Steven Universe has officially come off of hiatus, and today’s episode, “Keeping It Together,” is the third of a planned #StevenBomb with five new episodes in a row. We started off with the exceptional “Sworn to the Sword,” which focused on Pearl’s trauma from the Gem war and Connie’s exceptional development as a fighter. Yesterday gave us “Rising Tides/Crashing Skies”: a significant lull in the action that served largely as a reminder of the wild and wacky humans the Crystal Gems have charged themselves with protecting.
Today’s episode is “Keeping It Together,” an episode that heavily involves the one and only Square Mom, Garnet. As we’ve done before, please enjoy this Steven Universe episode recap/review.
The episode begins with Garnet bringing up Peridot, so we know this is going to be a plotty one. Garnet has gathered everyone together to discuss their mission to locate Peridot, while folding all of Steven’s many identical red and yellow star shirts. Steven tries to wheedle Garnet into un-fusing in order to help laundry go faster, but Garnet gently refuses.
We learn that Peridot’s mission has something to do with the kindergarten, and that the imposing needle-like structures we saw in earlier episodes have a purpose as sinister as their appearance: apparently, the injectors plant gems in the crust of the earth, where they incubate and suck life right out of the ground, literally destroying the planet.
The Gems head out to investigate the kindergarten and actively invite Steven along, to Steven’s obvious pleasure. The eerie and desolate kindergarten is as creepy as ever, and Pearl can’t find any sign of activity at the injectors. Garnet orders them to double check the perimeter, and Steven prances along with great delight, only to run smack into Peridot. Peridot has clearly just arrived from deep under the kindergarten and is muttering about how some of the experiments have emerged early. That’s promising, Peridot!
Peridot yelps when she sees Steven and says warily, “Are the other ones with you?!” When Steven tries to dissemble and fails, Peridot looks exhausted and exasperated by the news. The Crystal Gems show up just as Peridot escapes by running straight up a cliff face. Pearl throws her spear upwards at Peridot and misses, but she was actually aiming for an injector above Peridot that falls and pins Peridot beneath its weight.
Steven, precious angel Steven, cries worriedly, “Do you think she’s hurt?!” But Peridot’s just fine. As Amethyst and Peridot do battle, Peridot shouts that she doesn’t care if they wreck the kindergarten because she already got what she needed. Then she uses her hand as a helicopter and peaces all the way out like Team Rocket blasting off again. Pearl and Amethyst follow in hot pursuit.
Steven makes to run after Amethyst and Pearl, but Garnet stops him. If Peridot’s goal was reactivating the kindergarten, the injectors would be on, but Garnet points out that they’re not. Garnet and Steven head underground to explore what Peridot was really up to as Steven peppers Garnet with questions about what it’s like to experience life as a fusion. Garnet patiently explains that when two gems combine it creates something greater than the sum of their parts, so it’s not as simple as having Sapphire’s wisdom and Ruby’s energy or anything like that.
They arrive at Peridot’s lab, and my creepy radar breaks wide open. Garnet investigates by checking out some squat columns Peridot pulled out of the walls. One of the columns starts to vibrate, and Garnet stares in increasing worry. Then, from the ceiling, a hand and foot fused together falls from the ceiling.
Suddenly, it starts raining body horror from above, disparate limbs of different colors fused into impossible shapes. Oh, my God.
Garnet kills one of the hand-foot things. In her hands is the heart of the beast, two gem shards shoved haphazardly together. Garnet, horrified, flings it away from herself like she’s been burned. Finally, the column that has been vibrating urgently all this time bursts open into a huge, Akira-esqe abomination, glitching in and out of existence as it struggles to fuse into some meaningful shape.
Steven and Garnet stare at the resulting monster in horror. Garnet is absolutely frozen in shock as the creature moves towards her. Steven begs her to speak, but Garnet is so shocked she can’t move, even when the monster knocks her glasses off her face. “These were crystal Gems shattered into pieces, then buried together. They were forced together. They were forced to fuse. This is wrong,” Garnet says, all three of her eyes open wide, and one weeping.
