Dr. STONE SCIENCE FUTURE

Episode 22

The orgy of violence continues! Sometimes I worry a little about author Riichirō Inagaki's mental health. Did he really feel the need to violently murder almost every single one of his large cast of plucky neo-stone age teenage scientists? And have this carnage stretched out over three episodes? Early on this week, it seems like even sweet little melon-headed Suika can't escape Stanley's murder-rampage, her lens-implanted melon helmet flying into the air, accompanied by a fountain of blood. “Noooo, not Suika!” I cried, ready to smash my TV in a fit of rage and despair.

Thankfully this was nothing but subterfuge – the apparently harmless, innocent little munchkin becomes the only survivor of Xeno and Stanley's attempted massacre, and the one person upon whom the entire future of humanity depends. It's certainly not Luna or pumpkin girl – their attempts to throw revival fluid into the air fail miserably, as the green Medusa light relentlessly advances across the globe, turning everyone to stone in its wake.

Accepting her fate, Suika climbs into the nearby tower, above which has been placed the sole surviving revival fluid bottle, which will eventually degrade with time, dousing her petrified body. Even though Senku lies dying on the ground before him, Xeno understands he's lost. Instead of the grand, monomaniacal science-fascism future he envisaged, with himself as ultimate leader, his fate rests in the actions of an innocent child, Senku's devoted follower. Even Stanley, who realizes he can doom humanity by destroying the flask with his bullets before the Medusa beam hits, decides against it. He reasons that even if he's kept as an eternally petrified hostage, the Kingdom of Science will revive Xeno, he's too valuable. He's willing to sacrifice his eternity for the man he loves…subtextually, anyway.

We see friends back in Japan, and on the island, and back in Corn City, all transformed back into stone, as the world resets back to the way it was in the beginning, with humanity essentially extinct. Years pass, and village animals grow and age without the oversight of their owners. Finally, the revival fluid flask finally degrades enough (with the aid of some acoustic energy) to bring the tiny, vulnerable Suika back to life. So she can revive everyone now, right?

Sadly for Suika, it's not that easy. As a little child who's functionally blind, she's all alone in the world, and there seems to be no revival fluid left. I worried that she'd be unable to find her lenses and she'd end up wandering away, never to find her way back to the others. Thankfully, Dr. Stone isn't quite so nihilistic a story, and we're treated to a montage of Suika learning to survive on her own, harvesting edible fruits, building a shelter, and befriending some monkeys – just like Senku himself did way back in the first episode.

This episode is an emotional roller-coaster that maintains Dr. Stone's spectacularly consistent hit rate over the past few weeks. I don't think I've ever enjoyed the show quite as much as I have done since Senku and his pals reached the Amazon. Tense, brutal, heartbreaking, and relentless, Dr. Stone is really rewarding those of us who have stuck with it to this point. I do worry for how long Suika must survive by herself before she's able to somehow revive the others. Will she grow up into a tall, leggy blonde like Kohaku as the years pass over the next episode? (Someone needs to ask the important questions, it may as well be me.) Or will she be an aged old woman by the time she sees her friends again? Thankfully, in this world, we've only a week to wait.

Rating: 4.5