This episode is a Brock episode. And so that means nothing too important is going to happen in Dawn's story. She's supportive of Ash's enthusiasm for the next gym, but hesitates to answer when he asks her what she's going to do. B/c really, she does not know what to do. She spies Ash leaving the cafe to train Turtwig, causing her to stare out the window lost in serious, sad thought. Turtwig is having problems mastering Energy Ball (I said earlier that the way of Sinnoh is that hard work does not guarantee a win, and I'm going to apply that to Turtwig's energy ball; of course, Turtwig eventually masters Energy Ball, but keep a look out for how important that turns out to be in the next 2 gyms), and Ash, although honest with his pokemon on its progress, continues to encourage it. Dawn has taken a seat in the shadow of some building to watch (she's an introverted character when really troubled), and the way Ash is training brings a smile to her face. She decides to train as well in a burst of optimism, but then stops as Zoey's words play in her head; Dawn knows what her goal should be, but she isn't sure how to do that when training her pokemon. Just like that, her outlook changes, and she feels just as lost as she did right before Zoey came to her last episode. And you know, that's really realistic. When something terrible happens that takes away your confidence, it doesn't come back immediately, and even then, probably only for stretches at a time. In a span of maybe 5 mins, you can go from thinking you know exactly what you are doing to being scared/depressed and wondering why you were naive enough to think that way at all. As Dawn starts to cry, Ash is shown to be standing right next to her, and he inquires, with a worried look, why she is doing that. Dawn turns away from him and wipes her tears away, and I honestly believe he gives her an easy way out by asking if she got something in her eye. Dawn jumps at that excuse, and Ash then changes the subject to food, with the two and their pokemon running off to get ice cream.
So all in all, nothing is resolved, but now it's Ash reaching out to Dawn (in his own way) after Zoey did it last episode. Also, Dawn, in her confusion about what to do in her own training, has taken to watching Ash do his.