So Gou must hate ALL Roidmudes including Chase despite being Proto-Drive.

But wonder about 001, 002 & 003, because 002 & 003 must be Heart and Brain. So 001 must've evolved and is responsible for Gou's change.

Yes, she is. And Bouken Blue will appear in the next episode as well.

One thing That stands out to me: Gao seems concered that they still have so many Roidmuds left to fight. My theory right now is that there'll be a point where his body can't stand the Mach transformation and he'll have to give up the driver to Chase Or:

Drive takes over the singal bikes as using them in the shift brace unlock type Next

I'm actually really starting to like Gou now. They toned the silliness, which was much needed.


And does this mean Chase is the Kamen Rider equivalent of The Winter Soldier? Former ally repurposed as the personal tool of the enemy faction, and is likely going to use his newly acquired powers to become an ally again.

I think my one problem with the show is that the Roidmudes are just pointlessly dillydallying. Their goal is to surpass humanity and then replace them, right? The Reaper is there to delete any progression in the wrong direction so that the second time through, they learn from their mistakes and evolve without fault. But shouldn't they just use their already extensive power to just slaughter humans left and right? Why not continue to surpass them AS you mow down their numbers?
I had a similar problem with the villains in Wizard. They boasted such a big claim about how powerful they were and everyone made them out to be such a big threat, when in reality, the Phantoms had little to show for it and hid in an abandoned garage most of the time.

Their main goal at the moment is to reach a preordained number of evolved Roidmunds. I'm going with a wild guess of 10-12 or 6-8 so until the roidmuds number really start to drop they have some breathing room.

It seems like an all-out fight doesn't fit their goals. The inability to destroy cores seems to be both significant and obvious so they're probably not actually afraid of a fight but they might think that war won't give them adequate opportunity to evolve.

It was a good episode, but I feel the show is getting back into predictability again. Chaser being Zero was obvious right from the get go.

I have a feeling that Chase being Zero isn't suppose to be the big plot-twist regarding his character arc.

And they never succeed to produce other Phantoms from human Gates (but one may argue that the original White Wizard's sabbat could count).
You can't expect to have regular collateral casualties, like in Kuuga, in nowadays Toei's toku shows. Except isolated cases that specifically serve the plot or, of course, if Urobutcher is the main writer (and you get human mooks, civilian victims of parasite plants, and then an invasion in Gaim).
Maybe the next rider will be edgier, but Drive is nowhere to go this way.