REVIEW: Drive 44
This is it folks, we are swerving into the final stretch of Kamen Rider Drive! That doesn’t mean Drive still doesn’t have problems with what it wants to do. This week’s episode really shows that the staff are wanting to do way too much with the little amount of time they have. That however does not mean there isn’t any quality, because my god this week Brain really shines and steals the show.
We start off the episode with a complete non-event of a conclusion of last week’s cliff-hanger, where Gou and Chase help save Kiriko and Shinnosuke from 004 and Banno. I really don’t see the point anymore, but I’ll still state it again: these resolutions to the cliff-hangers are really, really bad. Not only do they last a very short time, they also resolve a problem too quickly and easily, thus making the cliff-hanger mean less and so holistically wasting the show’s time and quality. There are times where it’s fine, such as with Shinnosuke’s death, but it’s the fact that they get resolved so quickly, to maintain some normalcy in the next episode, that it just removes any drama from them. If Drive were to have one fatal flaw, it’s this.
So of course 004 and Banno escape and we cut to Brain figuring out that there is something seriously wrong with Medic, but before he can reveal it to the audience he bizarrely willingly gives up to the brainwashed Medic. Meanwhile, at the hospital, Gou and Chase find Shinnosuke nervously waiting outside Kiriko’s room. Shinnosuke nervously laughs it all off and runs out, while leaving all his gifts for her with Chase. It’s a short and silly scene, that to be honest feels a bit out of place this late in Drive’s run. You’d think that at this point in the series, the silly romantic subplot wouldn’t still have such a focus; on the bright side it does lead to a great moment with Chase later on.
Back at the police headquarters, Rinna shows off her new tech to the new defence secretary. It’s a scene purely used to advance the plot, but we do get Kamen Rider Jun which has to be one of the best things ever. Basically Rinna has developed a Mach driver specifically for the police force so as anyone can use it and of course Honganji is the first to use it. However it comically malfunctions and he is stuck in the suit. As for the design, it’s just the Mach undersuit with a normal bike helmet and chest protector, along with one of Rinna’s blinky gizmos. I doubt any toy is gonna come out of this, but I seriously hope we will get a tamashii web exclusive Figuarts out of it.
Sadly we are thrown back into the romance sub-plot between Shinnosuke and Kiriko when Chase visits her in the hospital and asks her how she feels about Shinnosuke. She reacts exactly as Shinnosuke did, thus confirming that she does indeed love Shinnosuke. This is… kinda lame and a really forced romance, but it does have a silver lining: Chase. During Kiriko’s reaction to the question, she threw water on Chase’s face, thus leading to a great shot where it looks like he’s crying because his love is one-sided. On top of that he vows that he will protect her love as he is proud of his human feelings, which is absolutely gonna break everyone’s hearts next week. I’m really glad that they are going this route with Chase considering his origins as the original Roiimude, thus not having the emotions the others did. On top of that it’s a nice little character arc that creates a lot of sympathy which also blends very well with Gou’s own, therefore making them more equal I suppose.
And so we move on to Brain returning into the fold of Banno’s faction and utterly surrendering to him. This of course angers Heart as he specifically asked Brain to stay away so Banno would not be able to succeed in his plans. This leads to Heart being struck by Banno and forced to go along with the plan. We also learn of the “Sigma Circular” a device that will help the Roiimudes with their plans to create the second global freeze and so the Roiimudes depart to their promised land to enact their plans; learning of the location of said Promised Land, Shinnosuke and crew rush to the scene to stop them.
So then we rush to the Promised Land where we spend the rest of the episode. The Roiimudes begin the process of activating the Sigma Circular device, with the SCU hiding in the bushes wait to strike. Of course Heart is completely unwilling in this, but as he wishes to protect Medic he must follow through. As the Roiimudes activate the device, our heroes jump in to try and stop them. However it is too late as the Roiimudes have charged the device up, however instead of beginning the second Global Freeze, it instead collects the Roiimudes’ power and starts syphoning it off to Medic.
And so it’s revealed that not only is where they are not the Promised Land, but that Banno was simply using the Roiimudes to gain more power and that he was using Medic to syphon off the excess power that they put into the Sigma Circular, which is of course killing her. All seems lost but in a last act of genuine care for his comrades, Brain, through techo-babble reasons, re-directs the excess power to himself, thus killing him. And holy shit that was a heart breaking moment when he just slowly fades away. It has to be one of the single most tragic moments I’ve seen in Kamen Rider. Brain has always kinda been a B list antagonist who just twirled his moustache in the background of Drive, but with this he really showed that he could be a great character. On top of that Shota Matsushima acts his ass off in these scenes, fantastically portraying what Brain is going through. Kudos to him for bringing his A game.
Overall, I think this episode was alright. There was a lot of waffle with the romance scenes and with the tech upgrade stuff which felt like the writers were just trying to pad out the episode to fill the run time. What really shined through though was Brain’s story arc; it was fantastically written and acted out. It’s a shame that it was brief and forced to fight for screen-time with some sub-par plot points. Maybe now that we are in the home stretch, the balance of plot points will get better and so the episodes more focused and making the plots on par with the quality of the characters.
