Hmm, for some reason, the creators like to put Syaoran in the middle of explosions right before the cliffhanger. That’s the second time in two episodes he’s doing that.
Anyway, either Shougo or Nokoru is the culprit, or the both of them are involved, that can also be. The other contestants don’t have any introduction whatsoever, and I don’t see Ryuuoh being any form of bad guy, after what happened this episode. Tomoyo’s probably also involved, though I do believe that she’s still on the good side. She probably used the feather as prize to lure out a couple of criminals, because of the moment she said that certain people took the bait. Still, I wonder who this bad guy might be, who keeps pulling all of these traps.
This arc was very cleverly built up. Last time, we saw a number of people finishing the preliminaries, and qualifying for the race, but apart from Syaoran, Sakura, Kyrogane and Fye, we didn’t learn anything yet about their personalities, and who was important and who wasn’t. The introductions of the three most important contestants only followed this episode. Another interesting thing is, that even though the other contestants haven’t been introduced, you know about their personalities a bit, from the previous arcs. This way, they don’t fall like random goons, so you do feel that our protagonists are racing against other human beings. A very clever trick from the creators.
About the race: for some reason, the musicians managed to create the perfect background music to accompany it. It sounded awesome, just like last episode, and when you combine it with the other events, ranging from Kurogane getting angry because the announcer keeps calling him Kuro-tan and him and Fye finding out about how the first checkpoint works to Syaoran trying to accompany Sakura, who hasn’t mastered the flying cars yet and Shougo being the first one, along with a random contestant to clear the second checkpoint. I love it how the side-characters all get to play a very subtle role in this race, instead of being fated to go under. You also see that the best one range among the best, and the lesser ones are also the first to fall (the best example for this is the wizard from the second arc in the first season).
So far, this series hasn’t been disappointing. It shows huge premisse, both for the next episode as for the show in general. I’ve got a small issue with some coincidences which seem a bit too coincidental, though it was to be expected, as the first series suffered from this as well.