Steven panics as Garnet herself begins to come undone in the monster’s grip. Steven wails turn frantic as Garnet threatens to literally unravel. Suddenly, Garnet fuses back together in one sharp burst of light. With redoubled energy and fury, Garnet grips the horrific beast and pulls it apart with her bare hands. She puts the sliver of jammed-together gem shards into one of her pocket bubbles.
It’s clear that Garnet is shaken to her core. I honestly can’t believe that Steven Universe is going here -- but maybe I can. Garnet talks back and forth to herself, so horrified and disgusted that while she may not be literally splitting apart, her personality at least has fragmented in the wake of this revelation. “So this is what homeworld thinks of fusion. So this is where they’ve been. All the ones we couldn’t find. This is punishment for the rebellion. It’s not our fault!” she says to herself, voice shaking.
Amethyst and Pearl return, and one of the littler fusion abominations falls on them. Garnet immediately shouts, “Put them down!” and orders the Crystal Gems to collect and bubble every single one.
Later, back at home, Steven asks Garnet how she’s doing. The washer and dryer are chugging along with Steven’s laundry. Garnet is distracted, even as she jokes lightly with Steven. “I wish you hadn’t seen that,” she says heavily. “It’s not okay. What homeworld did. Taking the shards of fallen Gems and combining them. Those Gems weren’t part of the mission. Those Gems weren’t given a choice. It isn’t right. It isn’t fusion.”
Steven takes things out of the laundry machine and asks thoughtfully what it’s like to be fused -- all the time. “Do you forget who you used to be?” he asks quietly.
Garnet replies, “You forget you were ever alone. You don’t feel like two people. You feel like one being…. I embody Ruby and Sapphire’s love. I’ll always exist in them even if I split apart. But the strength of that love keeps me together. So I can stay Garnet for a very long time.”
When a sock flies off, born away by a strong breeze, Garnet grabs it and places it gently back in the basket. “Don’t want to break up a pair,” she says. And Steven smiles sweetly: “You’re right. They belong together.”
Oh my God? The more we learn about Homeworld, the more I want to know about exactly how messed up things over there are. From Jasper’s comments that Pearl is “a defective Pearl” to Jasper’s sneering attitude over Garnet’s permanent love-fusion, it’s clear that Homeworld culture is a strange, strict, stratified and warlike thing. Is this monstrous fusion simply Peridot’s newest experiment taken from Homeworld to Earth, or did Peridot just come up with the concept while on Earth? Was this one of the horrors that made Rose Quartz rebel against Homeworld?
Gems that were so badly hurt they retreated to their gems, forcibly crushed into splinters by their own kind, then forcibly compressed until they fused into monsters: Akira, Akira, Akira, Akira, also, Akira. I can’t help thinking about Amethyst and all the crazy shapes she played with out of irritation and hurt, and Pearl’s two weeks of carefully crafting her new form. The forms Gem take is an expression of their being. These Gems were tortured, brutally so, using a mechanism of love and unity that has been perverted into another tool of war. Why so much war, Gem homeworld?
It hurt me in my heart to see Garnet staggering under the realization that the Gem homeworld thought so little of Garnet’s very being, the source of her undying strength. And, strangely, this episode really makes me worry and wonder about Jasper and Lapis Lazuli, fused unwillingly in hatred and pain under the sea.
Tomorrow’s episode, “We Need To Talk,” will have Greg talking to the kids about Gem fusion, and after today’s episode, we really, really need to have at least a little bit of that horror and baggage unpacked. Greg obviously knows more than he lets on, as he’s very clumsy about deflecting from Gem topics and also rather insistent on staying out of “Gem stuff.” Greg, spill. We really do need to talk.
To check out past recaps, just click here for all of our previous Steven Universe coverage. Find out more details about the episodes after hiatus here (they all air at 6 PM EST). See you tomorrow for more new Steven Universe!
