Neat! I recognized Neon's mom, but the rest were new to me. Thanks!

It was clever how Uesugi used a smoke and mirrors trick to conceal his identity and frame Rui as Jewel instead. I enjoyed seeing the twist play out for sure, with Shoutarou accusing the real culprit on the boat and Accel Trial saving the victims. I think it's better this way as well, showing how Shoutarou's claim that Jinno's faith in humanity isn't always misplaced, as Rui was only acting in coerced compliance with good intentions and thus the only real villain here is Uesugi.

Someone can go tell Ager of the name of someone they hate, to turn them old. It's a repeat of Cockroach (Heaven's Tornado 2-parter), but aging them instead of killing them. Old has powers similar to Terror (as Philip later notes), spreading an ooze to the victims, only that Old's ooze is colored crimson red. W turns Xtreme, but Old reveals that... like W, he got 2 side of his body as well, but Old has a trait similar to W, being 2-in-1 fighter, but his is front/back instead of left/right like W. Old uses his back patina side which is the faster one to gave Xtreme some beatdown, then switches back to his default rust side to inflict his ooze to W, which made Shotaro feel unwell, and Xtreme got de-henshined, to Philip's surprise. Really, the powercreep of the Dopants, now the Dopant of the weeks can take on Xtreme, better than major villains like Weather did. Old is a combination of W and Terror, though not with their powers stacking, only ability/gimmick.

I'd convey a trivia between the 2 parters lately, unintended probably; the J's Labyrinth (ep. 41-42) 2-parter had the guest star's actor names being Ryunosuke Kawai (Uesugi) and Yoshie Okumura (Rui), and the 2 parter before had Kawai as the last name of the guest star in The Likelihood of the G (ep. 39-40), and the 2 parter after (this one) had Yoshie as the first name of the guest star. Otherwise, Kumi's mom Mitsuko talks down the Goto family for being a tryhard, and she says that while smiling all the time. That just makes Akiko suspicious of her, those uncanny smiles just make her look completely nuts, like people such as Motoko (who similarly had envy over others' success at entertainment field) from ep. 13-14. A parent loving their child doesn't make them necessarily a good person, to bring down others for said child's sake. Or probably she doesn't fully love Kumi, she's a stage mom that forces Kumi into a child star, with likely self-serving reason such as experiencing the fame and fortune. Indeed Yoshie reappears as Irumi, but gotta talk more about that in next episode.

Other than Philip being agitated with her insistence, even Terui acknowledges that Hidari is Philip's only partner. So Terui does hold some degree of respect to Shotaro (along with moments like giving his regards to him as he gets Trial), despite being the one he's the most hostile to between the main cast (praising Philip's intelligence and calling Akiko chief, in contrast to his disgust of Shotaro's "naivety"). Shroud finally explains her endgoal, she wants to create the ultimate W to beat Ryubee, CycloneAccelXtreme form a.k.a Italian W (red right side, also has glowing blue eyes), which is fueled by hatred. If Terui lost to Isaka, then Shroud will just rely on Isaka, as the show established him as someone who wants to overthrow Ryubee.

Yeah I'd say this is my favorite 2-parter of W, but more in next episode. Saeko answers Terui's question with a pool table, using the balls as imagery, with 9-ball as Ryubee and the cue ball as Shroud. Shroud is a woman that clears every player out of the field (including Terui and his family) just to attack Ryubee, which is demonstrated by Saeko's break in her pool game, sending the non-9-balls away, continued with Saeko sinking the 1-ball and 2-ball with the cue ball, likened to how Shroud takes out Terui's family. Terui didn't fully understand, but Saeko sums it up as Shroud set everything up, including being the one who gave Isaka Weather Memory, which means Shroud's the real Terui family murderer (the reason he didn't understand at first, but not now), like the sunk 1-ball and 2-ball. That's what Isaka meant when he said the heroes' fate is at Shroud's hands. Shroud (cue ball) manipulates both the heroes and the villains (sinking the non-9-ball) with ruthless efficiency, arranging for the genesis of both Weather and Accel to use them both as pawns in her plan to attack Ryubee (9-ball) and won't care if anyone got caught in the crossfire of her endgame like Terui's family (1 & 2-ball).

