I love Hotaro's mom, let me get her name, Tamami. I'd joke she's giving her daughter in law good advice, but I really like how her perspective is enough to recognize Rinne came to get Hotarou's advice but was just too afraid to say it, so she gave them the opportunity to do so.

It makes a lot of sense of Rinne to be acting this way: we know it's not her fault, but technically she's one of the motivations for the villains: they're using her as an excuse, so that guilt building up, especially since she never got to part with her maybe-not-dead dad really speaks for the trauma she's been feeling. One could argue her leading Hotarou to the world of Alchemy caused this, but had she not been involved, Hotarou would be on the path he is now.

It shows off his better side, he knows Rinne's not to blame, but now he's reassured to make sure he'll notice when she's down so she'll always be able to count on him. They're so cute.

Hell, that's the theme of the episode with the parent and the child. She caught him being forced to sell his soul for money as a freelancer and twist the story to Sawa's dismay, but Sawa used that as motivation to help her dad's magazine, and nice continuity having multiple articles about the supernatural be a different edition of a similar magazine Kajiki and Himeno liked. They are using their worldbuilding to flesh out their characters and one-offs lasting multiple episodes, something I appreciate and want Kamen Rider to do more often.

I also like Minato's first response when Hotarou is curious about X-Rex's motivations is to just let them know even the Academy doesn't know, really shows everyone in the main cast barring Spanner are the only ones that sees...well values the Chemies as living human beings.

Speaking of Spanner, it turns out he's got his own secret ally who wants to learn about the Replica Chemy Cards and the Dreadriver/Dread Driver who wants them to collect it, and he found the coordinates to his base. Still, this mysterious person wants him to keep an eye on Rinne. I just have one question:

Spanner, why the heck would he go in alone instead of requesting backup! Granted, it makes sense, the Executives just want that branch to focus exclusively on collecting the Chemies, so they wouldn't send him any. Sabimaru's hurt, Renge's not leaving his side, Rinne and Hotaro are trying to fulfill their goals of getting the Level 10 Chemies, and Minato's at home base.

Still, he could've at least come in and tried to grab the first. That being said, he fights with virtue and valor, so it wouldn't be out of character and he's under orders from his secret ally, but in the end it doesn't matter because he still would've gotten demolished.

And I have to say, Valvarad vs Lachesis as Dread was so much fun. It was pretty interesting to see Dread in action when dealing with a user who doesn't have to worry about their life force draining.

The latter's suit actor did a great job acclimating to her personality and mannerisms. The spin before she activates Venom Drake, the walk of confidence, the hand gestures, and her flirtation turned confidence breaker as she finished him up with just rose petals was just satisfying.

The conversation Rinne has to Sawa after Gotchard gets eaten is a short, but subtle character beat to show her bond with Hotarou is putting her in the right direction. And in comparison, getting Houtaro to interact with her father and how he got disillusioned with his dreams disappearing after encouraging her daughter to mirror Hotaro refusing to give up on the Chemies and learn from his mistakes adds to what this show is going for: growth can only happen if you allow it.

He also figured out just through common sense X-Rex can read people's memories and shows Hotarou's growth since not having a dream...but he and Hopper 1 were friends in the past? Was Hotaro meant to be an alchemist? Did he happen to find the Chemies before they were captured? Was his dad the Daybreak Alchemist? Was Hopper1 the first Chemy to connect with someone other than him?

Regardless, it's cute to know Hotaro and Hopper 1 had each other's backs all along. Looking back on the first episode, I guess you could say Hopper 1 wanted to test to see if Hotarou was the same innocent and lighthearted kid from before.

A criticism I do have with Rinne's character is that she's not shown to be as competent in these battles outside of episode 2, 4 and in group scenarios, so it was nice to have her defend Sawa for a bit and even save them from the T-Rex Chemy, but I'm hoping next episode starts to rectify that.

X-Rex has a cool transformation, but it's clear we won't see it in action until next week's episodes, but this episode definitely has me looking forward to that now.