JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E23 Review: Everybody in the Whole Cell Block

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 23: Jail House Lock

We start off this two-parter with a bit of an epilogue to the whole Pucci fight. Pucci confirms that Dio has had all of this planned out -- at least vaguely -- and it's all ingredients to reach 'heaven'. Dio had his Stand, The World, engrave certain things into the bone he gave to Pucci; Pucci himself being a trustworthy friend with no earthly desires; a new location (which Pucci notes is Cape Canaveral); as well as the lives of 36 sinners, which were the victims of the Green Baby's birth in the maximum security ward.

It's... it's a revelation that never sat right with me. I do love the idea that Dio has left behind some kind of twisted, dark legacy. I do love the idea of Enrico Pucci being someone who's so obsessed with this legacy, so obsessed with worshipping Dio, that he's studied everything in order to reach 'heaven', and I can also believe the idea of Dio seeking whatever 'heaven' is in the midst of his egomania. But neither Dio's vampiric abilities or the time-stopping abilities of The World really accounts for the bone being able to develop into the Green Baby, or how Dio knows it needed 36 sacrifices or how it will react to the fourteen passwords. There is the talk of 'engraving' it into The World, but it's always been another part of Stone Ocean's plot that I've never been the biggest fan of, mostly since... it's just kind of something that I felt didn't fit with the previously-established information, even with JoJo's constant retcons to previous parts. 

But anyway, Enrico Pucci walks out of his encounter with the Green Baby, sporting some altered hair, and most importantly, the bizarre leaf-like eyelids of the Green Baby. With the star mark on his back, but still the intelligence and personality of Pucci, it seems like Pucci has merged with the Green Baby into a new entity. He knows that he needs to go to a specific part, to 'wait for the new moon' and 'for heaven to come'. 

And thus, Enrico Pucci leaves Green Dolphin Street Prison while the staff of the prison is still trying to figure out what the hell happened in the Ultra Security House Unit. 

And then we cut back to our heroes, and particularly the return of Emporio Alnino, who thus far has just been kinda there. He goes around to try and update Jolyne and Ermes about what's going on, especially with Anasui still recovering from his near-death experience. The anime adds a fair amount of scenes for Ermes at this point, since she's out of commission in the previous arc and we get a nice scene of her pouring a drink out for F.F.

Also, Jolyne got bored and gave herself a navel ring. She is determined to finally leave the prison, and tells Emporio that with the rest of her allies disabled or recovering, Emporio is the only one that can help her. I honestly suppose that this fight against Jail House Lock acts as Emporio's "showcase" in a fight, the way Ermes, F.F. and Anasui got their showcases one after the other? As much as you could get a spotlight fight for a non-combatant, anyway. 

Emporio reveals something that I honestly did wish was given a couple of hints a bit earlier -- that due to Green Dolphin Street Prison's abnormally high amount of Stand users, there's something or someone that prevents them all from escaping. It does admittedly clash a bit with the revelation that Pucci is at least responsible for the Stands of some of our previous foes, but I suppose someone has to be there to be a deterrent so someone like Miraschon or Kenzo doesn't run out. Jolyne, however, showcasing her sheer, utter determination, insists that they have to break out now. 

Interestingly, Miu Miu, our antagonist, just... shows up with her Stand summoned to talk to Jolyne. Miu Miu reveals that she's explicitly working with Whitesnake, and it is interesting that Miu Miu is actually rather civil as long as Jolyne remains in her cell like a good prisoner. Jolyne summons Stone Free and tries to get a free hit...

...and some Groundhog Day thing happens! It's not quite time-travel, because we already did that with Part IV's climax, but rather a memory thing. And I really do think that the sinisterness of this opening is really captured well with Jolyne's confusion, her constantly getting angry and frustrated at forgetting things. Jail House Lock's effect causes her to only be able to retain three pieces of information in her short-term memory, causing her to forget whatever was the first one as soon as she processes a fourth bit of information. Now this has such a great potential as an enemy power concept and I honestly could see this being a 'final boss' power the way Kira or Diavolo's were. And... I'll just say it outright that I thought the way Jolyne defeated Jail House Lock next episode is pretty much another victory pulled out of nowhere, but the concept of Jail House Lock is pretty damn well done even if the manga is kind of inconsistent on what constitutes as a 'piece of information'. 

I'm not really going to go into every single thing that happens because there's a lot of repetition, but Jolyne just keeps struggling to remember and understand the scribblings she made in her hands and body, and even the throwaway line in the beginning of this episode of her getting a navel piercing ends up becoming another information that keeps confusing her Stand-addled brain. We also get the always-welcome return of Gwess, who is very concerned and confused at Jolyne's erratic behaviour. 

Through the various information she could piece together, Jolyne asks Gwess about a woman called Miu Miu, but the multiple pieces of information about her (she's got pale skin, she's got blonde hair, she just walked by) ends up overwriting the information that she's a hostile Stand user. Miu Miu is so confident in Jolyne's confusion that she can even walk up to Jolyne and mess up her lunch, and we get this whole thing of Jolyne being confused with lunch tickets and stuff, eating poor Gwess' penne twice. Miu Miu then overloads Jolyne with information about sauces and food, before spilling coffee on Jolyne and using that as an excuse to rub away all the information on her.

Jolyne is left at the end of the episode with the information that she can only know three things at a time, and then she basically stitches on her own body with Stone Free to 'meet Emporio', viewing it as the most crucial thing she could do at the moment. Unfortunately, Emporio himself is revealed to be also under the effects of Jail House Lock, stuck in a loop of information of figuring out what's going on with himself -- he's being constantly electrocuted by a plug connected to a puddle of water, while he's trying to reach a computer and print out information about Miu Miu. 

Again, there's... a little bit of subjectivity on how the Jail House Lock arc is written. It's a bit more apparent next episode where the type and the limits of the information that can be retained or forgotten really doesn't stand up to scrutiny. And as mentioned above, I'm not a fan of how the fight ends. But the setup, which is shown here, is pretty well-done! 

Random Notes: 

• Jail House Lock is named after the Elvis Presley song Jailhouse Lock.
• I just want to say what a weird-looking design Jail House Lock is. I think it's that face, with the lack of a traditional mouth and no neck, with the lower half of the face just merging into the torso. The exposed brain, the little cutaway markings on its body and its stubby hands... after a lot of the Stands kind of default to relatively robotic or superhero-looking designs for a while, it's neat to see a rather monstrous Stand like this. 
• Miuccia Miuller/Miu Miu is named after the fashion brand Miu Miu and its founder, Miuccia Prada. 
• You gotta love Miu Miu's weird brain-jacket. It's something I never noticed in the manga, but the colours make it pop out a bit more -- she's got two little eyeball-shaped, uh... hoodie drawstrings or something just hanging from the front end of her jacket, and it fits her brain aesthetic!
• While Miu Miu is mostly professional and looks pretty competent and level-headed in the initial scenes, her fucking with Jolyne's food just for the hell of it is a neat little foreshadowing of her true, ugly and sadistic personality.
• Two small scenes are added that really does help to add a lot of continuity to Eremes and Emporio's roles in this story. Emporio tells Ermes about Father Pucci's identity, and later on, Ermes pours out a glass of water to toast the deceased F.F., promising to avenge her.
• I'm rather surprised we don't get a return of the weird-headed warden as a bit of a coda to what happened in the Ultra Security wing. In fact, after this two-parter the prison is kinda forgotten almost entirely, and considering how much of the story happened there I am genuinely surprised the anime doesn't do something to close it off.