Recap: Kaiki receives a mysterious note in his hotel room asking him to stop the job. He continues on despite the warning, meeting again with Nadeko and receiving an unexpected visitor at the shrine.

Jel’s Thoughts: What a way to grind any momentum Monogatari had going to a halt. Aside from Kaiki finding the note, almost nothing was accomplished or further developed. We already understand Senjoughara’s feelings in this situation so there was no need to re-tread on that, and the visit with Nadeko was pretty much going through the same motions the last time we saw her.

Of course Hanekawa’s appearance at the end was something of a twist, and it is interesting to contrast how she talks to Kaiki versus how Senjougahara handles him. But as far as this episode goes, their fairly lengthy conversation only results in them both agreeing they need to talk to each other. Please tell me I’m not the only one who sees a problem with that. I’m looking forward to seeing them verbally fight it out some more next week, but this week’s bit was pretty disappointing.

Sadly I don’t have too much more to say as this episode was incredibly thin on content. In fact as season 2 of Monogatari draws to a close, I can’t help but worry this arc is going to have the series go out with a whimper. It’s true we still have Hanamonogatari to look forward to and watching Kaiki play detective has been cooler than I expected, but my looming disappointment at the lack of Senjougahara and Araragi’s screen time together still stands. Hopefully we’ll have a surprise or two next week to send us off on a better note.