[Switchblade]

I'm a bit torn on this episode. The stuff with the Riders was good and engaging, with some high stakes and important moments. I especially like the activation of Deep Specter, which looks like it maybe a form that could cause some serious problems for Makoto later (I hope so, at least, otherwise that was a lot of build-up for not much payoff). I also am really curious to see what's up with Grateful form and its sudden malfunction. Lots of good stuff this episode.

And then there was the Earth parts. I like Cubi, I really do, but I'm not invested enough in his personal character arc that I think it was worth cutting away from the far more interesting Takeru/Alain/Makoto parts for. Even Javert's appearance wasn't enough to make that entire sequence feel like an unwelcome digression. I honestly considered fastforwarding through all of those parts, which would have been a first for me with a Rider episode.

So yeah, the episode was about half good and half frustrating for me. Kind of like how the Deep Specter suit looks really, really awesome but then it has that damn helmet.