Stevenbomb 2.0 gave Steven Universe fans five weeks’ worth of episodes crammed into one: the exceptional “Sworn to the Sword,” the Ronaldo one, “Keeping It Together,” “We Need To Talk,” and “Chille Tid.” These episodes left us with a load of both character and plot revelations which leave us with a lot to chew over in advance of Stevenbomb 3.0.
But what were the biggest revelations of Stevenbomb 2.0? I’d like to nominate the four items below as most officially Blowing My Complete And Total Mind.
1. Pearl was willing to make Connie a child soldier to die for Steven’s sake.
This is wrapped up in a lot of different revelations, many of which aren’t really revelations, because we already knew them. It’s just that “Sworn to the Sword” takes those revelations to the next level. We already knew that Pearl was devoted to Rose Quartz. We know from Pearl’s indifferent and at times openly contemptuous attitude towards humans and Earth that she didn’t become a Crystal Gem because she cared about this planet. Rose Quartz changed Pearl’s life. Rose’s mission became Pearl’s.
And now Rose is Steven, at least in part. He’s a kid, and the few years of his life must seem like nothing to the Gems and their huge lifespan, so Pearl’s only had a brief taste of what it’s like to raise this half-human creature. But Pearl is the most classically maternal of the Gems. Pearl does appear to see Steven as his own person, a person she values and loves, nurtures and encourages.
That’s why it was so shocking to see Pearl’s maternal side disappear like it never existed in “Sworn to the Sword,” and that’s why it was so shocking to see Pearl confuse Steven and Rose so badly. Connie gets Pearl’s explicit encouragement and approval only when she starts parroting Pearl’s kamikaze logic and denigrating her own humanity, her own short life and weakness. How can Pearl be a good, loving maternal figure to Steven, but impose a death knight’s creed on little Connie, who is just as much a child? Is she only maternal to Steven, and that only for Rose’s sake? How can she truly love Steven for Steven’s sake when she still looks at him and sees her lost, beloved liege?
Mind you, I do think Pearl is a good mother to Steven and loves him very, very much on his own merits, and that her love for Steven brings out the best in her. But Pearl is still so damaged from the Gem War and from losing Rose, and it blows my mind and breaks my heart.
2. The Cluster!
We knew from the start that “Keeping It Together” was gonna be a plotty one, and the Gems discovering a “dark secret” in the sinister kindergarten was never gonna be Fun McLaughTimes, but I wasn’t ready for those Akira-esque body horror constructs.
Back in “Jail Break,” Peridot hissed to Jasper: “The whole point of coming here was to check on the Cluster!” Now in “Keeping It Together,” Peridot has accomplished her task. The Cluster -- the monstrous, unwilling fusion between the shards of broken Gem shards, forced together by pressure deep in the earth -- horrifies the normally stoic and unshakeable Garnet so profoundly she literally almost comes undone.
What’s more horrifying: forcing the damaged splinters of broken rebel Gems together into fusing together against their will as a “punishment for the rebellion”? Or Garnet feeling so defiled and heartbroken, so shocked and repulsed, that she weeps in the face of her monstrous dead comrades -- “all the ones [the Crystal Gems] couldn't find”? How about Sapphire whispering, “Rose couldn't have known” when Rose kept secrets from them all, even from Pearl, secrets she tells Greg he’s better off not knowing?
Zoinks.
3. Perfect, saintly, adorable, radiant Rose Quartz: was that a flaw I just saw?
We don’t know all that much about Rose Quartz, though we know she had an indelible impact on all of the Crystal Gems we know and love. We know that she’s a beloved leader, a mighty warrior, a great-hearted soul who loved humans and the Earth so much she turned her back on Homeworld to protect them. But it’s about time we saw a flaw bigger than “she’s got secrets,” and now we have at least one: her gentle laughter and putative interest in the small lives of these frail creatures called humans at one point hid a paternalistic disrespect of them as individual, sentient creatures worth acknowledging on an equal basis.
Now, I don’t at all consider this some kind of character-destroying flaw, nor am I on the prowl for hints to tear down the legend of Glorious Rose. But all of the Gems have more to them than meets the eye, both positive and negative, and it’s about time we learned a little bit more about who Rose really was herself rather than what she meant to everyone else. Seeing humans as passing entertainment is something she and Greg clearly worked through, since their relationship progressed to the point where she chose to shapeshift a womb in order to bear his child. (But was love the only reason, oh Rose whose tactics even Jasper respected? Was it?)
It was new to see Rose act in a way that was not 100% cute and perfect, so her laughing in Greg's face as he begs to know if she even respects him definitely counts as a mindblowing moment for me. (But Pearl’s shown how possessive she is over Rose before, even to Steven, as well as how little she really likes Greg, so there was nothing new in her Pillar of Salt storyline for me except for the magnificent and mega-gay Rainbow Quartz.)
4. Lapis’s chilling words: “I’m Malachite now.”
Is it just me, or is Lapis on the most terrifying trajectory possible? Garnet has explained fusion to us many times now: how fusion makes two Gems greater than the sum of their parts, how fusion is a conversation, how fusion means you’re never alone. In Garnet’s words: “You know, when you fuse, you don't feel like two people, you feel like one being. And your old names might as well be names for your left arm, and your right.”
What else did Garnet, the resident expert, tell us about Lapis and Jasper’s fusion in particular? In Chille Tid, she says, “A fusion like theirs is unstable, bound together by anger and mistrust. If that bond snaps, their anger will take over, and destroy.”
In short: both Lapis and Jasper will forget themselves. They will become greater than the sum of their parts: Jasper’s power and outrage, Lapis’s hatred and suffering, forged together into something bigger and worse. Malachite will be the incarnation of their hate and rage, and when Malachite lashes out it will be on a massive scale.
And Lapis welcomes it. Imprisoned in a mirror on Earth, then imprisoned on the hand ship by Jasper and Peridot after returning to the Homeworld she yearned for, powerless for innumerable years, Lapis doesn’t want to be Lapis anymore. “I’m Malachite now,” she says in Steven’s eerie dreamscape. Jasper, chained and dripping, seems half-feral: the only words she summons are a growled and frightening “you” as she lunges in Steven’s direction. So the dreadful change is already happening, and the only hope Lapis has of coming out of it with enough personality left to salvage comes from her connection with Steven. (Who knows what will happen to Jasper?)
Remember back in “Jailbreak” when Malachite first formed? Garnet said, “Yikes. They are really bad for each other.” Yikes is right.
To check out past recaps, just click here for all of our previous Steven Universe coverage. As for Stevenbomb 3.0? Find out the dates when Steven Universe comes back off of hiatus here. See you then.
