[Locke]

It is funny that we're at the point of the show now where it is going to start ramping up for that final push, and it feels like it is still trying to reconcile how a show can have any real stakes when most of the events happening in it are not real.

Which is funny, cause on the flipside, it being a dream - or at least when they lean into that aspect - creates a sense of freedom for them to just do the coolest things they can think of during the action scenes, and that was on full display in that fight against Nightmare Zeztz, no matter how brief it was. I haven't loved the high tech pajama look of the Zeztz suits, but here, the lack of bulky flappy bits to restrict movement allowed for some great choreography as well.

A quick edit: I really wanna stress, for as muddled as this story has kinda gotten as it tries to give stakes and make all the internal logic make sense and iron out all the mechanics and all of that, and as negative as that may make me come across when I point this out, I am still shocked by just how good this show has been since Sieg's introduction comparatively to the overwhelming blandness of the first quarter of the show.

I feel like had I come to this a decade later as I am now doing with many shows as I've gotten back into Toku again, with all discourse long over around the show, I would have probably watched the first few episodes and bounced right off of this (which I did originally, being honest), but then I'd never have seen this show develop in the way it has, and I am pretty darn hopeful now for our final 15 or so episodes we have left that this could end up being an all time banger.