[Paladin]

Having identified the Nightmare dwelling within Sieg, Baku confronts him once again, and the decisive battle between Zeztz and Dawn begins!

[Frontier]

It's kind of surreal that this is the first time anyone in the supporting cast in the real world has actually seen Zeztz in the flesh, but now they get to see him in all his Ultimate Agent glory. And you know he's back in the game when he can say the mission name in English!

The way Zeztz Exdream transitioned from the real world to the dream world with Agent Baku falling...chef's kiss.

THEY REPLACED CATASTROM'S RIDER KICK IN THE OP WITH EXDREAM!!!!

It's kind of funny how Baku just dumped all the Baby Nightmares on NOX and Lady. NOX can handle it!

Dang, they're doing a full spy shootout, tanking bullets with dream armor!

Zeztz Exdream has its own dream door that lets Baku see the subconscious of the dreamer!!!

That shootout with Sieg felt like a dark parallel with Baku's initial spy dream. Once again an agent is shooting people, only more lethally and viciously, and they're an assassin instead of a spy. There's even a lady in a red dress!

Sieg was the son of a gang boss who got sold out by his dad, only to then turn into a dream assassin who would assassinate and kill the rich, powerful, and corrupt in their dreams and only add to his sentence and the amount of sins he had as he killed people and became an international sensation (even if the public didn't know it).

Then the Dream Learning with CODE introduced him to the Punish Gore Nightmare (Jun Fukuyama!) who shared his kink for bad dreams and punishing people and that's why they fused together to become one being.

Is Minami going to have to clean up the base and everything leftover from Baku's 20 years of belt building?

Paranormal Affairs is BACK! If only because of Nasuka roping Fujimi in! I do love how Fujimi refused to stand for the superintendent but then stood up when he said to sit.

Arize! Absolute! Rider! Zeztz Exdream!

Zeztz Exdream vs Dawn! Good dreams vs bad dreams! But no matter what you throw at Exdream, he shrugs it off and pounds you into the ground. Even if you manipulate the dream world around him, even if you end up tagging him, it doesn't matter...because this is HIS dream world now and HE controls it. And he's controlling it to BEAT YOU SENSELESS.

Where does Sieg end and the Punish Gore Nightmare begin? Do they even know any more? Does it matter? I guess Sieg was never the type who could have fought to protect others.

Rider Kick Duel! Or, with the power of Exdream, going back to before Dawn even used his Finisher to GREAT BANISH him for the Finish!!!!

Uh...RIP Sieg? Zeztz sure showed him a great time. But did he just wake up in the real world now? I doubt he's dead dead.

Odaka seemed almost proud of Baku saving the day there.

Looks like Threaky is about to initiate CODE: Somnia...and control dreams for CODE.

Next week: The gang all together! Baku vs CODE! Threaky trying to replicate the premonitory dream!

[JusticeMagnum]

We finally get a lore dump on Sieg and find out what his whole deal is it was cool to see.

ExDream's abilities were cool and the fight with Dawn was great (I'm honestly surprised Dawn held his own as well as he did during the fight). Also the music during the fight was excellent both the insert by BACK-ON and the bgm used during ExDream's finisher really elevated everything.

It'll be interesting to see next week how CODE tries to combat ExDream's busted abilities with their own dream altering shenanigans with CODE Somnia.

(Also I doubt Dawn's gone for good so I'm interested to see what they do with him if/when he returns).

[JusticeMagnum]

Also interesting thing to note is the ExDreams physical stats are actually slightly weaker than Catastrom (the only stats ExDream is better at is speed and jump height) but the thing that gives ExDream a massive edge is it's absolutely busted dream manipulation abilities.

[Fish Sandwich]

So, just to say a few things about Exdream real quick, it's like a 12/10 on the name, to begin with. It's evocative, it's simple and elegant, it obviously fits the whole "m/mu at the end" pattern that only Plasma broke for reasons I'm still not clear on... pretty much perfect; don't even want to imagine calling the final form anything else now. The new belt and Capsem, I'm mostly ambivalent towards, but the suit itself is also everything I could've hoped for. I like how it goes back to being relatively restrained in terms of detail, and love that the one thing majorly altering the silhouette is as wonderfully playful as having ZZZ written on his limbs. That is exactly the kind of thing I expect Kamen Rider to do with the suits that I haven't really seen from ZEZTZ until now, but what's even better is that it pulls it off in a way that doesn't clash with this show's usual aesthetics.

