[Zolda]

This episode begins with the narrator straightforwardly stating that a terrifying plot courtesy of The Sisters is about to move.

UFO X manages to escape confinement in The Sisters' hideout, yet was able to be easily captured by Clotho without her breaking a sweat. And funnily, Clotho and the other 2 sisters don't even attempt to recapture it. They just stand there freezing as it escapes. Atropos says that it's due to a Chemy rule that states that Level 10 Chemies dislike being dominated. If UFO X is a proud creature (like hippogriffs) that dislikes being dominated, then why did it allow itself to be easily captured by Clotho at the end of episode 10? Moreover, Isaac states @ 11:11 that Level 10 Chemies are the strongest one in each category. The logic just doesn't add up. It's also able to create a dimensional portal to teleport itself to a different place. Can this ability be used by Houtarou to visit the worlds of the previous series? It has a great potential for crossover stories.

Finally, the second mention of Glion's name. Atropos says that Glion is "waiting for you" as she's looking at the new Driver. Does this person he's waiting for refer to Clotho, or the user of the new Driver? If it's the latter, then it could mean that the user of the new Driver may be Glion's puppet. Is Glion somehow incapacitated that he needs a direct puppet to do his bidding? A special puppet assigned with a crucial task that even none of The Sisters can do it.

The scene of the AA students capturing Stagvine looks like the scene of elementary students capturing beetles during a hot summer. Rinne looks cuter when she ends up being the last person to leave the scene and has to pick up Houtarou's capture net.

As I predicted here and here, Spanner finally voices his suspicion about how The Sisters have managed to get hold of RCC's. Minato also finally mentions the fact that a huge number of Blank RCC's have been disappearing from AA's storage and his suspicion that someone from inside the AA/AU may have been stealing and distributing them to The Sisters. I thought that Spanner was gonna use the Dragonfly Malgam fragment to augment his Valvarad suit, but it turns out he only reports it to Minato.

So far, this episode is probably the one with the highest number of transformation when Houtarou transforms into 7 (!) different forms in total: 6 forms during his random maneuvers when he fights the original Spider Malgam (Steamhopper, Bakuontelevi, Stagmirror, Greatsasori, Doctorhebi, and Bunnyparka), and 1 new form debut (Lightningjungle) when he fights the new Spider Malgam at the second half of this episode. Maaannn. So many forms appear, yet only two are actual suits. So many forms appear that I lost count after three. Haha.

The Driver that Atropos has been working on is finally completed @ 09:46. Clotho and Lachesis immediately offer themselves to be the user, but Atropos tells them to take their time. Atropos says that she has to do something "fun" first: A "fun" experiment. The scene then immediately changes to Houtarou curiously watching a seemingly fun experiment being done by... Sabimaru. It's an experiment to create Sabi Riser, a special variant of Chemy Riser to hunt UFO X. Could this be a foreshadowing of Sabimaru being selected as the user of the new Driver? After all, Sabimaru gets heightened focus in this episode, in a quite low-key manner. Furthermore, Houtarou mentions @ 11:30 that UFO X is Sabimaru's Gotcha, similar to Hopper1 being Houtarou's Gotcha. Another important scene is @ 12:41 when Sabimaru compliments Houtarou for his ability to understand Chemies, yet Isaac (which often creates artistic interpretation of Sabimaru's words) doesn't say anything at all and only creates a beeping sound. It seems like Mesnick's hypothesis in the episode 10's thread that Isaac the AI is a silent/passive villain is very likely correct. Could it be that Isaac has been manipulating Sabimaru all along? If Sabimaru's indeed the user, then this could be a very interesting, unpredictable plot development. From a geeky, socially-awkward, Chemy-loving nerd... To a dark Rider who uses (and probably also manipulated by) a Driver created by the villains. Now, I didn't see that coming at all. Nice. Very nice. Very well-played. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

If the Driver does indeed require a human user, then this could also mean that The Sisters do lack something vital that normal humans possess. What is it? If Atropos can create powerful weapons, then why don't she or Clotho or Lachesis use them themselves? Why do they need a normal human as a puppet user? Why don't they take matters into their own hands and immediately get rid of Houtarou and Spanner themselves? It looks like The Sisters have their own severe limitations as well.