In this one, I think it's surprising Makura had relatively long patience here. He agreed to massage him and took a slapstick forbeing too hard before, becoming his caretaker as Philip looks for a solution in Gaia Library. Shotaro still hides his Rider identity in front of the cops with him sending Makura to get water for him, which is what finally pisses off Makura. Difficulties of Shotaro being old extends to the fighting part as even when Philip's the main user as FangJoker, Shotaro has worsened hearing and shivering hands to put the Joker Memory inside due to his age. FangJoker lasts for a while until Shotaro's age catches up to him, turning him into Old's punching bag, making Philip contemplate using CycloneAccelXtreme as Shroud stands nearby.

So even with you changing your opinion on Akiko, the ship stays the same, unlike Rintaro and Mei.... After asking 30 people and failed, Akiko almost gave up, but finally founds Ager, accurately giving the answer of la mar when asked the what old man calls the sea question. Ager offers his services, with the fee of ¥100000/10 years. Akiko actually accepts the offer, showing him the picture of Terui with her, to Shotaro's surprise (and of course Terui rejecting questions as usual). Both men are forced to cover their blow when Akiko got tempted for some reason (why'd she want Terui old?). Really, this is not really different to Jinno's gullibility, though like Jinno, this moves the heroes' plan forward, as Terui trying to arrest Ager pisses him off, and exposes that he's Old Dopant.

There can be more than 1 villains (real villain arguments just gives free pass to anyone else except the one they hate most, like in Tekken, thinking Kazuya did nothing wrong in 8th game as Jin "started it"). Otherwise, obviously Uesugi's far more depraved (he'd be the most evil MOTW Dopant), but Rui would be an example of anti-villain. She does let her friend do his terrible deeds while directly helping him. The anti aspect is, doing bad things in a coerced compliance (well yes, many anti-villain examples are those doing bad in coerced compliance). About good intentions, it'd be harming others for a loved one's sake, seemingly it puts the loved person's value above others.

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 44 - “THE O CYCLE - SHROUD’S CONFESSION”

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So, first thing’s first: Shroud just completely abandons her two daughters to a life of USB drug metaphor enmonstering, right? Like, her whole tearful confession to Terui is that Ryuube stole her son, and she was forced to become Shroud in order to wage a multi-year shadow war to destroy her husband, but… she definitely walks out on those two crying little girls, right? Because we see her do it? On camera? Just, walks out the door? And no one involved in listening to this confession bothers to flag that up as being sort of monstrous, and hilariously hypocritical? We all saw that? Okay, cool.

Putting aside the sort of half-assed way this show decides to try and redeem Shroud after a season of machinations (I love how she’s just like I’ll Stop Helping Altogether – you can’t still make cool weapons without shitting all over Shotaro or aiding and abetting serial killers?), this was a pretty fun episode with a terrific moral center. It’s ballsy to land the episode’s dismissal of revenge as just a way of not processing your own anger on TERUI, but that’s pretty much why it works at all. This story needs a guy who’s walked that path to not only reject it once and for all (since he’s got Shroud to thank for Isaka getting the Weather Memory), but also finally understand that you’ll never fill a hole inside yourself with hatred, but you might be able to with love. It’s a very sweet message for Terui to sell.

I like how this one… it’s just about needing one person to stop a cycle of hatred and vengeance, and it sort of doesn’t even matter who. Just be the person that forgives, and let that form a counter-reaction to all the spreading hatred and pain of revenge; collateral kindness. Terui could try and kill Shroud, but who’s that going to make happy? And who might he inadvertently hurt if he does it – Philip, probably? Shroud’s spent years on all of her dumb schemes, and it didn’t get her anything other than isolation and rage. Maybe trying to solve these problems with love is worth a shot.

With all the time spent on Shroud’s redemption and Terui’s humanity, there really isn’t a ton else to talk about from this one. The fight scenes continue to be a delight, as Takaiwa incorporates a bunch of Old Guy body language to the usual CycloneJoker repertoire, and the Old Dopant makes for a fun, sleazy foe. This one’s basically all Terui becoming a real part of Team Double by fighting for Shotaro and Philip’s version of heroism, while finally and definitively closing the door on revenge as a way of dealing with pain. (I mean, it helps that he already killed the guy who killed his family, but I don’t want to ruin the moment.) And it’s all the better for its tight focus on a compelling story, and an admirable moral. Perfect two-parter!

