Dr. STONE SCIENCE FUTURE ‒ Episode 36

This is the episode where, finally, everything falls into place, and all of Dr. Stone's remaining mysteries are explained. What caused the petrification of humanity all of those thousands of years ago, and why? Now, I'm not saying it was aliens… but it was aliens! To be fair, this very possibility was mentioned by Senku himself upon his initial emancipation from mineral mannequin form back in episode one, so it's not completely unprecedented. It always seemed likely that the mysterious high-tech Medusa devices would be of extraterrestrial origin, but what's more clever here is that the Medusas themselves are the instigators. As sentient, synthetic life-forms, they have no puppet master; there is no separate mastermind, and there is no “Why Man” as we might understand them. If anything, “Why Man” is now a collective term for a race of spacefaring metal morons who randomly petrify fleshy lifeforms without obtaining proper consent first.

From their point of view, death is the most terrifying concept for sentient life. They themselves are weak to oxidation, i.e., rusting, and for them, corrosion equals death. As self-proclaimed “parasites,” they bring their gift of immortality across the stars to weak fleshbags, offering a way to preserve their physical forms indefinitely in stone form, reducing the probability of death. It kind of makes some kind of twisted sense, if you squint at it, upside down, from a distance. What they get out of the deal is that when the aforementioned squishy meat puppets learn of this amazing gift, their super-powered organic brains somehow free their now-renewed bodies from petrification, enthusiastically welcome their new shiny metal pals with open arms, and provide them with an infinite supply of shiny diamond batteries to keep them going indefinitely. Uh-huh.

Except with human beings, this strategy didn't work. We're too damned dumb. Turns out mankind is a colossal cosmic disappointment. Can't say I'm all that surprised. Instead of everyone having Senku-beating intellect, no one emerged from petrification during the expected timescale. Instead, it took long enough for all those poor little Medusas to rust to death in Earth's atmosphere, and for much of humanity to either weather away to the elements or become buried in the soil, modern society crumbling with them. Senku and Xeno awakening first at least validates the Medusa's claim to intelligence playing a part (remember, very few humans remained conscious like they did during their petrification, in what sounds like a horrifying, eternal living death).

For a show that prides itself on explaining almost everything in accurate scientific terms, it now seems very unlikely we'll get any other explanation for what the petrification beam actually is. It's pure fantasy; it might as well be magic. I can live with that, though many other viewers may not appreciate the more absurd turn the story has taken lately. Dr. Stone has always been ridiculous, though, and for me, that's part of its charm.

For a penultimate episode, there sure are a lot of flashbacks, though they function mainly to provide illustrations to an info-dump that lasts for a significant portion of its runtime. The one standout scene involves a Medusa suddenly imitating Senku's voice and fooling Kohaku almost long enough to jeopardize the entire mission. The moment where Stanley grabs her arm, fear in his eyes, is particularly chilling. Senku's idea of diplomacy is also very… uh… special… when he tells the Medusas to “cut that petrification beam shit out!” Thankfully, they don't seem offended by him, merely bemused. Their motivations are completely alien to the human characters, and that's fitting, but I'm still unsure that excuses their incredibly sloppy modus operandi. I mean, their plan for continued existence completely sucks. With only one episode left, I don't expect them to rise much in my estimation either.

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Dr. Stone: Science Future is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.