[Fish Sandwich]

Upfront, I do have to commend the commitment to actually going through with using "the entire first half of the show was a dream" as a plot point. Even when you "decide" on something like that from the start, I would not have been surprised to see that concept end up as nothing more than a lot of foreshadowing that was ultimately repurposed or outright left hanging entirely, just a neat anecdote the creators will explain in interviews where they discuss how they decided to back out of doing something that might've been a little too crazy.

Because, yeah, I do think it's an insane idea? There's no way the staff didn't already have the same doubts I'm about to mention. You risk the viewers never trusting any of the rules you establish again, you risk making a massive chunk of the story feel like it didn't matter... the trope itself is far from uncommon or without merit, but in this specific context, for something like Kamen Rider, where you're telling this sprawling 40+ episode narrative? And you want people to be okay with 24 of those being put in that position? It takes some serious confidence to even try and walk that tightrope!

In that sense, without speaking for anyone else's experience, I do kinda feel like my relationship with this show now has to build itself back up from scratch in the same way Baku has to recreate all these connections only he remembers. But hey, maybe that's just a chance to do things better the second time around, right?

Honestly, despite all the rational reasons I didn't particularly want to see anything like this, I wasn't even slightly bothered by anything in this episode? On the contrary, I really got into it pretty quickly. There was a basic fun to watching Baku nervously scramble around trying to do a speedrun of the pilot trilogy that instantly created a thrilling momentum in the places where I find these sort of looping stories can drag. And then from there, I think they did a great job establishing that clear new direction, with the new theme song kicking in as Baku draws together the people he knows he count on most to help him with a mission he's learned he can't let anyone decide for him. (And indeed, that mission is literally the exact opposite of what Zero told him when handing over the ZEZTZ Driver.)

Even though there is that inherent sadness in the way things have gone back to square one in so many ways, the ways in which they haven't at all make a solid case very quickly for how everything we saw still "counts" for something. The strength of those pilot episodes meant that Baku was always kinda my anchor in this show. As long as I felt like I got what was going through his head in a given moment, I could always buy into that journey he was on on that level. Which is probably why some of my biggest complaints early on were times where I didn't understand things like, say, how Baku almost seemed to be dozing off when it came to a lot of the larger Plot stuff I figured he'd be as curious about as I was.

So hey, if that is the big picture concept here? If the back half of this show is going to be Baku blossoming into this focused hero using the experience he gained in his sleep to take charge and turn that bad dream into a good morning? Yeah, I think I'm down for that.