Kajiki finally has another chance to see UFO X and gleefully runs to tell Hijiri about it. Will she actually be a recurring character? This also marks his second realization about the important memories that have left holes in his mind. Will he be Neuralyzed again in episode 12? Is there a trick to circumvent Minato's Neuralyzer spell?

Licht Kugimiya has a funny habit of rubbing his Ring with a brush. It seems like he's the kind of a stern person who values excellence, cleanliness, elegance, efficiency, rigor, logic, and discipline above anything, as he points out @ 14:32 that Houtarou's fighting style is inefficient and wasteful and his optimistic view of Chemies is naive and meaningless, much to Houtarou's dismay. Could he be an actual mentor for Houtarou? He also knows that Houtarou got the Gotchardriver from Fuga. This could mean that the AU elites do know about the existence of Gotchardriver, even before being stolen by Fuga and then given to Houtarou. It seems like the top brasses at AU were the ones who created the Gotchardriver, in cooperation with Glion/The Sisters' boss. Quite unpredictably, Spanner voices his suspicion about Licht being the spy and having an ulterior motive, right in front of his face.

Again, Atropos appears at a public place, this time at Houtarou's & Rinne's school, and manages to not attract anyone's attention, despite looking like a creepy child. It seems like she does have mind manipulation ability when it's shown that she's able to make people go away and make them look like walking corpses. She says that she has never had any interest in humans before, so Rinne is very probably the very first human that piques her interest. She also raises a very important question @ 17:03 about who is influencing the change, and immediately states that her pondering makes her wants to destroy "it". Who and what is she referring to? What is the change she's pondering about? Does she mean she's pondering about who (or what) controls the life, the death, the fate of humans? It sounds like she's speaking quite metaphorically, although I think she's asking an open question about the nature of life, death, fate, and change. It seems like her nihilistic response to humans inability to control fate is by destroying lives through chaos. It seems like the questions about life, death, and fate is beyond anyone's understanding and thus a final, satisfying answer will never be found, so she responds to those questions by destroying lives altogether. Her nihilistic mantra for getting up in the morning is very probably "If I can't control it, then I destroy it" or "If I can't make it perfect, then I destroy it with chaos", haha, which is kinda paradoxical, as the intention to destroy is actually identical to the intention to control, only mirrored. Her intention is planting seeds of doubt into Rinne's mind by blurring the very boundary of life and death, the most fundamental tenet of alchemy. Her goal is making Rinne abandon her values as an alchemist that she's strongly held since she was very young. She's not only scheming to make Rinne her ally. I strongly suspect that she could be preparing Rinne for a role even waaay bigger than being a mere Rider, who The Sisters derisively call hounds, very probably an allusion to enforcers, inferiors, tools, or even slaves.

Spider Malgam reappeared @ 19:19, with a different host. Houtarou is sure that Catchula (what a funny name) RCC is inside his Gotchardraw Holder, but when he opens it, he suddenly realizes that it's not there. How come? Houtarou manages to fight it with Lightningjungle, his newest suit. It looks quite nice, although not as nice as Goldmechanicer was. His electric whips remind me of Whiplash from Iron Man (2008). The funny thing is when Houtarou tells UFO X to run (or fly), it dismisses his command and chooses to stay put, although it does help Houtarou defeat Spider Malgam when he (?) tries his (?) luck by attempting to restrain both Houtarou Lighningjungle and UFO X at the same time. Houtarou finally manages to recapture Catchula. Oh, and the "Argh!" voice made by Spider Malgam as it explodes @ 22:06 is kinda unintentionally funny, haha. What happens to UFO X? Well, it casually teleports away after Spider Malgam is defeated.

