[Sh Ranger]

Wow, four Gears used in this episode, including my favorite 80s and second favorite 90s Sentai! Kakuranger Gear does as the Sentai's name implies and hides the Rangers, a simple yet effective escape power. Flashman Gear gets to represent all the team cannons in Sentai history, complete with the Yellow Ranger being critical to making it work! I love that!

This is partially a Yellow focus as well, so it's fitting and unexpected that the regular version of the Gaoranger Gear shows up here to give Gaon and the other Kikainoid Rangers a wild boost. I haven't watched Goranger but I know their iconic finisher inspired the Vulcan Ball from Sun Vulcan.

Considering the gears in Stacey's DNA when he morphs in to Stacaesar (that scene is like Emu from Kamen Rider EX-Aid mutating whenever he gets a new power-up) and how he identifies as half-human, my current theory is that he's actually Kaito's half-brother.

Stacaesar's powers are so bad*ss and OP! While Basco could only summon copies of Rangers as long as he possessed their keys, Stacaesar can summon copies of whole teams of Rangers and the mecha from the splintered universes that power his Dark Gears! Even though he's about to get Ursa Sky Blued next episode, I don't think my excitement over him is going to wear out so quickly!

Stacey's status as an ambiguously human villain is a smart way to challenge Gaon's ideals. Gaon joined the Zenkaigers to fight those evil Kikainoids under Tojitendo and protect the humans. But now there's a human on Tojitendo's side, which complicates things. It's the concept that good and evil can exist equally in both Kikainoids and also humans. Gaon's prejudice stops him from seeing that, although it was probably cowardly of Juran to attack Stacey out of suit, since that's what caused the civilians to become afraid of him in the first episode, when he showed aggression. Gaon's decision to let the human Rangers fight each other is a good way to get around this internal conflict for now, but I think this is going to be brought up again, since Gaon's philosophy of humans good Kikainoids bad isn't a sustainable one for a heroic character to maintain.