Steven Universe Review: “What’s Your Problem?” (Season 5, Episode 20)

Amethyst: “I’m crashing!”
Steven: “But how does that make you feel?”
– I swear, this show’s critics had a field day with those two sentences.

Airdate: July 3rd, 2018

Written By: Katie Mitroff and Paul Villeco

Plot: Ruby has bolted from the Temple, leaving Sapphire distressed. With her and Pearl in emotional turmoil, it’s up to Steven and Amethyst to try and track Ruby down. However, Steven’s emotional investment in the hunt contrasts with Amethyst’s apparent lack of care. But are her distractions strategic in another way?

Review:

In the middle of 2016, the bell tolled for Steven Universe.

While working on Seasons 4 and 5, Rebecca Sugar was informed that Cartoon Network was turning off the tap. No new episodes of her series would be ordered. Steven Universe was facing death; the way things were going, it appeared doomed to end on a cliffhanger at best, and possibly horribly rushed at worst. It was not just an emotional turmoil having the show of her dreams (and, as of this writing, her magnum opus) sent to the wall, but so many questions could have been doomed to be unanswered, so many plot threads left in the lurch.

Fortunately for us fans, she got a partial reprieve from the network – the show got an extension on the season to wrap up major plot threads, then was granted a movie and a new epilogue miniseries. But you can just sense from this episode forward that the show was getting ready for the final bow. Even with the reprieve, you can see the show starting to wrap up as many remaining plot threads as humanly possible starting here. Not that Season 5 hadn’t already done so – Lars had his renaissance, Sadie had her new career, Connie re-centered herself, and we found out Rose Quartz was the product of reinvention. And now the time has come to complete the arcs of the Crystal Gems.

How apropos that we start with Amethyst, and how brilliant that the title of this outing is “What’s Your Problem”?

The Review Nebula’s Spring Cleaning

Just a bit of an FYI – over the past few days, I’ve gone back through the blog archive, a process I intend to continue over the next few weeks.

Don’t worry, I’m not getting rid of any posts. What I am doing is thumbing through and tidying up my old reviews. These changes are largely typo-related and grammatical in nature – correcting old spelling errors, adjusting issues with grammar, and things like that. I’m also fixing broken image files as well as correcting broken hyperlinks when possible.

With that in mind, there are a couple of instances where I eliminated or corrected incorrect information, or added a bit more context that I might have missed the first time around. I’ve also deleted small, redundant phrases in some of my earlier works, as well as adjusted phrasing in occasional cases. That said, the core of the reviews are not being edited – they reflect the opinions I held at the time. In the case of the opinions that I have since reassessed, particularly my reviews from the first two years of operation, I feel it inappropriate to edit my past in such a dramatic fashion. Let it stand as a museum of what I thought when I published those reviews. If I feel the need to revisit my opinions, I might publish “revisited” postings on certain topics. (I kind of partially did that with my ranking of Red Dwarf on that show’s 35th anniversary; several of my opinions have shifted in the near decade since I first reviewed those episodes.)

So if you notice some of the reviews are very slightly different than you remember, you know why. This isn’t really a George Lucas remastering so much as it is a Star Trek-style remastering. That said, my core opinion reigns supreme – be careful when reading anything I posted before, say, mid-2015… because there is a good chance you will cringe.

Akira Toriyama: 1955-2024

Akira Toriyama, the manga illustrator who created Dragon Ball, has died at the age of 68. According to a statement posted on the Dragon Ball Twitter account, he succumbed on March 1st to an acute subdural hematoma.

Admittedly, this won’t be a very in-depth tribute, because I’m not much of an anime enthusiast. I was, at the absolute most, a very casual fan of Dragon Ball Z, enjoying it when it was on but rarely going out of my way to watch. But I am saddened for a couple of reasons.

For one, this (alongside the Pokemon TV series) was the first anime that I was aware of. Granted, a lot of that is due to the sheer name power of those worlds, but it speaks to the engaging universe that Toriyama created. Quite a few animated shows on both sides of the Pacific have taken influence from Dragon Ball, up to and including Steven Universe. What, an optimistic guy with superpowers finds himself tasked with saving the world? Characters fusing into more powerful entities? Sugar knew what she was doing. Seriously, it’s about as influential as The Simpsons was. Honestly, it might be even more influential. Tons of contemporary animators grew up watching the show, and have paid tribute to the work in their own creations. Not to mention the other fans of the animation medium. Even beyond television, you could feel the cultural impact of the show in everyday life, particularly sports. Makes sense when your world is introduced to Earth in 1984. Four decades of cultural influence across the globe.

Second, and more personally, Dragon Ball was one of my brother’s favorite shows while we were growing up. He watched the Dragon Ball Z and Z Kai anime on Cartoon Network and the Nicktoons Network (and later online), he played several of the video games, I think he had a couple issues of the manga and related magazines… I just have some very fond memories of him enjoying Dragon Ball and getting into other anime because of this show. It’s those memories that will stick with me. Even if indirectly, Akira Toriyama did impact my life.

Look, nothing I post here will do Akira Toriyama and his impact on the world justice. Diehard fans of the Dragon Ball universe will be paying their own respects, and I encourage you to check those tributes out if you can. I just needed to get some thoughts off my chest, because this is a huge loss to the artistic world, particularly at a relatively young age.

