[DreadBringer]

I had watched the episode last Tuesday, but I had no time to write it here until now. So another one with no opening, but I guess both of the potentially tense events (Hiromi dying or Fenix reveal) are subverted in this episode.

The major reason for that is also about Ikki's development though, hooray for Revice to character focus ahead! Like I said before, one of Ikki's appeal to me is that he can still screw up big time even if he's nice, well-meaning, and didn't do morally questionable stuff (including for well-meaning reason) and for other reason than being a total idiot, like how him being a busybody (which'd mean helping others) drives a wedge between his siblings. Of which even if Ikki isn't morally dubious, he still needs to change in some ways too, which is shown here, not all flaws are offensive traits. I also now understand better for the previous part about Daiji calling Ikki out for not being enough busybody meaning Ikki's development, as it shows Ikki accepting and respecting other's choices, like Hiromi's choice to keep fighting despite his condition. Ikki (with Akemi) would find a different way to protect Hiromi (attacking Demons Driver; attacking other Riders!) despite his workaholic approach rather than being overprotective to just prevent him doing something, and I'd like to see what other ways he comes off with to take care of others without being overbearing.

Though like what some people said here, it's also about allowing Hiromi to be purposely detrimental beyond reason, and I'd think it's primarily Hiromi's fault tbh, his recklessness and impulsiveness are his flaws that has been proven to be his shortcomings. Just that in this episode he hasn't learned from that yet (dunno if he will), and instead is stubborn beyond reason, albeit of course in a softer way instead of harsh way like some of the secondary Riders against the primary's lessons. I̶n̶ ̶N̶o̶ ̶W̶a̶y̶ ̶H̶o̶m̶e̶,̶ ̶S̶p̶i̶d̶e̶r̶-̶M̶a̶n̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶e̶d̶,̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶R̶e̶v̶i̶c̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶"̶S̶p̶i̶d̶e̶r̶-̶M̶a̶n̶"̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶s̶m̶h̶.̶ By this Hiromi obviously needs to learn from something too, like how he witnesses Ikki becoming dependable instead of viewing himself as dependable but actually overbearing. Like Daiji said, you can't save anyone when you're dead, I think for heroism you should try to preserve yourself so you're sure you'd be there for others in future, without doing morally questionable shit (like sacrificing the unlucky few) and still ready to throw your life if the situation demands it of course, but likely Hiromi should think up of other good deeds he can do without henshin as Demons for example. Albeit him letting himself got hit by Volcano Rex's finisher is quite a smart move from him to preserve himself that I can appreciate. Other than that, seems expected, he's shown to be merciful towards Chigusa's betrayal and would seek best case scenario.

The Fenix truth isn't revealed yet, other than it involves George and Akaishi's conversation in flashback, obviously 2 of the most shady members of Fenix, but it seems that Chigusa's sort of the hypocrite type in "reacting to the horrible truth I discovered". She joined a faction that can be as bad as Fenix with mostly little regard (albeit she had limits when Olteca killed her), like they pull horrible shit constantly and more openly, eventually to herself, and she shares Olteca's supremacy view of degrading whole humanity (and forcing them to "evolve" in their image) as well. Other than that, Olteca's backstory seems to paint him as just being depraved from a child, that him being a prodigy leads to him developing a superiority complex over others. Olteca now reminds of me of some of KR's mad scientists before, he has mad scientist personality/worldview but does things via supernatural stuff instead, like he wants to forcibly evolve humanity like Ryoma, and that his backstory of him already shown as being messed up before he got the power to act upon his ideology (by being recruited to Deadman.... with likely Akaishi in disguise) reminds me of Isaka in W. For Olteca at the first part of the episode, it's nice of him to react to Volcano Rex' finisher to prevent himself losing his power, but at the end of this episode, Olteca still smirks as Fenix captured him, I wanna know what schemes he can pull off without Deadman powers later on. Possibly turning into actual mad scientist using Fenix's tools?

Regarding George, now it seems that his goal is to create the Ultimate Kamen Rider, but it does further confirms my thoughts of him only value the chaos and violence that can present in KR shows instead of acknowledging why KR can be admirable via the heroism value they (not all) display, even openly mocking Hiromi for his heroism. There's also more of his unpleasant and sleazy attitude here of him showing no regards towards Hiromi being his lab rat (typical mad scientist attitude), where even if Hiromi would make the choice to use Demons, oh wait, George guilt-tripped him into becoming Demons at the first place (blaming him for Kagerou), so he does set up this for Hiromi, so it'd not be Hiromi's reckless fault here. His goal of creating Ultimate Kamen Rider also doesn't seem to be a good/benefical one here, likely just want to test his limits of how much he can create, but it'd depend on what he do next to achieve it for his villain status (or allowing that Ultimate Kamen Rider to spread chaos to show off his "brilliance" of what power he can create). But George isn't only scientifically brilliant, he's street smart and has people skills as well despite usually interacting in odd way (probably him interacting to Ikki at the hospital is also about this), which'd just make him more of a threat, like how Hiromi can fought as Demons for quite long time without anyone surrounding them knowing the true schemes until Hiromi almost died. For his true colors, at the very least Hiromi now knows George was his bully, and now only holds him in contempt.

The scene that I didn't like in this episode was Tamaki and Sakura's conversation, which, like Sh Ranger said, is just lazy and repetitive to repeat the same dialogue from previous episodes. Actually I'd like for more types of interaction between them y'know (...probably more than Sakura with Aguilera), of which Tamaki had interacted with Sakura before to inflitrate, but he now isn't, while Sakura now has been more accepting of Tamaki too. While Tamaki and Aguilera temporarily worked together with the Igarashi brothers against Aguilera, it's blatantly stated that Aguilera wants to retrieve the Giff stamp. Aguilera hasn't changed, at all, she still has the same goal from the beginning here. And the parallel too of Aguilera and Olteca basically having the same goal to forcibly evolve humanity via Giff. It's another case of evil vs evil like Metsuboujinrai.net vs ZAIA, albeit Olteca has grown to be really more despicable with his petty sadism, evil is not one big happy family. And again, Aguilera would abuse Tamaki here for telling Sakura, she's normally unpleasant except when certain crisis comes (Tamaki losing Yosuke). Tamaki himself too is loyal to Aguilera, which'd mean he's liable to take whatever side she ends up falling on.