshi's lack of a sixth Pokemon. Are they seriously going to take advantage of the potential fact that no battle will be 6v6 and thus not give him a 6th solely because of that? There's no way Satoshi is gong to pull something like Goodra and have that purple top mon return. I can't see him calling Oak for an old mon, as it would need to have relevance/purpose for being brought back... Satoshi doesn't own a Kanto native Pokemon with an alolan form. And there's really no way he can catch a Pokemon this late without it looking terrible. I've criticized the AG and naturally XY for being content with only having him reach bare minimum for party members, including exploiting Pikachu's presence, but they can't bother to complete the MC's team now, as of the 7th generation of the show? Pathetic. I am open to a couple of ideas and will keep watching, but outside XY they haven't cut it this close before (even in XY's case, Goodra had a Gym Battle and other battles under its name, unlike that purple top and more than likely a randomly wild Pokemon), so the outcome is concerning. (Again, I know im behind, and as implied, I've avoided spoilers up to this point.)