And the identity of the new Spider Malgam is... Shiori Harima aka the spy, aka the new cutie, who reveals her rotting left hand, probably signaling that she's a member of The Sisters' death club/organization, and proceeds to using her Dimension Cab-clone bangle to casually re-steal the Catchula RCC that Houtarou recaptured just moments ago, directly from his right hand. No wonder she can effortlessly steal RCC's from AA's storage. And of course Houtarou responds to that new piece of information by making a loud scream in full-scale perplexion mode that ends this episode, haha. It's funny and unbelievable at the same time. Is Shiori the only spy inside AU? I don't think so. Glion/The Sisters must have executed their Plan B or even Plan C.

Next episode: The debut of the new Driver and the new foe, Kamen Rider Dread. Dang it, man. Everything about Dread is cool. Everything. The Driver looks cool. It's like a more minimalistic, lower-profile version of Demons/Vail/Destream Driver. It's definitely a P-Bandai release. It seems like the Driver only requires one RCC to transform. The design and color scheme of the Rider is even cooler. It has this somber, dark, sinister, yet artistic aura, which is very nice. It fits the dark alchemy trope perfectly. It tends toward a more organic design, like a fuse of Guyver, Guyferd/Deathferd, and Cooler. Aesthetically, it's the complete opposite of Gotchard that has a more robotic/mechanical look.

I'm not sure what the motif is. Skeleton? Hydra? To my eyes, it looks like a fusion of skeleton and hydra, especially the face that looks like a hydra. If hydra is the motive, then he will use Jamata no Orochi RCC (Occult 8). Yamata no Orochi is an eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent in Japanese mythology. Interestingly, in Ancient Greek mythology, hydra is a multi-headed serpent that can regenerate its head and is very hard to kill. In real life, any dismembered body part from a hydra will grow into a new, separate organism. A hydra is virtually immortal. A hydra perfectly symbolizes something that blurs the boundary between life and death. It symbolizes the death of death itself, haha. Another interesting thing: If you rotate the number 8 90 degrees, it becomes the symbol of infinity (∞).

Some people say that it's a redesign/recycle, but I don't see it, apart from the circle in the chest armor that looks like Zero-One Assault Hopper/Vulcan Assault Assault Wolf. It's a top-tier design. A serious contender for the best design in Reiwa era KR, along with Horobi/Jin, Buster, Vail, and Geats IX. Heck, even the mere name Dread is just too cool. Dread... SHF... Must... Buy...

Judging from the posture, it's obviously a male, so Rinne is definitely out of the question. He's also definitely not Spanner, as it's shown @ 23:13 that it's fighting ValvaSpanner. Then the only remaining candidates are Sabimaru and Minato. Is he Minato? Minato hasn't had any build up, so I'm more inclined to dismiss this possibility. Then it leaves Sabimaru as the only possible candidate. Is the anguished male voice @ 23:08 Sabimaru's? Could he be deep down secretly wishing for confidence and strength all this time? Whose right hand is @ 23:11? I think it's Houtarou's, when he begs Dread for mercy, in shock, disbelief, and sadness after getting his butt kicked by Dread and utterly defeated. From the very brief scene @ 23:16, it seems like Dread has absorption/nulllifying ability that can weaken Gotchard's and Valvarad's power, similar to Genm Level 0 that can decrease any Bugster's power. Oh, and is Dread actually a puppet Rider, albeit a very powerful one, similar to KR Leangle when Mutsuki was a weak-willed teenager? Is Dread somehow connected to Glion through Atropos? Given that mind manipulation is Atropos' forte, and her christening Dread's new "character" (and thus name) the destroyer of darkness @ 23:13, it could very likely be the case. Hmmm... Noice. Very very noice.

Clotho will finally get serious in the next episode. It seems like she's only been in easy/beginner mode all this time. When she gets serious, she's actually more than capable to give even the likes of Minato real pain and hell.

I'm afraid I got a little carried away. This episode 11 review has almost turned into a short story. Anyway, sooo stoked for episode 12. Bring it on, Mr. Kamen Writers!