It is nighttime and a beautiful woman is being stalked.
Meanwhile, across town, Chase also seems to be stalking a beautiful woman. Kiriko, in this case. She demands to know why he’s here, but he gently approaches her.
At the Pit, Belt-san, Shinnosuke and Gou are discussing #000 Mashin Chaser. Shinnosuke asks if Kiriko knows of Chase’s identity, but Gou says there’s no reason to tell her. Gou is very forceful in saying they should just kill all the Roidmude since they are the enemies of humanity.
Shinnosuke asks Gou what’s up, but Gou just leaves on his bike.
Chase steps forward toward Kiriko, but his head begins to ache once again. This time he hears a voice; “Protect the humans.” And he sees Kiriko’s face.
“Who are you?! Why are you appearing in my memories?! WHY!?”
Gou sees them and drives up. He points his gun at Chase who runs away.
“Don’t be fooled by anything he says!” Gou tells his neechan.
Everyone’s in for work at the SID the next day. Kiriko wants to ask Shinnosuke about Chase. But after Chief Jun is saddened by today’s fortune, a special guest is introduced to the SID.
Popular actress Nanao Rira! Everyone is shocked and excited, except for Tomari-san who has no idea who she is.
Rira’s company president explains that someone’s been stalking her lately. And this seems to be an SID case since she says she felt the Heaviness when she faced the stalker.
Elsewhere, the hooded figure Rira had seen that night has a table of tarot cards and has just flipped over the “Fool” card.
At their new church hideout, Brain asks Chase to reset a newly born and very undesirable Roidmude.
But Chase asks Brain if he knows anything about 000. That’s not important, Brain says. Chase turns to walk away and Brain says he’s not about to disobey orders is he?
Suddenly, Chase gets another headache with the same “Protect the humans” message. That’s when Medic twirls in and offers to take care of the job for Brain. “We don’t want to disappoint Heart-sama.”
Chase recovers. “Don’t butt in!” He leaves.
Brain agrees that it was bad timing for her. But Medic is happily excited to see what will happen when Chase finds out the truth. Indeed, Brain is intrigued too.
Shinnosuke, Kiriko and Otta are Rira’s bodyguard for the day. She’s currently at a commercial shoot. They are surprised to see Gou has talked his way onto the team as well. And to calm Otta and Kiriko down over his presence, he gives them some info he’s dug up. A Sunahara Tadashi is the president of Rira’s fan club, a master of disguise and has been very pushy in offering her presents.
Otta agrees to investigate him.
Shinnosuke takes Gou aside and says he’s only here just to keep an eye on Kiriko. Gou is impressed by his niisan’s instincts and promises to take care of Chase next time he approaches his sister. Kiriko sees them and asks what they’re whispering about.
Rira has wrapped for this commercial shoot and has 15 minutes before they leave for a magazine interview. On the way out, Shinnosuke and Gou see a suspicious fedora’d man peeping in the window. They pursue while Kiriko and Otta stay with Rira.
Sunahara pops up with another present and Otta takes him by the neck. But when the fedora’d man escapes behind a fence, the Heaviness arrives. Shinnosuke and Gou run back to the others where a hooded monster has just slashed at Sunahara and turned him blue and unconscious.
Gou puts his belt on and chases after the hooded person. Shinnosuke checks on Sunahara and sees the Fool tarot card next to him.
Gou has already henshined and before he can finish his roll call, the hooded person attacks and tries to fly away. Gou uses the Split Signal Bike to knock the guy down to the ground. That gives him time to finish his roll call, but that also allows the hooded thing to escape.
Back at the SID, Kyu has found the identity of the fedora’d man: Sakaki Kouichi, a makeup artist who used his job to get close to dozens of women.
Kiriko and Gou are with Rira as she returns to her apartment. They will keep watch.
Shinnosuke is out asking around, but Otta calls to say that Sakaki was just arrested while stalking another girl.
Sakaki sits in the jail cell, laughing. Otta is disgusted. He demands the “Rori Shoujo” show his true form. “Oh, you into that stuff too Detective-san?!”
But Sakaki knows Otta means to say “Roidmude” and that they are talking about the “bat-like monster.” Otta takes this as a confession.
But Shinnosuke realizes Sakaki let himself get caught on purpose to lure them out while the real Roidmude is off somewhere else.
“You finally figured it out! But you’re too late. Right now, the other me is stealing Nanao Rira’s heart!”
