Steven Universe: Intriguing beyond belief

What significance do you place to the “hostile Rose Quartz” as the, so to speak, “boss” of the level?

In “Buddy’s Book” there was a place or thing that Steven had never seen … a palanquin? … which looking up is a litter in which a person of importance is carried by servants. Okay, looking up I see reference to having been shown one before with Blue Diamond in it.

But is this palanquin and the fact that Steven has not seen it before of some future significance? If so what? Was it Pink Diamond’s? Will a trip by Steven to find it lead to more revelations about Rose? What additional revelations about Rose are likely?

I took it as the representation of Steven’s recent realization that his mom probably did nasty things during the war (like shattering Pink Diamond). Which is another thing that he doesn’t want to think about.

I took Rose’s appearance more as representative of Steven’s self recrimination, that he imagines she would disapprove of his failure to live up to her ideals. Recent revelations about what she may (or may not) have done during the War aside, Steven has always looked up to her as an idol, his ultimate role model and he’s spoken several times of his fear that he can’t live up to that.

It’s the self-moving palanquin that Blue Diamond was riding in “The Answer”. I don’t think it signifies anything except that Blue Diamond had to abandon it and presumably get off Earth in a hurry. I don’t think it’s a given that Steven’s seen every single gem site.

If this episode had taken place before the final episodes of Season 3, I would agree. However, I think it’s significant that the giant menacing forms of Bismuth, Jasper, and Eyeball dissolved into butterflies that formed into a glowering Rose Quartz. All three of those failures weigh heavily on Steven and all of them from things Rose did that are at odds with Steven’s image of her.

I think she just pretended to have shattered Pink Diamond to help PD go deep undercover.

I propose my new, new theory: Ronaldo is Pink Diamond! That’s why he knew about the Diamond Authority before any other human.

And Lion is just a random lion she painted pink to through you off the scent (who just happened to have a pocket dimension in his mane for unrelated reasons)! You heard it here first!

Blue Diamond had a self-moving palanquin that she rode in “The Answer” but why are you so sure that this self-moving palanquin is that one?

I too btw think that Rose’s appearance has more to do with his suppressing his feelings regarding emerging disappointment in things that Rose did that fail to live up to his idealized version of her, the thread being not only that his compassion was not able to reach any of those three, but that it was what they each felt about Rose (and thus him as the same gem’s current manifestation) and what she did (things that he initially could not accept that she did) that prevented his being able to help them.

He doesn’t want to think about that.

When the show provides viewers with clues towards future relevations, I generally stick to interpretations that hew to Occam’s razor. We saw Blue Diamond on a palanquin, ergo it is most likely that the ruined palanquin in Buddy’s Book was hers. Granted, we know very little about Pink Diamond, but there are plenty of aesthetic and stylistic differences between Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond (just look at their Pearls) that I don’t think you can say that because one diamond has something, the others will. I certainly can’t see Yellow Diamond riding on that palanquin.

And it’s back to the boardwalk for “Future Boy Zoltron”. Mr. Smiley is the spotlighted Beach City denizen, and he earns some sympathetic treatment without toning down his smiling/menacing treatment of Steven and his aura of slightly shady hucksterism.

Notes/Memorable Moments:

-“Future Boy Zoltron” is a nod to Future Boy Conan, Miyazaki’s pre-Ghibli post-apoclayptic TV series. Rebecca Sugar cites this as one of her influences for the show, but I don’t think there’s ever been an English release.
-Best lines of the episode:
Steven: Can I borrow your future vision? I need it to help some random stranger I just met.
Garnet: That seems like an appropriate use of my powers.
-Lars seemed to have turned over a new leaf since “The New Lars”.
-This show occasionally likes to throw the fact that this is a cartoon in the viewers’ faces. No one (except Garnet) recognizing Steven is a perfect example of this.
-Mr. Frowney’s voice seems awfully familiar, but I can’t place it.
-Great Onion moment. IIRC, we’ve got another Onion episode coming up in the next week or two.
-Nanafua sighting.

And “Last One Out of Beach City” was a bomb drop on the fandom. When the episode titles were released a while back, most thought that this episode would be a “heavy” episode, perhaps the season-ender with a Homeworld attack on Beach City. Then an early CN schedule had it paired with the ominously-titled “Gem Harvest” as a double episode, and people thought something big was on the horizon.

Well, it certainly was a big episode, just not in the way people were expecting. The setup is simple enough: Amethyst is super-excited that Greg is taking her to a rock show, but Greg ends up having to bail, so Pearl offers to take her and Steven instead.

From that point, the episode become a homage/remake of the kind of 80s/90s teen romance where the shy, nerdy guy meets his ideal girl, often at a distance, and goes on a quest to win her, or at least find enough courage to talk to her. The ending credits title cards read: Pearl as The Repressed Nerd, Amethyst as The Ultimate Wingman, Steven as The Voice of Reason, and Introducing the Mystery Girl as Herself. And it’s Pearl of all people who is crushing on the Mystery Girl, who remains just that, as her name remains unknown and we don’t hear her voice (Pearl does talk to her, but out of earshot of Steven and Amethyst).

