Grookey is caught and Sobble evolves not long after. Hm....
Yeah, I'm convinced Grookey's remaining as is unless the upcoming games introduce something that can fulfill the walking mon role, seems like every character is obligated to have one nowadays.
He should, the bird evolutions are boring as hell as it's literally just the same thing all the time! Ash enters his Bird in a flying competition, cue evolution. Battling a bird, cue evolution!
Plus with how rushed evolutions are in general this series, he's just better off capturing things in the final form. I'm willing to make exceptions for Kubfu and Piplup since they're more prominent Pokemon but even if it's a Galar Pokemon I'd like for them to just skip to the end rather than have it hog the spotlight for 10-15 episodes until it inevitably evolves and the cycle repeats with the next guy while Gengar, Lucario, Dracovish, and Sirfetch hardly appear at all
Except I'd rather Ash's Pokemon get to develop (aka evolve) rather than just Ash use Pikachu for the umpteenth time until they decide to have a PWC that involves his other Pokemon.
I mean at least Farfetch'd got its time to shine, unlike Riolu, but what's going to happen when it evolves? Probably what happened to Lucario. And at best maybe we'll get a Dracovish episode PWC match like Gengar or more like Dragonite (in terms of capture to when it gets to battle), and then what? Back to just Pikachu for 20 episodes.
Or do you really have faith in the writers they'll actually use something other than Pikachu? And I'm not counting Iris, where Ash will likely use Dragonite and Dracovish, and Gary where maybe he uses something other than Pikachu though Pikachu still hasn't beaten any of Gary's Pokemon so.......I don't know. I don't trust the writers to actually do something with Ash's evolved Pokemon just because everything is evolved.
Same with Ash actually catching fully evolved mons, they're just going to gather dust in the background, at least if its unevolved, it will at least get SOME focus and evolve and THEN eventually gather dust as a fully evolved Pokemon.
In other words I'd rather see Ash develop a Pokemon than use Pikachu except for some super rare PWC match where he WILL use one of his other Pokemon.