Even more than all that (which does a yeoman's job of trying to provide logic to Swartz'z scheme), it's a development that turns Kamen Rider Puppy Dog into Kamen Rider Attack Dog, and who was asking for that? Who in the world was watching this show hoping that it would Get Personal for Sougo? Unpleasant.

Aqua’s death is basically the plot reaper at work. He won’t leave until he’s taken both Geiz and Tsukuyomi back before it’s too late, but they don’t want to go back until it’s too late, so killing him is pretty much the only way to resolve his role in the show. (Since he wouldn’t make a good regular)

Only three pages left until the end of the world… which is my confusing way of saying that I’ve downloaded the last three episodes to rewatch them and give clearer thoughts.

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP44)
(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP45)
(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP46)

Big series-length plot threads are definitely not Zi-O's strong suit. I've always heard the show sort of had to write around what guest stars they ended up getting, probably meaning it was a more fluid production than usual, and on top of that, I also know for a fact that when Shimoyama was the main writer on Ninninger, he consciously avoided tying himself down to any particular twists and turns ahead of time, giving himself room to make the story up as he went along. I think that worked out a lot smoother for Ninninger than it did for Zi-O, if I'm being honest.

The struggle of making Swartz into a proper main villain, especially, was maybe something complicated by him only becoming the main villain for sure once they eventually settled on that. More things I know for a fact: Woz Ginga Finally was originally conceived to coincide with Woz revealing himself as a full-on villain, and the gimmick of Zi-O Trinity was supposed to be that Sougo was borrowing the powers of two Riders who weren't normally on his side. And yet those potentials are perhaps lost to their own Another Worlds now, because in the show we ended up getting, we strayed so far from that path that we got an episode where Woz and Woz both work towards helping our heroes, and the bonds of friendship that power Trinity are crucial to saving the day.

To borrow the words out of Shirakura's mouth -- "a television show is a living thing."

Not to drag the discussion back to Over Quartzer, but I found it sort of funny to read Die criticizing how the plot twists contradict what we've seen on TV, because, fair as that point is, I also know that the show has been contradicting the show plenty of times, and certain elements of Over Quartzer are potentially truer to the "original" vision they might've began with, such as Woz's shocking true allegiance, or the idea of Sougo's supposed destiny being a lie. No doubt all this haphazard plotting is part of why Barlckxs thinks our Heisei is such an unsightly mess. Because, you know, it kinda is.

And all of that definitely caused its share of problems for Zi-O when it came to drawing the show to a close, for sure. But I really love the duality of Die's post about episode 46, because the sheer joy he found in the thrilling Woz-centric plan of attack Team Zi-O puts into action highlights just about all the good that could've only come about because of the same decisions that left the other side of the episode feeling so limp to him. If Zi-O didn't veer off-course to the uncharted future it did, we could've avoided half-baked attempts at propping Swartz up... and we also could've lost out on so many of this series' best moments.

This is another one of those super navel-gazey sort of post from me where I don't really have a point, so much as I'm just throwing some food for thought out there, but naturally, I can't bring myself to be too worked up about any of the flaws these three episodes might have. All the fun I had with them sort of overrides that part of my brain.

I was, as you'd expect, easily suckered in by that scene with Geiz's Another World in 46 especially. (I also specifically remember reading FreshToku gush about it and appreciating it even more because of that, for the record!) It's just this really wonderful story beat to have the thought that's eating Geiz more than anything else in his life, in that moment, to be "Why did I make that the last thing I said to him?" Everything about the way Geiz loses his temper and ends up saying something he regrets, it's so grounded and human, and exactly the kind of character drama that made Zi-O a lot more than just shallow fanservice to me.

(Although man, it's still so great that Aqua, of all Riders, got such a massive spotlight in this show.)

I mean, I feel like he'd've been okay with a very forceful Our Place Is Here from the Time Orphans? Kamen Riders in general are okay breaking the rules if it's for a greater good, and Aqua specifically is a massive push-over. It wouldn't've felt out of character for him to acknowledge the ways Geiz and Tsukuyomi have made things better by being in 2019, especially after teaming up with them against Swartz.

