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Well played SM....Well played...
I seriously did NOT expect them to do this, to actually take the 'reality ensues' approach that Mallow genuinely did not train for a good battler and have her fail to the same level Ash fails at non-battle things he did not train for. Battling has always been that sort of thing that everyone is made to look at least superficially competent at, I was certain they'd pull a Serena and make her randomly fluent for her final display, but no they pulled no punches, she wasn't used to intricate commands or even just battles where she was the one taking damage and that inexperience backfired bad when the plot armour was fully swiped off her (also liked the subtle detail, everyone in this episode that used 'Dodge' added some extra direction or attack to give it more strategy, Mallow used Dodge on it's own and it failed). The climatic speech at the end is also intriguing, acknowledging Mallow is mainly there for support and kind of holds back her own potential in that regard. It's almost like the writers acknowledging they didn't do much with Mallow and tried to write a main character from the agency of a supporting one, it didn't really work.
Now I do still sort of side with some complaints listed. It doesn't excuse at all that it took this long to land anything with Mallow. Most of the other students got their big transformative moment where they stopped being complacent limited characters before the end of the AF arc. Mallow got her's before THE END OF THE WHOLE SERIES. I also agree that Lana herself isn't the absolute best character to compare against, she did train at least and they did most use the bubbles and Z Moves for her strategic use which was fair play, but she's still never done one official battle up until the league (Lana admittedly however is the complacent 'good at everything inherently' character played intentionally for gags, while Mallow just seems like the character that drew blanks with the writers).
I suspect if there is enough time however, Mallow will likely get some sort of vindication moment. SM has been good at those.
Other battles were okay if expectedly brief. Meltan vs Hypno was largely a gag battle, I did like Ash mistaking Faba's cheating for Meltan being enthusiastic and letting him get his moment. They like reminding us while Meltan is there because of Rowlet, Ash does still care about him. Ash will almost certainly get his big battles in the next rounds anyway.
Hau vs Samson was the quickest, but it was nice to see a Raichu NOT be the butt monkey for once. Guzma vs Ilima was interesting, liked seeing Guzma isn't just a guy of brute force and is actually pretty sneaky. Rather surprised that Eevee's injury wasn't the big chekhov's gun of the battle though, it felt like Plumera was intending on that.
One of the students learning another new move offscreen is annoying I will admit, especially with the stagnancy of many of their Pokemon in Ultra Adventures. It's a step up for DEM induced buffs I suppose, it at least implies the trainer EARNED it, but there's still hardly any catharsis in not showing any of that process.