[Locke]

W 43. - Dat sexy pool playing. I can't tell which sister I have a bigger crush on. I was so ready to gush over this episode, until like the last thirty seconds, and it kinda ruined everything for me. Lemme explain.

This mysterious person who appears late in a series, and turns out to be behind everything, is a trope in tokusatsu seemingly as integral to the fabric as pretty Japanese men transforming into spandex clad suit actors but despite all this I've rarely seen it implemented well.

I'm not saying these characters have ever been so bad, but they leave the reveal so late they physically don't have the room left to truly convince us they were always there, and it normally ends up feeling like an asspull they chucked in there to give the climax a bit more meat.

As such this reveal with Shroud has come later than most of these reveals (six episodes, and one movie, left to go) and although she's played a role in key moments after Accel was introduced she hasn't really been much of a player in this show at all. Worse than this, I find W is not a show with much strength in staging their story arcs. I'm not saying the stories are bad, but the pay off is normally delivered in an ultimately unsatisfying manner, most of time.

Ultimately, what I am saying is, this has been a show I have enjoyed a lot but I really don't wanna add it to my long list of 'toku shows I ultimately like, but man did they drop the ball at the end', which I'm kinda fearing it might.