[Tokumonkey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Stinger's actor is really good, and now he actually gets to do some real emotion. He really sells the episode and you can see just on his face all the conflicting emotions Stinger goes through as this episode drags him through the wringer.

I disagree a bit, here. I spent the first half of the episode realizing that I just don't buy his performance at all. Toward the end of the episode, when he had more exaggerated emotions to work with, I felt he did a better job, but the whole episode should've given him a lot to work with, as the whole thing is putting Stinger's emotions through the wringer. Just imagine if the role were played by any of the stronger actors from the last several years.

I don't think he's awful - we're not looking at a Takaharu here - but Stinger has become a relatively juicy part, and this actor is just doing... okay. That's not all that severe as criticism given that really good young actors are relatively rare.

With all that said, I do think this was the strongest episode of the series. We've desperately needed character-focused episodes that don't try very hard to sell new toys. Focusing on not-Lucky was a great choice.

The "kids' show" element was underscored by the episode carefully making clear that Champ will be back, although I hope they go with the interesting choice they suggested that he might be different enough for *this* Champ to be effectively dead. We'll see if they're willing to follow through with that. (I hope they are, since he's been a relatively one-note character.)

They did a great job of selling Scorpio as a closet hero, although I would've liked to have seen where they went with that choice. Scorpio is just a less interesting character now that we know he doesn't care about his brother.

But yeah, Champ being blown up was shocking in a good way. Scorpio's creepy under-mask face is great, but I'm glad they're mostly keeping the awesome mask.

I'm sort of braced for next (this) week's episode to be grating. Given that this episode made a few strong choices, though, I could probably get away with being more optimistic. Kyuranger is inching toward realizing its potential.