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DIE-A MEMORIES

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-Foundation X pays the Museum with a check? From a checkbook? Does… does Ryuube need to go to the bank to deposit a check for mad science? What’s on the subject line, “Villainy”?

-It is still amazing to me that Shroud couldn’t spare one line of dialogue about her other two kids. Nope! She loves RAITO, the end!

Okay now this is the two-parter in which I remember Terui rocking a blue jacket, the Liar Dopant two-parter definitely threw me off. Regardless, I definitely enjoyed my time with these and they definitely felt quicker to get through than the Jewel Episodes. It's a solid story with a very bold premise it wants to execute given just, the messy nature of the Sonozaki's in general. Especially since while the victim/Dopant of the week stuff is nice, it's very much set dressing given we're towards the end of the show here.

Shroud is still an amusing character to me, and while her backstory finally being unveiled adds some depth, it definitely just makes her more comical. Just on the obvious pointing out of her abandoning her daughters instead of you know, taking them with her (granted that would've still turned out terribly). Or moreover on how Terui is like "You really didn't want this to happen, you've still got a nice spot in you" when connecting the flowers at the grave and Shroud's spot. Which is more amusing given her more dangerous tricks which involve exploding mountains to make boulders rain down or lighting stuff on fire.

Or having a repaint of the Trigger/Skull Magnum that totally would have been sold on P-Bandai had this show aired in this day and age. The Shroud Magnum and Bomb Memory are so intriguing because I nearly forgot about them. But here they are, they exist, and I'm pretty sure they only existed for these episodes?

Speaking of merchandise alongside the era of which things came out, CycloneAccelXtreme. For something that only has a few frames in one episode to its name, they pushed it a lot compared to a lot of other Riders before/after it. It had Video Game appearances where it wielded the Engine Blade, pretty sure the old Ganbaride Cards had an instance of that suit on there too. But of course, there's also the S.H. Figuarts of it that they decided to do which is very much the biggest win I think this form can get. It's very compelling.

Shroud's... like, this story really works if you think of it as Terui rejecting vengeance in favor of love, and it more or less doesn't work if you think of Shroud as representing any sort of comprehensible personal philosophy or ethos. She's a parody of vengeance, and the show's attempt to sand off her rough edges all at once (She's been so torn up about all of the evil she accidentally did and never ever meant to do, you guys!) is exactly as preposterous a development as everything else ever associated with her. God bless this show's dedication to making her as inscrutable and contradictory as possible, even at the very end.

(I did this all for Raito!!! > Leaves Raito in a warehouse without saying a word to him)

Honestly yeah, this story definitely works more in Terui's favor than it does for Shroud, which was probably the point. I mean after all, we get the second and more fitting instance of Leave all Behind playing during the climatic fight of the episode.

Speaking of, I am surprised it took this long (22 episode gap!) for Leave All Behind to play again. You'd think they'd play it during his fight with Isaka, but oh well.

okay but now he's really left ALL behind

This two-parter is great, but then you realises that both stage moms admitted to aiding and abetting a criminal in this two-parter. Surely that’s grounds for jail time? (And also, why didn’t the second one to use him just ask Old to revert her daughter to the correct age?)

Also, apparently Ryu was chosen to be Accel because he’s immune to Terror’s mental attacks through sheer lack of charisma. Yet back in the 20s, we got two consecutive two-parters where Ryu fell before much weaker mental attacks (Liar and Puppeteer).

And like how Phillip being a relative explains why the Sonozakis had Nazca lying around, Shroud being Ryubee’s wife explains why she just had Weather on her to give to Isaka (the Memory was even coloured silver, contrasted to the Terror Memory being gold)

I mean, for one thing, the point of this story is that people are so blinded by their hatred for one another that they opt for revenge, even when it's just making everything worse for them. The second mom being so furious that she inflicts pain on the other woman instead of trying to fix what happened to her daughter and move on... that's sort of the entire point this story's trying to make?

Also, I'm assuming the Old Dopant is such a sleazy jerk that he's only in this to ruin lives, not fix things, so he'd probably only offer to curse someone else.