Shinnosuke hurries out.
Rira is alone in her apartment when the Roidmude pops up at her window. Kiriko and Gou hear her screams and they hurry into the apartment building. But the Heaviness stops Rira.
069 laughs, but suddenly, the hooded Roidmude appears to save Rira. Turns out the hooded person saved Rira that night as well. He holds up a tarot card as he and 069 fight.
Gou henshins and fights 069.
Rira asks the hooded person if he is “the one from before.” He approaches her, but Kiriko arrives and shoots at him. Shift Cars come to help as Shinnosuke arrives as well.
Shinnosuke henshins, but Gou tells him Sakaki is the one he’s fighting, not the hooded thing upstairs.
The hooded person flies off again.
Shinnosuke and Gou are now both taking on 069. 069 gets very disgustingly creepy when he gloats about the joy he gets from seeing women in fear.
Boiling mad, Shinnosuke decides to cool off with Type Technic and a new Shift Car, Road Winter. Shinnosuke freezes 069 in a block of ice.
Before they can finish off 069, Chase arrives.
Kiriko sees and tells Rira to stay where she is as she heads down.
Chase says he will reset 069, but first he will defeat them two Kamen Riders. He
Goes Mashin Chaser as Shinnosuke goes Wild. The three of them fight.
Chase shoots at Gou. Kiriko calls to her brother. Chase turns to look at her, but Shinnosuke pops in. He asks what Chase is fighting for and why?
Chase gets another headache and the same message. “I don’t need a reason. To defeat the Kamen Riders… is my mission!”
Gou rejoins the fight, but there are suddenly blasts from above. It’s Brain.
Brain tosses a few viral cores into 069, saying he’ll give him one more chance before he is reset. 069 evolves into a huge bat and grabs Kiriko as he flies off.
Shinnosuke uses Hooking Wrecker and latches on 069, but he merely gets pulled along for the ride. Both Gou and Chase hop on their bikes to follow.
Gou and Chase are side-by-side when suddenly, a Combination System activates on both their bikes. Chase gets hurled off and the bikes join together on their own, taking Gou into this new vehicle.
Belt-san calls it the Ride Crosser. Gou takes control of it and shoots at 069, forcing it to let go of Kiriko. Shinnosuke catches her and they safely fall to the ground.
Gou uses Ride Crosser and its new tricks to finish off 069 for good.
Chase jumps in and wonders why his bike did that on its own. But Brain has the explanation.
The reason the two bikes combined is because Chase is Proto-Zero.
On the night of the Global Freeze, Chase defeated many of the Roidmude to save humans.
Chase dehenshins. “What?!”
Brain continues. “That’s when I gave him the name… Kamen Rider.”
Chase is shocked. Kiriko is shocked.
Episode Thoughts
Ooooo! How soapy! Lol
I think it became pretty clear with each episode that Chase was Proto Drive. The intriguing part though is seeing how and why and where and what. Plus, the preview had the tagline “So many feelings…!” lol Indeed! “The feels” that may pop up in the next episode should be fun to watch.
One of the interesting things about this episode was how “crime drama” things got when Shinnosuke and Otta were investigating and then seeing Sakaki in jail. It looked like some primetime crime procedural. Very slick and such a contrast to the rest of the episode of course. I liked it. Plus it fit with the creepy sexual predator perp. What is it with Kamen Rider and victimizing beautiful women? lol (Lookin’ at you Gremlin Sora.)
I enjoyed the new toys. And it was fun seeing the new toy introduction play into the big reveal.
I wonder what was with Gou’s intensity at the start of the episode when it came to protecting neechan? Interesting. I hope they go somewhere with that moving forward and I assume it has something to do with him intent on just wiping out the Roidmude.
The case itself this week with the actress and 069 is pretty interesting on its own, but the whole Chase-Kiriko-Proto Drive developments are definitely center stage.
Am not that surprised that Chase turns out to be Proto-Drive all along. Everything about him just screams secondary (or in this case, third) rider.. So I am guessing his upgraded form being teased in the toy catalogues is actually his rider form under all those extra mechanical bits.
What really intrigues me here is the implication on Shinosuke’s character. The roimudes have been mentioning about the “Promised Numbers” for some episodes now (and Chase seems to be one of those). So, I wouldn’t be surprised if, in true Kamen Rider fashion, Shinosuked himself will be revealed to be a roimude and is also one of those Promised Numbers.
I know right?!