[Switchblade]

So yeah, this episode was pretty much total garbage from beginning to end.

Putting aside my problems with Gou - and believe me, I have problems with Gou (bitch, you do not steal Haruto's catchphrase) - there was a lot of terrible crammed into this 22 minutes. Most of it boils down to a complaint I've had about the show before: it isn't funny. It tries to be funny - oh lord, does it try - but it just isn't funny.

People making goofy expressions isn't innately funny. Awkward and obvious slapstick isn't innately funny. Guys wearing bad wigs or talking in silly voices isn't innately funny. These things can be funny, but they need to be set up with funny characters, funny situations, or even basic comedic cinematography. Nothing about the execution in Drive is funny. I don't care how many gurning faces you shove into a fish-eyed camera lens. I don't care how aggressively Gen flails around while falling. None of it is funny and it's really hard to watch the show keep throwing the same basic, tired, unfunny jokes out again and again and again. The minute Kiriko said Gou was here brother I knew what was going to happen: Shinnosuke was going to say "Oh yeah, cool," take a beat, and then have an over-the-top reaction. It's all repetitive, unoriginal, and honestly not even acted very well (a good actor can sell that gag - Renn Kiriyama did that shit all the time on W and it was usually gold - no one in Drive's cast can pull it off). Ordinarily I can just shrug off the one or two bad joke bits in an episode of Drive, but this week they just kept piling them on top of each other again and again and again. When the episode ended with a new Roidmude showing up with a squeaky voice I just wanted to tell the show to fuck off.

I really want to like Drive. I do. But man, it has been a long time since a Rider show has so utterly failed to entertain me. At this point I think even Kiva was more enjoyable than Drive currently is. Fucking Kiva. I really hope the show turns things around, but I'm watching this episode, seeing Gou prancing around like a total nutjob while Medic dances ballet and I'm kinda losing all hope.