The Weekly Ride Review with Ethan: Kamen Rider Gotchard Episode 27

Welcome, Riders, to another Weekly Ride Review with Ethan. This week on Kamen Rider Gotchard, we have a lot of Dread, a triumphant return and a Platinum debut!

Recap

We pick up where last week’s episode left off. The Gotchard gang arrives in the Ouroboros Realm, where Geryon and two of the the Three Abyssal Sisters await them. Geryon explains that the Chemies will die when the door to darkness is opened and all he needs is the Gotchardriver, the final key to the realm. On arrival, everyone transforms, with Geryon using the Dread Driver to turn into Kamen Rider Dread: Type Two, with the Daioni replica Chemy Card.

Eventually, after being beaten down by a freshly resolved Kamen Rider trio, Geryon decides to take the fight more seriously and turns to Kamen Rider Dread: Type Three. This time, he makes short work of everyone, taking the driver and beginning to open the door to darkness. Meanwhile, in the real world, Professor Kyoka finds Professor Minato and gives him a stiff talking to.

Geryon explains that his goal, his big endgame, is to turn the world into gold so that he can just spend forever looking at it. When everyone reacts incredulously to this information, simply asking what kind of dream that is, he strikes to kill Hotaro but Minato saves the day. Everyone then holds the bad guys back while Hotaro runs to the, somehow still alive, Chemies and gives them a pep talk. This gives Hopper1 the strength to break free. X-Wizard pipes up and transfers a little part of all the Level X Chemies’ power to Hopper1, evolving it into Crosshopper! After reuniting with Hotaro, this allows him to turn into Kamen Rider Platinum Gotchard and, of course, he takes Geryon apart like Dread: Type Three was made of construction paper. 

As Geryon laments his loss, a giant monster hand sealed on the other side of the door to darkness yoinks Geryon through the portal and the door reseals itself. Nobody really takes a moment to react to this, outside of one comment about the door shutting, which we will get into.

All the Chemies return to the Gotchard gang and they leave. The episode ends with Atropos and Clotho picking up Geryon’s pulsating gold Rubix Cube, saying it’s not over. Back in the real world, Kyoka thanks Lachesis, who, apparently, helped send Minato to the others in time.  

The Bad

While there’s a very real possibility that Geryon was just saying it to be mean, shouldn’t the Chemies have died? I know they wouldn’t have stayed dead or anything, probably being brought back by Hotaro’s words, but the door to darkness was opened. That said, I also can’t discount the possibility Mr. ‘my big evil goal is to starve because all the food and water in the world is now gold’ was just wrong. 

Before getting to the biggest issue I have with this episode, here’s another: if the Level X Chemies were free enough to transfer power to Hopper1, why didn’t they just… help? I hear you… “It’s Platinum Gotchard’s debut, Ethan, that’s why. They would have messed that up.” I get it but, at the same time, why not have Hotaro also do the transmuting he did to Steamliner? It would be more fitting, you know? The two Chemies that Hotaro has known the longest and is the closest too are the two he personally transmuted to make one of his most powerful forms. Sounds like a beautiful fate, to me.  

I’m sure you’ve already realised what I find to be the biggest issue, so enough beating around the bush… WHY WAS NOBODY REACTING TO THE GIANT MONSTER HAND?! They were polite enough to close the door on their way out but like the lack of any real reaction to the hand felt weird. 

Finally, and this is the most nitpicky negative I have, but no goggles on Platinum Gotchard is a negative. Oh, and I almost forgot, Sabi’s AI, Isaac, speaking for Hopper1 in the one scene reminded me of that one Pokemon movie where Pikachu talks and, no, I don’t appreciate being reminded of that, thank you very much.   

The Good

I cackled when everyone found out what Geryon’s dream was and reacted with just “is that it ?” While instantly outpaced by the Platinum star of the week, the new Dread forms are pretty sweet. The red and gold complement the original suit really well. I don’t think Type Three looks nearly as good as Type Two (Toku Source bossman disagrees!), mainly because it just looks a little mismatched for me personally but the Oni half looks amazing. 

Platinum Gotchard is very cool and, going by final form rules with this serving as the form that’s able to use all the powers of the gimmick items up to this point, Rainbow Gotchard should offer something else, which is always fun. I enjoyed the creative ways the different powers were used together and the continued creativity of the Rider Kicks. The Crosshopper jumping out and Rider Kicking along with Hotaro causing him to do a flip was a nice moment, too.  

Conclusion

This was a pretty fun episode, nitpicks notwithstanding. However, like with Geats a concern I have is that you have saved the world in the debut of a cool white form, now where do you go from here? That felt like it could have been a final episode. Hopefully, Gotchard is able to handle that issue well and I’m concerned over nothing. Only time will tell. Next week looks like another chill episode, which is good, I suppose. Let the tension simmer down so, when it needs to rise again, we really feel it. Oh wait, that’s Jugglas Juggler! Hell yeah!

Anyways, before I go off gushing about Ultraman Orb I should ask…

What did you think of the episode? Did you think Dread: Type Three’s big stick was kinda dumb? Did you like Platinum Gotchard’s debut? As always, I’ve been Ethan: Writer, reviewer and giant gold monster on the other side of the door for The Toku Source. See you next time.