[Sh Ranger]

Okay, I like how after the jig was up, Ikki chose to fight Vice of his own will, since nobody else had the right to decide that for him. I would've preferred if the reveal was saved for the start of this episode though, to maintain a little suspense in the week interval. I like how their fight becomes progressively goofier, as they aren't fighting each other so much as they're fighting with each other. Vice was never a good fit for the final villain role, which I think should go to Juuga by default.

The fight scene shows something I've been hypothesizing about for a while, Vice using his Revice Driver to access other forms. However, I have to question how Revice are able to use two of the same Vistamp. I remember from the movie how Revi could change Vice's form separately from his own simply by stamping him with a different Vistamp and I wish they had utilized that ability more often in the show. One more thing I'll praise this episode for is the lack of a superfluous "Final Base Form" Vistamp. While I appreciate the spin Saber put on it, I'm glad that Revice didn't feel obliged by tradition or whatever to throw one in halfheartedly like Zero One did.

These last two episodes had basically no stakes due to everybody and the civilians being in on the jig and the two episodes before that was a conflict contained within the Rider faction, so there hasn't been anything seriously threatening since Gif and that kind of sucks. Even Vice dying, while I'll admit that it did pull on my emotions a little, doesn't feel like a permanent thing. It's hardly even a spoiler that he'll be back, since you can't have a Geats x Revice Movie War with only the front half of Revice. He'll probably just pop up like Parado from EX-Aid after reforming his body from the fragments of Ikki's memories.

Daiji and Hiromi have started BLUE BIRD, an organisation born from the ashes of the FENIX. That's clever and I think maybe it pays tribute to the Holy Wing Vistamp. Tamaki and Aguilera are working for them as atonement, while Olteca seems to have some kind of deal with George in exchanged for reduced prison time. Maybe this is George's way of trying to redeem Olteca, by showing him the love he was denied in childhood. A little sad that George is apparently the only one who'll visit him though, since Tamaki and Aguilera should at least give him the chance to reform, whenever his sentence ends.

As promised, now that there's enough entries to compare, here's my first ever Reiwa Rider Ranking:

1) Saber
2) Zero One
3) Revice

And how do I compare Revice to pre-Reiwa? Hard to say. Before coming back from my hiatus, I thought it was sure to take Gaim's position as my least favorite season. However, while it continued to be frustrating in a lot of the same ways, I think it managed to redeem itself a little. The final arc isn't even offensively bad, it's just meh with a few good moments.

Revice is definitely one of my least favorite seasons and that's why I have to put it at the bottom of Reiwa. Zero One's in a respectable second place with a fair mix of good and bad points. But Saber is the season that stands ALMIGHTY and Geats will have to try very hard to surpass it.