It makes a good showing here in terms of what it has to offer the show, too. Perhaps deliberately, we don't get much of a sense here of any tangible boundaries that exist to its powers, but given the whole slant of the story, I can understand why the choice would be made to present it as Baku just kind of being able to do anything he wants now. Like, the whole idea is that dreams make limits fade away, right? The idea that Exdream can confound enemies with visions of them achieving their dream of victory over ZEZTZ is particularly cute, but on a broader level, I especially liked the whole visual association with water? From how ZEZTZ enters the world of dreams at the start right through to how he defeats DAWN, it's a cool superhero-kinda way to incorporate another bit of classic symbolism, since water's whole transient quality means it's historically been strongly associated with the unconscious mind.

As is typical for this series, the episode is a visual powerhouse just in general. The big Rider throwdown has that crazy anime quality to it only Sugihara can bring with copious amounts of extraordinarily well-considered compositing work, of course. I also love the strong impression made by the montage of Sieg accumulating sins while also accumulating worthless wealth within a tiny box of a prison cell he can't truly free himself from.

And it's a good thing I do love the way those visuals make me think about Sieg, because his role in the episode is where I start to feel a little lost for the first time in a while with this show? It feels strange how little his backstory here affects the way I view his character? It also feels strange you'd never understand you're watching him kill his own father without the dialogue when that isn't how this show has ever worked, but also, maybe that's the secret? The visuals don't emphasize that fact because it isn't actually important? The problem I'm having is that I'm unsure what specifically *is* important to take away from that sequence. I don't think the intent was necessarily to reveal all there is to know about Sieg, since we only see one more part of a life that's clearly been through many starkly different phases. But even accepting that in of itself, I was still left feeling that whole philosophical debate part of the conflict between him and Baku ends up more flat than it ought to be for such a climactic point in the story. There's some good dialogue in there with stuff like Baku questioning how much of Sieg's madness is even his own, but it doesn't feel like it rises to the same crescendo the physical conflict does.

Or at least, it felt that way to me. There's also the whole question of whether or not this is *an* ending or *the* ending to DAWN's storyline, and how that would affect how satisfactory it is, but I'm not going to waste too much time trying to factor that in right now. I think Sieg ended up being the weak link here, but the weaknesses I see there aren't really enough to drag everything down around it. Honestly, that bit with Fujimi standing up specifically because he was told to sit down is probably worth the whole episode just by itself, and that's ignoring that it's a nice scene for Nasuka on top of that.

[Frontier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

And it's a good thing I do love the way those visuals make me think about Sieg, because his role in the episode is where I start to feel a little lost for the first time in a while with this show? It feels strange how little his backstory here affects the way I view his character? It also feels strange you'd never understand you're watching him kill his own father without the dialogue when that isn't how this show has ever worked, but also, maybe that's the secret? The visuals don't emphasize that fact because it isn't actually important? The problem I'm having is that I'm unsure what specifically *is* important to take away from that sequence. I don't think the intent was necessarily to reveal all there is to know about Sieg, since we only see one more part of a life that's clearly been through many starkly different phases. But even accepting that in of itself, I was still left feeling that whole philosophical debate part of the conflict between him and Baku ends up more flat than it ought to be for such a climactic point in the story. There's some good dialogue in there with stuff like Baku questioning how much of Sieg's madness is even his own, but it doesn't feel like it rises to the same crescendo the physical conflict does.

Or at least, it felt that way to me. There's also the whole question of whether or not this is *an* ending or *the* ending to DAWN's storyline, and how that would affect how satisfactory it is, but I'm not going to waste too much time trying to factor that in right now. I think Sieg ended up being the weak link here, but the weaknesses I see there aren't really enough to drag everything down around it. Honestly, that bit with Fujimi standing up specifically because he was told to sit down is probably worth the whole episode just by itself, and that's ignoring that it's a nice scene for Nasuka on top of that.

