[Paladin]

Baku must learn the secret of the Bride.

[Switchblade]

Fujimi and Nagumo are officially my favorite characters.

As someone who has a documented history of being bitchy about weapons in tokusatsu that look like they're just roleplay toys, I really like Zeztz's sword/gun. It passes the "this looks convincingly like an actual weapon" test and I'm always a sucker for a sword that turns into a gun and vice versa.

[Zolda]

In the scene @ 08:24, Tetsuya tells Baku that from now on he and Nasuka will be supporting Baku in his missions. Last week in episode 4 @ 20:10, Tetsuya tells Nasuka that he somehow knows that Baku has a strong connection to the "black cases". These scenes confirm my hypothesis in episode 2 thread here that Tetsuya (and Nasuka) could be working as Baku's direct supporters beginning in episode 4. So far, Baku even tells Tetsuya and Nasuka that he's a secret agent for CODE, as Zero tells him to @ 04:51. This means that Commander Zero could be planning to get intels from MID's side, and Tsukasa would be getting intels from CODE's side as well. I wonder what the true motivation of these 2 top brass characters (Commander Zero and Tsukasa Toudou).

In the scene @ 22:13, Nox says that everything (which means everything physical) is destined to collapse, except for "us", while looking at Nemu's posters. This scene could be another support for my hypothesis since my 2nd post in episode 1 thread here about Nemu being another dream-dwelling entity who only possesses incorporeal existence with no actual real-life existence similar to the Nightmares (albeit she could be a benevolent variant of it).

Next week:

Nemu seemingly has parents/family (or foster parents/family), albeit only in the dream realm.

Mmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyybbbbbbbbbbeeeeeeeeee...

[Frontier]

Don't you just hate it when a Kaijin vanishes in a murder of crows after you did the Finisher or when the VIP bride you're protecting turns out to have been the reason this Nightmare exists to begin with?

Wow, our police characters straight up sneak into a guys' room while he's sleeping without a warrant and rummage through his closet. Also I guess this is what happens when you have a secret base entrance that apparently literally anyone can use.

I don't know what I love more, Baku trying to get orders from his bike or Nasuka trying to ride said bike like it's the Boostriker again.

Thank goodness Fujimi is so deranged and obsessed that he's willing to believe everything Baku says about the plot. As long as it means Nightmare's are real and he gets to do something to contribute to stopping them, that's all he cares about.

I have to admit I'm impressed Fujimi and Nasuka stuck that landing jumping out of Baku's window. I mean, Nasuka seems really physically fit so I guess I'm not surprised. They probably did another barrel roll.

Convenient for Baku that he gets peeks into important locations in the dreamers' memories for if he ever needs to contact them in the real world to get more insight into what he's supposed to be doing.

Are they straight up going to move into the office at this rate? I mean, it's probably nicer than the truck. Just...don't drink the "tea."

Sorry Ippei, this was never about a childhood love lost, Miyuki was fine getting married...she just has a huge fear of heights after falling off a tree and doesn't think she can handle flying to New York.

I love that Baku drove for his final encounter with the Crow Nightmare. Bike riding! In Kamen Rider!

I also love the wing blades and all the kicks Zeztz managed to deliver with it.

Zeztz Stream! It lets Zeztz control the wind and LITERALLY SURF WITH AN AIRPLANE and can even create a cage of wind for wayward Nightmares! And it's specialty is a gun that it can fire the Breakam Burst Finisher! And you know this is a Takahashi season when he blows out the gun.

It's a sign that Miyuki's husband is a good guy that he's willing to call off the flight because she's having nightmares and isn't comfortable with it. It's a tough break for Ippei, but as long as Miyuki is happy, he'll take the loss like a champ. Also now Fujimi is trying to be buddies with him and supporting him because...I guess that's just what he does.

Is Nox reading up on the meaning of Zeztz' forms? And he talks about how everything breaks down...except him and Nem.

Next week: Prison arc! The Saw Nightmare! And Nem's backstory!

[Fish Sandwich]

I'm gonna be way meaner to this one than I want, but my gut is telling me the story here doesn't quite click together in a way that's very satisfying. The whole twist of finding out what's *really* going on with the Dreamer and all, it's great for how it puts the events up to that point in a new light, but even though it changes the context of the plot in a way that makes things more interesting than they were before, I think it might have failed to accomplish changing the emotions of the plot in the same way?

I just didn't get much resonance out of anything by the end, which sucks to say. Baku's self-doubt doesn't resolve in any particularly climactic manner, and his interactions with Miyuki almost seem to suggest limitations to the show's format when it's probably important to be suggesting the potential instead, this early on. I thought those second and third episodes built a really strong engine with the idea of a hero who has to confront people's deepest desires, both conscious and unconscious, and learn to understand them in ways they might not even understand themselves, but it didn't seem to amount to much this time? Miyuki ends up solving her real life problems mostly because she decided to tell her new husband about a bad dream she had, which kinda inadvertently means the bad dream saved the day as much as ZEZTZ did? Obviously it's important that he stopped the capital-letter Nightmare, but I'd sort of hope that, even if they only really meet within a dream, Baku himself could form a more impactful connection with the people he's helping. Maybe those people could even help him in some unexpected way! Might make a good story!

So yeah, I think there's a lot that maybe needs to be ironed out still if the show wants to do standard two-parters focused more around guest characters than an overarching story, but A) I don't actually know yet if that *is* the format the show will stick with, and B) in spite of everything I just said, this was still an episode that was entertaining enough, all things considered. I did especially like the action setpiece at the end. It gets a little wonky looking at points, but that's the part of this one where I felt the show actively trying to expand what it can do, because all that plane stuff is the sort of sequence I feel like Kamen Rider would ordinarily not even attempt as part of just a regular TV episode.