[Fish Sandwich]

I didn't actually expect the plan itself to last more than the single episode it did.

There's sort of a temptation there, for me at least, where I *do* kinda wanna see the grand dramatic irony of Shouma dressing up as a "proper" member of the Stomach family played out as a longer arc, but it's admittedly difficult to imagine that version of events being as true to the characters. It's just not that kind of show? Of course Shouma's determination to abandon his life in the human world immediately blows up in his face, because that decision meant abandoning everything that makes him strong. That's what this episode is here to reinforce -- the ultimate victory of Kamen Rider Gavv can only come if Shouma is happy at the end. Which is maybe the real trick of this one's title, as Shouma's actual determination by the end is a reaffirmation of what he really wanted the whole time.

It's a strong character moment, in an episode full of them. A lot of them with Shouma, naturally. Seeing him revisit that room we've seen so much of in flashbacks was pretty great, especially for how the way he swallows his feelings there acts as a particularly nice contrast to that ending scene. I'm not sure if we've ever actually seen Shouma openly crying like that at all before? Usually, no matter how sad he gets, the tears stay bottled up, so it seems pretty significant for this to happening here and now, in this specific context. It's a level of detail I appreciate, just like how Sachika headbutting Shouma is filmed in a way where it's so clearly more affectionate than it is angry. Or how that letter from Shouma says out loud that Sachika is his hero, using the exact word, because I've felt since the second episode that's an extraordinarily important conceit to this series. Sachika confronting Lango was also pretty great, on that note! Amazing way to bring some levity to the episode, because underneath that jokey tone of the scene is the underlying notion that Lango is secretly at least as much of an archnemesis and foil to Sachika as he is to Shouma, which is funny, but again, also maybe kinda important on a thematic level. Plus, on top of all that, this episode offers some fun buddy cop shenanigans with Hanto and Lakia, while also making the time for a flashback sequence that helps illuminate why Nyelv might have the relative soft spot he seems to at times for those others in his family would write off as weak. (Although the emphasis there is on it being a *relative* soft spot, of course.)

All in all, it's an episode that's about as packed to the gills as I think anyone could ask out of one so close to the end. And apparently, for Sugihara's work directing Gavv, this actually *was* the end (on TV), which is pretty crazy to think about! Finales tend to really benefit from the energy of pilot directors signing off on the shows they got off the ground to begin with, so it's sad for that to apparently not be the case with Gavv.

On the bright side, though, it seems like a lot of that sort of energy simply ended up going into this episode. Not only in all that aforementioned human drama, but also in the absolutely insane action sequences that are about as Sugihara as Sugihara can currently be. It's admittedly maybe a bit incongruous to have the insert theme playing and everything when the larger point of the narrative is that Shouma isn't making the right choice by being there to begin with, but even then, it's not like the action doesn't support the story. You're watching Master Mode dash around with the power of shots made of like five million individual elements composited together, playing up its speedy shtick as much as possible... in stark contrast to the villain Gavv is trying to stop, who notably barely needs to move at all. It's a visual spectacle to behold, and it's one with purpose, to boot, whether it's playing out against the backdrop of a CG environment we're seeing from all sorts of new angles, or in a nighttime forest with the moodiest lighting imaginable. All of it was no doubt a ton of extra work to put together, but the results speak for themselves.