Kamen Rider Double/Recap/E01 E2 The W Search

"Philip: "We are two detectives in one.""

Titles

 * "W" stands for "Double" and "Word".
 * Part one's title is "Two Detectives in One".
 * Part two's title is "Those Who Make the City Cry".

Spoilers abound. This is a recap page; if you don't want lots of very specific information, you're better off on the main series page.
Inside a dark building, a young man is trapped inside a tank of fluid. An older man in a white suit and Cool Hat limps toward him and offers his hand, as alarms blare, guards mobilize, and a black helicopter begins to circle the building. Another young man, dressed in tattered vest and tie, is on lookout. He is the older man's apprentice. He runs toward the older man to let him know they've tripped the alarm, only to see his mentor brutally gunned down by Mooks shortly after freeing the young man in the tank. With his final breath, the master hands his apprentice his fedora. As the apprentice grieves, a monstrous woman bursts from the floor and begins flinging huge balls of energy at the two young men. They try to run, but the helicopter cuts them off. Caught between the Femme Fatale's energy balls and the helicopter's gunfire, the mysterious youth reveals a briefcase filled with several USB keys and a pair of belt buckles. Each one grabs a USB stick and a buckle and use them just as the attacks all hit at once. With a One-Woman Wail in the background, the smoke clears, revealing a figure with large bug eyes, a flowing scarf, and a body covered in two-tone armor: green on the right and black on the left. Staring at the helicopter, the titular Kamen Rider Double CycloneJoker promptly generates a cyclone, wreaking havoc on the entire floor. As his Scarf of Asskicking whips in the wind, machinery explodes, the helicopter spins out and slams into the building, Mooks are literally blown away, and the monster woman is forced to retreat.

...and that was just the Cold Open. After the opening credits, a Time Skip takes us ahead one year, and we see a woman walking through the Windy City of Futo, looking for her destination. As she arrives, a young man, the apprentice from the Cold Open, pulls up on a motorcycle, carefully dons his newest Cool Hat, and does his best to impress the dame in front of his office. The young man has since taken over his deceased mentor's business, the Narumi Detective Agency, specializing in hardboiled investigation. When the woman fails to understand the what a Hardboiled Detective is, the man goes inside and pulls out a copy of his favorite Raymond Chandler novel, The Long Goodbye, while waxing lyrical about the meaning of "hardboiled". Not that she cares; she promptly reveals herself to be the office's owner and serves him with an eviction notice. A Spit Take ensues. For the woman is Akiko Narumi, daughter of the late Sokichi Narumi, the mentor who was so suddenly gunned down last year. She came to this town to find out why her father went missing a year ago, and his successor, plagued by Survivor Guilt, can't bring himself to tell her the truth. Suddenly, somebody rings the doorbell. It's another dame, this time one with a case, and she recognizes the detective as her childhood friend "Sho". The dame, one Marina Tsumura, wants "Sho" to investigate the disappearance of her boyfriend, Yousuke Togawa.

With a case in hand, our hero sets out to gather clues and question informants, all while giving a Private Eye Monologue, introducing himself as Shotaro Hidari, the black private dick who gets all the chicks. No, wait, that's Shaft. Sorry about that. As Shotaro hams it up, we suddenly realize he's been monologuing out loud, as Akiko comes up from behind and smacks him with her slipper for being such a Large Ham. Rather than shut him down, Akiko's decided to tag along and see how he does things, becoming his boss by blackmailing him with the eviction notice. Shotaro tells her the results of his investigation: that Togawa's disappearance had something to do with his employer.

The two of them finally notice the massive traffic jam building up around them, caused by the collapse of a nearby skyscraper. One person caught in the traffic jam is a pretty rich girl, who's understandably pissed off. We'll get back to her later. Shotaro and Akiko both sneak through the traffic jam to the crime scene. After getting into a fight with ineffectual Cowboy Cop Shun Makura, Shotaro's Friend On the Force, Mikio Jinno, gives Shotaro a rundown of the evidence while Shotaro takes pictures to email to his partner. Guess what? The building belongs to Togawa's former employer, and there's no way anything human could have caused this, leading Shotaro to suspect Dopant involvement. Want to know what a Dopant is? So does Akiko. She grabs Shotaro by the head and refuses to let go until he tells her exactly what a Dopant is. Before Shotaro can explain, he gets a call from his partner, Philip, the same man Sokichi Narumi died rescuing last year. In mid-conversation, Shotaro suddenly identifies the Dopant as Magma. Why? Because a burning lava monster, presumably the Magma Dopant, is now looking him right in the eye, that's why. Oh Crap. As Magma melts the street around them, Shotaro and Akiko escape by the skin of their teeth thanks to Shotaro's wrist-mounted Grappling Hook Pistol. Akiko freaks out, jumps to safety, and runs the hell away, leaving Shotaro literally hanging by a thread above the molten road.

