[Switchblade]

I'm very ambivalent about this episode. On the one hand, it is patently ridiculous at this point in the series to pull a face turn for Gai. He's been manipulating and gaslighting the heroes since his first appearance and is the primary cause of most - arguably all - of the show's main conflicts. Literally one episode ago he was plotting to put potentially thousands of people at risk to turn a profit. There has been little, if anything, to indicate that he has any kind of redeeming characteristics. Any effort to reform him would require a very long and difficult process to pull off in a way that a) didn't feel forced and b) might actually be convincing. Instead we get this: "I got my robot puppy back so now I'm a good guy." It is objectively ludicrous.

That said, it absolutely worked for me and I legitimately got teary eyed when I watched it. I've always had pets and I've loved them all deeply. I had to put down my 15-year-old cat last month after a months-long battle with cancer. The anticipatory grief alone almost wrecked me. I have also always over-empathized with inanimate objects. I was a stuffed animal kid well into elementary school and there is absolutely a teddy bear whose reconstruction would be like regaining a family member for me. Everything about Thouser (the dog) was custom-made to appeal to my emotions and this episode hit me like a truck.

So yeah, this episode absolutely worked for me, even if, on paper, it's one of the dumbest plots in a franchise that once included a plan to destroy Japan's economy by getting artists promoted to the heads of major corporations and then giving them writer's block.