[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER REVICE EPISODE 17 - “DEEPENING BETRAYAL AND THE TRUE WORTH OF A BUDDY”



A week later, and I’ve pretty much forgotten everything that happened in Episode 16. Lemme scroll up a bit… Oh! Right! The supermarket! And that cliffhanger where Sakura goes into the neighbors’ basement!

Well, we can knock that last one out real quick: absolutely nothing happened. While I admire the Giff-sized balls it takes to resolve a cliffhanger with a character Nope-ing out of any further investigation, I admit to finding it startlingly hollow in practice. It’s… did the producers not have any idea of what was at the bottom of those stairs? Could they not get that family to come back for a guest appearance? It’s something that has basically no redeeming qualities to it as a storytelling move: It’s a raised question, and the answer is just I Forgot What I Was Going To Say. It’s not even an entertaining misdirect! It’s just leaving it behind! Amazing choice, Kamen Rider Revice.

Luckily, the rest of the episode was more thoughtful and compelling.

We’re firmly in Act 2 now, and without a cool new Rider to focus its narrative muscle on – Daiji got plenty of spotlight in Act 1, Hiromi is a disintegrating mess with a big ol’ Ask Again Later flashing over his head, and Sakura is already absolutely perfect – the show smartly decides to start treating the Deadmans generally, and the Giffamilia specifically, as an actual collection of people worth interrogating. Now that their nightclub-church-spaceship is destroyed, and Olteca’s split off from Julio and Aguilera, it’s time to dig into what’s making people Gracias so many Deadmans.

Julio’s backstory kicks us off, and I confess to not previously spending a single second wondering about what drove him to mariachi-inflected monstering. The hair, yes, of course; constant wondering about that absurd bowl cut. But beyond that… I don’t know, I guess I got burned out because of the Book Club from Saber, whose eventual story of kinship tainted by power was thin gruel after a season of inappropriate flips and playing the piano. Julio’s motivation was being a sidekick, and I just assumed that was the extent to which I was supposed to see him.

Instead, we get this heartfelt story about teenage bullying and betrayal, where a sweet kid gets burned by his best friend and joins a cult. I mean, it’s more nuanced than that, but the gist is that Julio felt alone and joined a cult. I don’t mind that, honestly? I like the slow exploration of the Deadmans as something that offered a found family to people who felt punished by a world of villains, and manipulated those people into serving Olteca’s desire for power. Julio needed something he wasn’t getting anywhere else, so he let himself be reshaped by the Deadmans (horrible haircut and all) in order to feel like he was loved and protected.

The larger story of the Deadmans doesn’t really get elevated (it’s just a bunch of deranged cultists with chips on their shoulders; nothing to see here) but in a show about the ways Family shapes, improves, and negates us, I like spending a little time with how people inherently thrust themselves into family dynamics of their own making. I like the idea that the Giffamilia’s bond is weaker than biological family because there’s no societal pressure to enforce it, but maybe stronger than the Igarashis for the same reason. Julio thought Olteca was on the same side as him, and now learned that Olteca was only ever on his own side. Julio’s in a story about when friendships hurt us, and what we owe to the friends that hurt us.

Very interested to see if this one sticks the landing!