Elsewhere, a limousine pulls up to the opulent Sonozaki mansion, and the wealthy young lady from earlier, identified as Wakana Sonozaki, gets out. She arrives late to a dinner with her father Ryubee, sister Saeko, and cat Mick, who are practicing their Evil Laughs while bored waiting for her. The girls get into a fight over Wakana's tardiness, while Ryubee takes it in stride. Seems his... organization was indirectly responsible for this, as one of his star salesmen sold the Magma model pretty recently. Saeko takes it as her cue to pull out her own USB stick, use it to turn into the monster woman from the Cold Open, and announce her engagement. Gee, could she be engaged to the star salesman her father just brought up?

Back at the detective agency, Akiko is now in full-on Freak Out mode, pulling down decorations from the wall and swearing up and down that she's going to "evict the hell out of" Shotaro. Wait, what's that? Is that muttering in the background? And doesn't that wall look an awful lot like a secret door? Akiko certainly thinks so, and thus she finds herself entering Shotaro and Philip's Elaborate Underground Base. Philip is inside, conducting research and sketching notes about magma all over the whiteboard. Philip doesn't care that she's here; he's already looked her up, so he's not interested in her anymore. He tells her to go back home to "that Osaka place". Akiko makes the mistake of expressing disbelief that Philip doesn't know anything about Osaka and all the cool things you can get there, like takoyaki...

By the time Shotaro comes back home, Philip is knee-deep in one hell of a Wiki Walk about takoyaki, and his opinion about Akiko has completely changed. He likes her now that she told him about something new. Shotaro is pissed that Akiko got Philip so badly sidetracked, but at least he now has time to explain Dopants to Akiko while waiting for Philip to finish his Wiki Walk. You see, these USB sticks we've been seeing are actually Transformation Trinkets called Gaia Memories, and using one of them will turn you into a superhuman being called a Dopant. Oh goody, that's what The Mafia has been peddling. Peddling like drugs. And people who use them are called Dopants. Does This Remind You of Anything?? And Philip's still on about takoyaka; man, at this rate, it's gonna take him all night to get off this kick.

...actually, it did take him all night. After waking up from some very uncomfortable sleep in the Elaborate Underground Base, Shotaro asks Philip to search something called the "Gaia Library". Except it's not a real library; it's like Cyberspace, but it's all in Philip's head. After running some keywords supplied by Shotaro, Philip figures out where Magma will attack next. Shotaro heads to the crime scene, where he runs smack into Togawa. Surprise, surprise, Togawa whips out a Gaia Memory and turns into Magma, singing Shotaro's Cool Hat. But he's not concerned; after all, he's still hanging on to those Gaia Memories and that Driver belt from last year. Back home, the belt materialized around Philip, who whips out one of his Gaia Memories. Philip's body goes limp as his mind goes into Shotaro's body, as Shotaro turns into Double. Cue wind storm, flapping Scarf of Asskicking, and Catch Phrase followed by actual ass-kicking. After a couple of form changes thanks to alternate Gaia Memories, Double defeats Magma with his Memory Break, Joker Extreme, reverting Togawa to normal and breaking Togawa's Gaia Memory. Fight's over, right? No, not really. Because then a dinosaur, the T-Rex Dopant, comes out of nowhere and starts attacking everyone. Shotaro pushes some buttons on his cell phone, causing half of his underground base, with Akiko and Philip's body inside, to turn into the carrier mech RevolGarry and make its way through an Elaborate Underground Tunnel to come to Shotaro's aid. It saves Shotaro's ass, though T-Rex still gets away.

Back at the office, Akiko is pissed. Again. She wants to know what the hell is going on with the car and the "half-and-half monster". Too bad she doesn't get an explanation: Shotaro's too busy listening to the news report on the radio talking about Togawa being found dead. Shotaro visits the crime scene and breaks the news to Marina, who breaks down crying in his arms. After reminiscing about the past with Marina, Shotaro pays a visit to one of his informants, the quirky blogger Watcherman, who gives him an address. Shotaro investigates, but he's attacked by T-Rex again. He gets away by turning his camera and phone into Robot Buddies to distract T-Rex by electrocuting it. It gets away again, but at least it's no longer trying to eat Shotaro in a dark hallway. Suddenly, Shotaro notices one critical piece of evidence, which changes everything about the case. Watcherman shows up again, revealing that Togawa was with an accomplice when he bought the Magma Memory from a man wearing white-and-red scarf. Said salesman, one Kirihiko Sudo, is then revealed to be the most successful Gaia Memory salesman EVAR and is the one who recently got engaged to Saeko Sonozaki.

