As much as I’ve enjoyed Dr. Stone‘s sprint to the finish line in its final season, this week’s episode does unfortunately come a cropper of the show’s haste to move all of its players into endgame position. Taking the wrong kind of lessons from Game of Thrones’ final two seasons, here we have Senku and friends racing across the globe, barely stopping off for a moment before launching off somewhere else. There’s breathless pacing, and then there’s exhausting pacing. It’s like there’s a massive checklist of tasks that must be achieved as fast as (super)humanly possible, storytelling be damned.

In previous reviews, I’ve praised the show for its emotional moments; however, the long-delayed return to Chrome and Kohaku’s village fell a little flat for me. Perhaps that’s because they’d just previously been reunited with Soyuz and the others on Treasure Island, prior to which they’d stopped off in Malaysia for a bit of rubber sap harvesting and rice farming. (Presumably they stayed there for a full rice harvest cycle, which at three times per year in an equatorial country, must have meant a stop-off of four months. Not that you’d know it from the frenetic pace.) Of course, their journey started in the southern hemisphere, in Australia, where they mined enough Bauxite (aluminum ore) with which to build a space rocket, and their reason for heading all the way up the Pacific Rim to Japan is to use that naturally mountainous country for hydroelectric power. It makes sense that Senku’s had this all planned out, and when they arrive, the dam’s already been built. Should all of this incredible progress feel quite so effortless, though?

I do like the moments where the characters slow down to bounce off one another, whether that’s Senku making his usual bold claims that make everyone’s eyes pop out of their heads, or the brief interludes where everyone stops to enjoy a slap-up meal together. As a majority-Japanese crew, they’re beyond overjoyed to be able to sample simple joys like onigiri and sushi again, and Francois is literally fired up to cook them. Senku’s usually all about the big picture, but he shows he’s a good leader by looking out for his friends, providing for their material and emotional needs with “soul food.”

Chrome and Suika’s determination to learn complex mathematics from Sai is inspiring, too. They’re on a clock, aiming to build a safe return rocket by the time Senku builds his own one-way craft. I’m pretty sure Senku already knows what’s up with them, smiling as he watches them use applied mathematics to calculate the areas of new rice paddies. While it’s all well and good being a genius, is there anything more satisfying than watching your proteges strive to one day exceed you?

I’m absolutely not sold on the silly plotline of Suika’s little dog and boar pets building a massive wall to protect the petrified village people. Animals generally don’t have the sustained drive and attention, not to mention cognitive capabilities, to complete such a plan. It’s one of the more daft aspects of the show that’s probably best to let slide. Although Dr. Stone loves to revel in all forms of science, mathematics, and engineering, in the end, it’s a silly shonen sci-fi rather than a deeply serious drama. That’s ok, I’ve stuck with it this long, I can forgive such brazen indulgences, as long as they don’t start to overshadow everything else.

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Dr. Stone: Science Future is currently streaming on
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