There were some things in this episode that I’ve really wanted to see for Pearl ever since “Mr. Greg”: Pearl deciding to mingle more with humans and Pearl showing signs of getting over Rose.

However, Pearl is just about the last gem I thought would be romantically attracted to a human. Granted, Mystery Girl looks as much like Rose as a human can without doing cosplay, but Pearl said in “We Need To Talk” that gem-human relationships are incomplete because they lack fusion as their epitome. Granted, she could have changed her mind after observing Rose and Greg for years. I also thought that Pearl was the ascetic to Rose’s sensualist. Rose liked food and sex, but if Pearl doesn’t like eating because it’s a messy biological process, I would see her feeling the same way about sex.

She drank apple juice man!

Seriously though the theme was Pearl’s growth, trying to be less rigid and rule-following, whether it was initially to demonstrate it to Amethyst or for her own sake. Maybe true as a re-embrace of her rebel side. She is a Pearl who went against her Diamond for love afterall.

Being attracted to a human who looks like Rose is the least surprising thing to me.

Yeah, I would have eventually come around to that in my post, but it was late and I had to hit the sack. Just as in those teen movies, Mystery Girl is only incidental to the obstacles, both external and internal, that the hero has to overcome to be with her. I feel some of what we see from Pearl in this episode doesn’t quite match with her earlier characterization, but Pearl’s had a long life prior to what we’ve seen on the show. I’m willing to state the Pearl’s obsessive fussbudgetiness is more of a coping mechanism after losing Rose than an innate part of her personality. Still, Pearl achieved her goal at the end by being herself and not by trying to act cool.

Other notes:
-The same Pearl who not to long ago didn’t know what school was and wondered whatever happened to hunting & gathering is now conversant enough to make cracks about the suburbs and be familiar with concepts such as citizenship and driver’s licenses.
-Great to see Amethyst being so supportive of Pearl.
-So Amethyst likes Sugar Shock Shut Down. Might explain a few things…
-Where’s Pearl getting the clothes? With her build, she can’t borrow from other characters.
-Ocean Town: No longer on fire!
-Mike Krol might be far from big time, but I would think even he could do better than a garage show in the middle of nowhere.
-Lots of crew cameos at the show.
-Greg probably should get the gems a phone for the Temple. Steven has a phone, but he has no way of contacting the Gems if he needs help. Ditto for Peridot and Lapis at the barn.
-I’m sure Greg will be thrilled to hear of yet another high-speed exploit in the Dondai.
-Barb is not a woman of empty threats!

“Onion Gang” tomorrow.

Gems manifest their clothes like they do their bodies, don’t they? I remember the episode “Beach Party”, all 3 changing from their usual getups to beach wear (Pearl’s was a sundress)

Yeah, they can do that by temporarily altering their default appearance, but like Amethyst’s shapeshifting, the “clothes” they make are limited to their color scheme. However, the jacket and jeans were, like the tux in Mr. Greg, external clothes. She took them off, remember.

Onion Gang … sorry but pretty weak episode.

Garbanzo.

Yeah, it was probably the weakest of all the Summer of Steven episodes. Still, it was nicer to see a more empathic side of Onion. Every once in a while, the crew likes to remind the audience that Steven Universe is a cartoon, and this episode, with it’s food-named gang of mute tykes pulling stunts like the old stand-on-each-others-shoulders-and-pretend-wer’e-grownup gag. Animators like mute characters probably more than viewers do. Kudos to Zach Callison for single-handedly carrying the voice acting.

-Fun Trivia: Steven and Onion have the same voice actor, as do Greg and Yellowtail.
-Nice to see some parts of Beach City we don’t normally see, such as Suitcase Sam’s.
-Onion must really get around. The Temple is at the end of the peninsula that Beach City is on and the woods are at the base.
-Except for the eerie silence, I found the kids’ behavior to be fairly typical for kids left unsupervised and at loose ends.
-I can’t tell if Steven was playing along at being scared by the gang in masks and thinking that Garbanzo was hurt, or if he actually felt that way.
-Garnet gave the gang a thumbs up in her photo. Wonder what she was doing around town.
-I found Steven’s moping about being lonely kind of off. I guess he’s realizing that his friends are going to have more responsibilities and less free time as they get older while he stays the same.

And Steven Universe is on a hiatus of unknown length again. Two episodes were originally scheduled to be part of this block, but have been held back: Gem Harvest and Tiger Philanthropist.

The titles of the next bunch of shorts have also been released: “Crying Breakfast Friends Reaction Vid”, “Lion Patiently Narrates Steven Cooking”, “Gem Karaoke”, “Steven’s Song Time”, and “Video Chat with Peridot & Lapis”

Show’s still on hiatus, but the new bunch of shorts have all dropped.