Alas, this episode falls back into old habits as there is next to no real plot progression. Gohan and Piccolo take the central focus, as we spend a majority of the episode watching them train, but we do stop in to see Vegeta change Bulla's diaper, Krillin and 18 have a brief sparring/training session, Beerus contemplate telling the others about the stakes of the tournament, and a brief side trip to universe 6.
Honestly, that last one on the list was probably my favorite part of the episode. Cabba travels to see his old mentor and ask him to join the team. Said mentor has a bum leg, but Cabba insists that his battle experience will still come in handy given the format of the tournament. It makes for a nice parallel to Master Roshi, but the man still politely declines. He does offer up another name, a saiyan girl by the name of Caulifla.
One might suspect that this is the female legendary super saiyan seen in the credits. It is possible, though given the brief glimpse we see, the persona of the girl in her base form is more like a traditional saiyan. She has the spiky black hair and she's nomming down on a gigantic piece of meat. It's a pretty stark contrast, compared to the first girl's more demure appearance. Maybe the shy thing is an act so her opponents underestimate her? Given that saiyans in universe 6 aren't an endangered species, it is possible that we'll see more than one female saiyan in action. I don't know, I guess we'll have to see.
As to Gohan and Piccolo, we see Piccolo agree to join almost immediately as he's eager to fight some tough fighters from other universes. He also knows the stakes, so there's no secret on that front, which was nice to see. I am a bit baffled at Goku asking Piccolo to train Gohan. He does note that his son's a bit out of practice, but Piccolo's already agreed to train Gohan twice on Gohan's request. I just don't know how many times we have to have this conversation.
It does appear necessary, as Piccolo is able to hold his own, if not get the upper hand against Gohan. The namekian can even go toe to toe with Gohan in his super saiyan form. Piccolo says that he has been training, though you'd think that fact would have come up before now.
At long last, Gohan hits super saiyan 2 again. Oddly enough, the episode doesn't really make that big a deal of it. There's a point where the music starts to swell up, but Gohan only goes into his first form. We later see the trademark streaks of electricity in a later power up, but this is treated as rather matter of factly. You'd think that he hasn't done this since Cell that they would make a bigger deal of it, but oh well. It's still nice to see that he's getting his groove back.
The bigger focus, as far as the episode is concerned, is the fact that Gohan can now once again tap into the mystic "ultimate" energy that he used to fight Buu back in the day.
In addition to training Gohan's body (and giving him a substantial zenkai boost, I assume) Piccolo also takes the time to train Gohan's mind. While Gohan's determination to protect his family and eagerness to impress the others can be a boon, Piccolo also warns that it can be a detriment and that he shouldn't obsess too much over that.
He also warns Gohan about the perils of overconfidence. You wouldn't think that Gohan would be one to be described as arrogant, but Piccolo does note he fell victim to it against Buu. Heck, he did the same thing against Cell, though the episode doesn't bring that up due to time constraints. In any event, the pattern is there and Gohan does need to make sure he doesn't fall into that trap again.
Much like he did with Krillin, Gohan agrees to continue training with Piccolo to ensure that they get as strong as they can. He also suggests developing some sort of combo techniques. It will be cool to see what the various team members come up with. It seems like there are multiple tag team combination options: Goku/Vegeta, Goku/Gohan, Gohan/Krillin, Krillin/18, 18/17, Gohan/Piccolo, Goku/Piccolo; and that's only half the team.
Speaking of, the closing scene showing Yamcha pondering how he's going to turn the offer down was pretty funny. You could argue that it was the same joke as before, his assurance of being asked contrasting our knowledge that he's not a part of the team, but it still got a chuckle out of me.
It was nice to see Gohan finally get back to where he was. The return to super saiyan 2 was downplayed, but we also got some clarification on what happened to the mystic upgrade. I wonder if he could use the SS2 form to amplify the mystic power. I vaguely recall them saying something to the effect that with the mystic power he no longer needed super saiyan, but if Goku can combine super saiyan blue and kaioken, I see no reason why Gohan can't blend the two power sets together in a similar fashion.
The trip to universe 6 was nice, but as noted, there wasn't a whole lot to this episode. It never gets boring, but it isn't going to go down as one of the more memorable episodes either. Alas, the episode fell flat for me, overall.
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