Back in the Elaborate Underground Base, Philip takes another trip to the Gaia Library, with Shotaro supplying new keywords. The results confirm Shotaro's suspicions: Marina is the T-Rex Dopant and Togawa's killer. Shotaro explains: Togawa and Marina must have worked together at first, taking revenge against the employer who laid them off, but after Togawa lost his mind due to overuse of Magma and went off on his own, Marina hired Shotaro to track down Togawa so she could kill him. It all went according to plan. Philip advocates that Shotaro Shoot the Dog by taking Marina down instead of talk to her. Shotaro disagrees, leading Philip to call Shotaro "halfboiled", earning him a punch to the face. Shotaro's had it; he's done working with Philip. He hands in his Gaia Memories and goes off to talk Marina down his way.

Shotaro finds Marina and uses one of his Memory Gadgets to trick Marina into revealing the T-Rex Memory. Shotaro, who promised Marina as a child that he'll not let anybody cry in his city, tells her that she's making the entire city cry. Seems Philip's lecture rubbed off on him; he's already called the cops, and Marina's surrounded. She can either do it the easy way and turn herself in, or she can do it the hard way and have the cops take her in by force. Unfortunately, Marina chooses the really hard way and turns into T-Rex. Worse, Akiko followed Shotaro, so now they're both running for their lives.

Thankfully, Philip shows up in the RevolGarry, distracting T-Rex. After a quick reconciliation, Philip hands Shotaro back his Gaia Memories, and they become Double, much to Akiko's surprise. After a short fight, T-Rex pulls a whole bunch of rubble around herself, effectively making her giant. Akiko hides in somebody's car, but to no avail; turns out it's caught on the rubble T-Rex used to make herself big. Double chases after T-Rex on his Cool Bike, HardBoilder but gets stuck when T-Rex runs up a building, taking Akiko up with her like Fay Wray, except in a car. With some hot-swappable components in the RevolGarry, Double turns HardBoilder into the gunship HardTurbuler and takes to the skies against T-Rex. What follows is lots of Conspicuous CG, ending with Double, now in HeatMetal form, defeating T-Rex with a flying Memory Break, Metal Branding. As both Akiko and Marina fall off the building, Double saves both of them by reverting to CycloneJoker, grabbing Marina, using Cyclone's wind powers to slow their fall, while simultaneously remote-controlling HardTurbuler to catch Akiko.

The Sonozakis, meanwhile, are all dressed up in their Dopant forms to meet Kirihiko, who is dressed up in a memory driver and nothing else. Ryubee, as the Terror Dopant, hands Kirihiko the Nasca Memory and a Driver belt, welcoming him to the family.

With Marina in jail, Shotaro is back home typing up his case report on his manual typewriter while delivering a Private Eye Monologue, as he does after every case. The relaxed mood is interrupted when Akiko unveils the Narumi Detective Agency's new sign, all bright pink and sky-blue, proclaiming Akiko as the chief. Hilarity Ensues.

Tropes

 * Berserk Button: Do not make anybody cry around Shotaro, and that goes double for making the entire city cry. Also, don't call Shotaro "halfboiled", either, though he takes it in stride in later episodes.
 * Blow You Away: Used with considerable dramatic effect multiple times.
 * Cannot Spit It Out: Shotaro has a problem with breaking bad news to people; it's the first real sign that he's only "halfboiled".
 * Catch Phrase: "Now, count up your crimes!"
 * Chandler's Law: Just as the first fight ends and things calm down, somebody else barges in and attacks everyone. Possibly deliberate, what with all the other references to Chandler.
 * Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Shotaro, with his first Private Eye Monologue.
 * Explosive Instrumentation: Dramatic use of wind powers = entire floor of building blowing up. At any rate, justified by Rule of Cool.
 * Freak Out: Akiko's reaction to seeing a Dopant for the first time.
 * Mentor Occupational Hazard: In the first part's Cold Open, even.
 * People Jars: Philip starts the episode in one.
 * Private Eye Monologue: Both parodied and played straight.
 * Shout Out: To Raymond Chandler.
 * Ted Baxter: Shotaro thinks he's hardboiled. He's only halfboiled.
 * Ten Minute Retirement: Just under four and a half minutes, actually.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Togawa lost his mind to Magma's power.
 * Yandere: Marina.