Dr. STONE SCIENCE FUTURE

Episode 21

Well, that was certainly… something.

I guess we all knew that the upcoming battle between Senku's group and Stanley's highly trained army of crack troops would be dangerous, but I don't think anyone was prepared for the sheer volume of bloodshed in this episode, probably reined in only by the material's age rating. This is Dr. Stone's equivalent of Star Wars: Rogue One, where it's not that much of a spoiler to say “everyone dies at the end.”

Last time, Tsukasa and Hyoga met sticky ends, with Kohaku surely about to join them. Now, we ratchet up the tension with Taiju's horrific death by exploding grenade. Do we really need to see his charred corpse, Gen crying over him in disbelief? Probably not, but it sells the gravity of the situation. If Chrome and Kaseki can't perfect the Medusa's diamond battery in time, everyone's sacrifices will be for naught, and Stanley isn't waiting around.

When Ryusui falls from a gunshot to the chest, the makeshift lab is blown to smithereens, and Gen's white flag is shot down mercilessly, it looks like all hope is lost. As viewers, we know the story can't end like this. You can't just decide to murder all of your main characters and end on a such a sour note (at least, I don't think author Riichirō Inagaki plans to emulate George R.R. Martin's Red Wedding or Kentarō Miura's Eclipse), not when a potential resurrection technology like the Medusa has been so relentlessly teased in preceding episodes.

The tension here comes not necessarily from “oh no, everyone is dead, how terrible,” but from “yeah, okay, despite all the murderings we know they're somehow going to get out of this, but how?” Remember that back in Corn City, master watchmaker Joel has also been working to make Medusa batteries, in tandem with master craftsman Kaseki in the Amazon. Now we finally come to the culmination of his short arc, as he finally succeeds…but how will that help anyone? He's on another continent, far from where his now-functional Medusa is needed.

There's only one possible answer, and of course that is to re-petrify the whole world, instantly healing everyone's damage, and potentially allowing Senku's vision of the future to override Xeno's megalomaniacal plan. Every member of the Kingdom of Science fully believes in Senku's ideology, even to the point that they all sacrifice themselves. Yes, this is the Dr. Stone episode where a group of US soldiers gun down an entire room of (rampaging) high school age kids in cold blood. It's insane, it's surprisingly gory, and it's also rivetingly intense. I don't think I blinked during the entire second half of the episode.

That last sequence where everyone except Joel has fallen, when he seems defeated, but the Why Man's automated message of doom is subverted into one of hope, Senku's voice mysteriously rings out, and the second worldwide Medusa activation is triggered, is enough to give any viewer chills. As the Medusa's green glow grows to envelop the globe once more, we're left wondering what insane plan has Senku hatched to get out of this one? I'm excited to find out.

Rating: