I wonder if Dan's actor watches his transformations expressions from his tv episodes. I believe he thinks he looks threatening and cool at the same time, but it's just look silly and cringy to me. It felt incomplete without the real Blade showing up at the end of the episode. The battle would of been easy if Blade went just Joker along with Baron's overlord powers instead we get a tribute to Goranger/Kamen Rider.

Objectively, I think Blade's King Form is stronger than his Joker form.
Also, I think, if we're continuing the trend of following Blade's lore, Kenzaki should never use Joker anyway. Hajime needs Spirit Human and Change Mantis to suppress the Joker instincts. I assume there wouldn't be any instincts to suppress if Kenzaki makes the wise choice to not actually transform*

*Not following SIC lore because fuck that noise.

Read the Blade novel. He retains his Joker form. King's form is tecnically a Den-O climax form that combines all Spade's powers.

I don't think the novel is canon with the TV show.

Well, yeah. He can't lose his Joker form. It's kind of permanent.
I'm just saying that King is probably superior. ESPECIALLY because he uses all 12 cards in it (And yes, I know that King was only supposed to be just King, and absorbing all the spade cards was unintended).
Joker allows him to transform into 1 Undead at a time. King gives him 12 Undead powers at the tip of his fingers (Well, 8, Since the face cards are only useful during finishers).

While Joker is powerful, bear in mind: Human won the last Battle Fight...

Ancient Joker fights with instinct, but human is cunning and mischievous, so that's probably why the Joker lost to human. What other powers does the human card possess anyway? I remember the pre-W years of Kamen Rider, people rank the Joker pretty high on strongest villains while the strongest riders are usually ultimate Kuuga or Hyper Kabuto.

...Wait, isn't the whole Rouse Card system based on the Joker's Trump ability?

So... logically speaking, if he still has the cards, shouldn't he be able to use the Undeads' powers?

Even if it didn't happen in the original show, that just raises the question of why not?

Finally got some time to watch it, and this got much better after the first part. I still think they could have cut it down to two parts though, even the second one had a fair amount of nothing happening.

I also would have liked a little more explanation on the Gorider cards? I know they must be leftover from the movie but even if Ex-Aid just acknowledged how much the dead/undead riders reminded him of his own team/the Goriders from the movie would have helped. I didn't mind the mood whiplash though, the fight scene was really fun, as was Genm's return and new form, and the twist/use of Blade lore.

I do wonder much this is going to be treated as canon or factor in to the actual show though, given that we now know Dan actually is returning.

I'm really glad that Kenzaki came back, but I was also kinda disappointed that he never got to say a proper farewell to Emu.