That's the frustrating part about all of this, is that it feels so inflexible compared to the last twenty-odd episodes. Much like (the late?) Aqua, this show has been astonishingly good about turning weaknesses into strengths, and redirecting force to create surprising reversals of fortune. So much of what made this show great was it letting the characters (and actors!) help dictate the story.

So to get these gratingly false moments of plot-driven storytelling... why? Why not lean into the dynamic you already have and try and craft something towards that? Why randomly bump off characters to Raise The Stakes, when all of your best moments -- including the one in this very episode -- come from the smaller, interpersonal struggles of poorly-socialized teenagers? Why shove a celebratory, warm show into the hacky mold of Now It's Personal? Why?

I love when production teams are willing to recalibrate their visions towards what's on the screen. It's the absolute best outcome for a year-long project. I'm not sure why this show forgot it right when it most needed to remember it?

For sure, it was bad*ss to see Paradox return! I totally wasn't expecting him to be revealed as Another Drive's true identity. Him masquerading as Ora reminds me of how he did the same thing as Eiji. But I'm mostly surprised that he was the one who killed Heure, rather than a regular villain in the show. That was a tragic scene, after Heure had started to find a real friend in Sougo, so yeah, I understand why Sougo would be ticked off at Paradox laughing sadistically about that. However, even if it was actually Ora as Another Drive, I don't think she'd be above killing him anyway, since she mostly cares about herself.

Not really, but I don't mind. He fits with the Another World thing and it doesn't even require a returning actor to make it work.

Sougo did use time travel to save Makimura before destroying Another Ghost though, so even if it wasn't Heure's intention, it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that Heure is part of the reason why Makimura survived when he would've died originally. I guess I was just using "antihero" as a synonym for selfish, since Heure is a pragmatic person similar to Evolt, so he won't do something evil if there's nothing to gain from it, when doing something good might better serve his goal in the long term. In his truce with Woz, that was an "enemy of my enemy" scenario.

Pretty much. But hey, Daido/Eternal's an awesome movie villain Rider, so I'll gladly enjoy this hell!

I thought Swartz's delivery of the exposition of Sougo's three options sounded pretty ominous. But the more I tried to figure out what those extremely vague options meant, the less sense it made and the less I cared. Yeah, none of the stuff he's saying here makes logical sense, or rather it's the logic of the world that doesn't make any sense, which just happens to be where the show loses any grasp it once had on its generally consistent Time Nonsense. It only gets dumber from here!

Yeah, that was really smart use of that form, kind of like a solution out of a video game or something. Even Daido was impressed by how they used him, despite how he tries to act dignified about it.

Swartz'z delivery is always great (he's gives good Villain, no matter how absurd his story becomes), but I genuinely did not understand what he was menacing Sougo with at the cliffhanger.

I find myself thinking about this Achewood panel a lot over these last episodes of Zi-O:

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/folded.gif

Missed this the first time!

It was Ora who kills Heure, not the Paradox Roidmude. Another Drive laughs at it because he pretended to be Ora to trick Heure, and then Ora kills him anyway.

Basically, it boils down to this:

Sougo kills Schwartz and rules as Grand Zi-O: Then the timeline Tsukuyomi and Geiz came from no longer exists, and they poof out of existence.

Sougo lets Schwartz win: The the latter can take over both worlds, and he?ll probably kill all of them, but they continue to exist.

Sougo becomes Ohma Zi-O and defeats Schwartz: Then Geiz and Tsukuyomi turn on him, and Schwartz’s time loop stays in effect, keeping the events of the series going until one iteration of Sougo makes a different choice.

So, I'm sorry, is the difference between Option 1 and Option 3 that the Time Orphans will get mad at Sougo? And that's what keeps them from vanishing?

It's more that, assumingly, Geiz and Tsukuyomi will once again be born in the future where Oma Zi-O rules, and the entire show starts all over again.

Not that it makes any sense anyway considering how much space-time has been absolutely screwed up to now.