I think it was just doubling down on Sieg as a dark twist on Baku.

Instead of a dream agent Sieg was a dream assassin.

Instead of seeing dreams as a means to make people happy as Baku did, Sieg saw it as a means of punishing the wicked even if it meant killing them and having to live with that sin each and every time.

For Baku his dream journey furthered his heroic resolve and belief in humanity while for Sieg it just made him further sink into believing the worst in humanity and embracing his own sin.

Baku was never consumed by his Nightmare while Sieg embraced his and can't tell where he begins and Punny-chan ends anymore.

Instead of working with and eventually understanding his father like Baku did, Sieg ends up killing his father for abandoning him to prison.

So I feel like that gave a lot of context to Sieg, what he represents to Baku, and how that played out in their final fight.

[GoldenXtreme]

Well, this certainly wasn't as evocative and interesting as the first part of this two-parter, but it was fine I suppose. Exdream seems quite powerful, but I suspect it isn't as broken a form as it might seem from this initial showing, especially given that CODE Somnia seems to finally be ready to use (and I guess the show can finally take other Lords out of the narrative void the show threw them into a while ago). I kind of have to agree with Fish that I didn't really find anything meaningful to take away from Sieg's backstory reveal though.

I suspect next week will mark the start of the final story arc of this show. I was thinking about this recently: Yuuya Takahashi loves having discrete arcs in his shows, to a degree far greater than other tokusatsu writers.

[Eclipyon]

Fun fact: Sieg's father is portrayed by Tongan wrestler Bad Luck Fale (who's actually younger than Sieg's actor Kousei Amano!!!).

We finally see Zeztz's Exdream's real debut, and it's definitely one of the better final form debuts. After spending several episodes tormenting our heroes, it sure is satisfying to see Sieg getting his ass kicked. With that being said, I don't think this will be the last we see of the mad man.

[alanch90]

How about Orderm (I think he used it like only twice)?

But yeah, only marginally physically weaker than Catastrom though the latter is rather unwieldy. Ex-Dream all in all has one of the most broken powers among final forms, its like the dream counterpart of Geats IX.

[Mesnick]

Oh, what a brilliant episode! The show makes full use of the dream theme, as well as the possibilities of CGI and location changes. Some shots are just begging to be on your desktop. And the pistol duel feels like it's from a completely different genre. Overall, the episode is a contender for the record for most extras killed. And the scene at the end with Nem was very sweet.
But I still can't help but criticize it, and it concerns the episode's structure. The scenes with Minami, the police, and Tri would be better off being moved to the end. The latter could have been one scene instead of two. Because we were just shown a flashback where Dawn impersonated Light Yagami in the style of a Hong Kong action movie, and now we're being offered a distraction from his confrontation with Zeztz (ExDream) and the daily grind. This change simply doesn't allow us to fully appreciate Fujimi's return to service, as we'd like to see Dawn get what he deserves.
Also, NOX and Lady... did surprisingly little, considering all the buildup with the broken glass. Disappointing, but not too much. The positives clearly outweigh the negatives.
Speaking of ExDream, it gives Buck complete control over dreams. True, against Dawn, he mostly used a more spectacular version of Chronos Pause, but this is justified by the fact that Zeztz was trying to get through to the enemy.
Unfortunately, Dawn clearly didn't want to part with the Nightmare of Punishment. This is a nice detail, by the way, because initially, when Baku declared, "I am Zeztz, the Ultimate Agent," I was reminded of the assault on the CODE base. But fortunately, this time, his professionalism didn't make him close his heart. Although, to be fair, at times in this episode, Baku sounded too much like a classic hero. But I think that's a sign of maturity. After all, mentally, he's already over forty
As for Dawn, they laid down the straws of redemption for him, turning his victims into criminals. But, as Baku aptly noted, he could have used his abilities for more useful purposes. So Dawn chose the path of an executioner himself, and essentially died the way he wanted.
And CODE: Somnia is finally in action. Judging by the announcement, his power is to once again bring Baku's premonition to life. We'll see what happens. But it's somehow very strange to see the hero on his knees in the very next episode after his victory.