A lot of people keep saying stuff about Taiga needing development and more stuff. I'm pretty sure Nico appearing is in response to that. Think about it, he's the only rider who's usually by himself when at his home base meaning we barely get any scenes of him because he can't carry a long scene by himself.

So now we introduce Nico who wants Taiga to beat Genius Gamer M. A lot of people I've seen are speculating that Nico is similar to Poppy so I'd assume that Taiga would have his own possibly less annoying version of Poppy to interact with.

That being said on the subject of Poppy, that is the worst rendition of Jingle Bells I have ever heard, ever. Like you could have left it at an up-beat pop version but then you had to let Poppy sing...

This episode......... is weird. There are parts of this episode that are good,parts that are off putting, and parts that I don't think are that great

We've finished our Victim of the Week story, not much to say there, I've already explained that these have been the least interesting parts of Ex-Aid to me. Really the only thing that's note worthy to talk about is the whole Christmas scene at the end which is humorous at best and random at worst. The real meat of the episode is everything else. More teasing on what the heck is up with Emu, teasing on the Kuroto's plan, hints at maybe the backstories of Emu and Kuroto, and of course the death of Kiriya. All of these are for the most part executed well and leaves us with some intrigued for what's to come.

Now let's talk some of the problems I've got.
1. The tonal whiplash. This episode took a massive 180 in middle. Going from a Christmas scene celebration to suddenly the death of a main character. I mean Kamen Rider had been tonally all over the place at times but this has got to be the most massive it has been.
2. Poppi being a Bugster. For such a massive reveal about her character, the show treats it like it's some random throwaway scene. The way the scene goes seems to imply that we were supposed to have figure it out ourselves. The problem is that there has only been one scene that implies that the Bugsters are based off the characters in the video game and that was back in episode friggin 1. So since this show started, we've been given no answers or explanations over who/what the heck Poppi is and when we finally do, the show treats it likes it's nothing. I mean seriously this reveal raises a ton of questions like why is she working with the CR?, How is she able to materialize in the real world permanently?, How is she active during Zero Day when that was supposed to be the first Bugster outbreak?. Can you see what I'm talking about here.
3. Kiriya's death. I........do not agree with this story decision, at least not at this point in time. Killing him off this early waste a number of story potentials that's still possible with him. His whole guilt over his friends death is still not resolved, we haven't seen how his bond with Emu develops, for that matter Hiiro and Taiga don't have much interaction/development with him. As a result, killing him off now doesn't have the emotion and weight it should have because his character doesn't have the development it needs for us to form a stronger attachment. Really that final scene just kinda sums it up for me. The only one that's crying is Emu, everyone else is just sort of staring at him.

I found it more baffling than annoying. That scene is up there with the Liar Dopant episode of W in terms of raw, unadulterated "What the fuck am I watching right now?"-ness.

At least they acknowledge in-show that she's a terrible singer. One of the things that makes Poppy work as comic relief for me is that her more bizarre behavior isn't just taken for granted - most of the other characters are willing to call her out when she's being silly instead of just rolling with it or playing along. It makes her far more tolerable than your Shunpeis or your Onaris (as does the fact that she can turn the wackiness off and be serious when she has to).

It's entertaining because this show has Straight Men to balance out the Funny Man, er, Bugster.

Whoa now, I think maybe your general dislike of this episode made you read something that wasn't actually there. By now, it's pretty clear that nobody - including the characters - much like Popi Poopy...pipplopiehole. It was just a good bit of humor that the one time she gives up some interesting info to us, the viewers, the other characters would deflate her moment with a clear "Yeah, yeah, we know that - moving on!". That's just keeping her in the "useless character" status quo, not mocking the viewer for not figuring it out; as you said - there's really no way we could have. This isn't a Marvel comic (ba dumbum-tsshhh).

Disagree here. Many had a strong attachment to Kiriya. And his death makes total sense. He, out of all of the Riders, was the biggest threat to Dan. He had to be taken out now, not later. This was explained pretty well in the episode, as well as the earlier episodes. It also shows how much of an effective villain Genm is. He didn't twindle his thumbs on whether to kill Lazer, or send someone else less qualified to do it. He did it fast and he did it himself. It shows he's a huge threat.

That makes sense now that you mention it but I just took that line as a meta comment that you should've bought that Christmas cake. :lol

I'll be totally fine with it as long as Ex-Aid actually starts riding his bike, now that it's so convenient. These are some of the least rider Kamen Riders we've had in a while.

It'll probably happen. I mean, we DID just get rid of a main character, so, at least until a certain new Rider shows up a couple weeks from now, there's less people vying for screentime.

Of course, I'm still waiting for Graphite's death to mean anything more than one throwaway line from Hiiro, and I'm starting to think the show is too busy to ever get back around to that thread.

It's a little frustrating because one of the reasons I was starting to get so into Ex-Aid was that it didn't have any of the warning signs I constantly brushed off during Gaim by saying "I'm sure it'll pay off", or other such lines, but between the show casually tossing Graphite in the trash like it was nothing after making him a key player in the backstory that motivates both Brave and Snipe, and now offing Lazer so early, I'm starting to think its fast pace is as much a weakness as it is a strength.

Of course, I won't really know until the show has actually moved forward, and I'd love to wrong about that. I AM still enjoying the show a lot, it's just that this week has kind of kicked up my Gaim-related PTSD pretty hard. :lol

Honestly though, what I really want is for those flowers to turn out to not to mean what they used to, though that's some extremely wishful thinking. But then, between establishing that the Bugsters can come back after being beaten, and Kiriya's G-rated fading away, it really seems like the show is deliberately leaving enough wiggle room for them to come back, especially in Graphite's case. I would've never assumed from the way he went out that was supposed to be his actual exit (and I didn't! Check the episode thread).

Didn't Hiiro say he knew Poppy was a Bugster Because of her name being a pun in Japanese?

Because I guess between pulling the wool over everybody's eyes about his identity, his ability to always be a step ahead of the Riders, and even deliberately getting himself killed just for a power up, he was just so hard to take seriously?

Like, yeah, obviously it makes sense that Dan wants Kiriya out of the picture, that's why they wrote it that way, but it isn't the Plot that's the (hypothetical because I'm still giving the show the benefit of the doubt) problem here, it's the character.

Kiriya added a ton to the show's whole dynamic with his more laid back personality, and he clearly still had a lot of room for development. If you're going to give a character the axe you want to make sure you've got nothing left to do with them, or that it provides some closure to their arc, but I'm not sure Kiriya's death really meets either of those criteria as much as it ought to.

I think I might have undone a lot of the tension of Kiriya dying because the whole week leading up to this episode I was like THEY'RE GONNA KILL KIRIYA ON CHRISTMAS. So by the time it actually happened I was like, "Oh there he goes, bye Kiriya."