What a legend. Farewell, Akira Toriyama.

Steven Universe Review: “Now We’re Only Falling Apart” (Season 5, Episode 19)

What have you got to say of shadows in your past?
I thought that if you paid, you’d keep them off our backs
But I don’t care; baby, I’m not scared
What have you got to hide? Who will it compromise?
Where do we have to be so I can laugh and you’ll be free?
I’d go anywhere; baby, I don’t care…
…I’m not scared.
– “I’m Not Scared”, Pet Shop Boys (originally made famous by Eighth Wonder)

Airdate: July 2nd, 2018

Written By: Lamar Abrams and Christine Liu

Plot: The reveal that Rose Quartz was actually Pink Diamond and Pearl was in on the act has shocked the Crystal Gems. The most emotionally affected is Sapphire, who runs off devastated, convinced that Garnet’s raison d’etre and the path her life took for so long were both based on the worst possible deception from the worst possible source. Chasing her down, Pearl offers some context to the whole damn debacle, particularly how Pink Diamond was refuted in her attempts to reason with her sisters in government, and how Garnet fits into the equation of the Earthican Rebellion.

Review:

Well, that was quite a preceding episode, wasn’t it?

“If you’ve got a history book at home, take it out and throw it in the bin; it’s worthless. The history books now will have to be re-written.” – Spartacus Mills, The Day Today.

“A Single Pale Rose” was the television equivalent of a meteorite crash-landing in the middle of Philadelphia. It’s not that often that a single episode so thoroughly demolishes the status quo and recontextualizes every damn moment of the involved series from the beginning. Steven Universe did so in eleven friggin minutes.

I mean, everything. Pearl’s fear of fusion (and possible aversion to eating, even), Rose’s entire character up to and including her love of the planet Earth, their relationship, Amethyst’s origin, the whole nature of the overarching conflict, all of it has to be seen through a new lens. And guess what? We now have an episode that tackles the fallout straight on but dares to add new context to the most stunning moment in the show’s canon – the moment that recontextualized everything is being contextualized in turn!

Still with me? good.

And how poetic; the first plot element that the show seriously re-analyzes is Garnet’s raison d’etre, starting with the appropriately titled “Now We’re Only Falling Apart”.

Happy 36th, Red Dwarf

Once again, it’s February 15th! And you know what that means – a time to celebrate the best sci-fi comedy ever aired on TV.

Red Dwarf. Thirty-six years on, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s once-rejected sitcom continues to amuse and intrigue audiences across age groups, nations, and all sorts of demographics. And though there was a bit of a legal kerfuffle involving Grant and Naylor, it appears to have been resolved, meaning that more Red Dwarf stories might be around the corner. Maybe. Even if not, the show’s had a damn good run and is set in the annuls of TV history.

On a personal note, this is also the 10th “February 15th” that this blog has seen. Granted, I didn’t celebrate the first one back in 2014 (don’t mourn, my writing sucked back then), so this is only the 9th that I’ve celebrated. And one of those was overshadowed by the finale of another one of my favorite shows. (Two brilliant shows sharing such an iconic date.) In short, once again, The Review Nebula celebrates Red Dwarf, and will do so until the heat death of the universe!

Steven Universe Review: “A Single Pale Rose” (Season 5, Episode 18)

“Sorry to make you come all this way…” – Pearl, having just spent minutes shattering the image of the past for Steven Universe… character and show.

Airdate: May 8th, 2018

Written By: Danny Cragg and Hilary Florido

Plot: Steven is still deeply unnerved over the vision that he had of Pearl appearing to shatter Pink Diamond. When he approaches her with the inquiry, Pearl is unable to give an answer one way or the other. Later that day, however, Steven receives a text from Pearl… who then reveals that she didn’t send the text, but placed it in her pearl. Accordingly, Steven goes in to try and obtain the phone, handing Pearl his mobile in the process. What follows is a look at tragic events in Pearl’s life, up to a pivotal event that answers Steven’s inquiry as to the assassination of Pink Diamond, a reveal that leaves Steven beside himself.

Review:

Do you have your coffee, tea, soda, beer, whiskey, wine, or whatever drink you can nurse over a relatively elongated period ready at the helm?

If so, good. If not, get it before reading. Because by the end of this review, you’re gonna be grateful you had something by your side.

*deep breath*

There are six key dates that every Steven Universe fan should have committed to memory.

Let’s start with the big two. There’s November 4th, 2013, when “Gem Glow” first aired and started Steven Universe‘s reign over animated television. It was a relatively inconspicuous debut, but many television shows have such launches, only gaining acclaim as time passes and the show establishes itself in the pop cultural canon. There’s March 30th, 2020, the airdate of the very last episode of the franchise, “The Future”. These are the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end – the broadest definition of the Steven Universe era of pop culture, as I call it. Even after the “imperial phase”, you could feel the shadow of the series linger above so much in popular culture – the idealism, the unabashed progressivism, the cultural representation in cast and crew, you name it. If it didn’t pioneer such themes and concepts, it encapsulated them in a way that captured the zeitgeist.

In between, though, four more dates serve as flashpoints in one way or another, and they must be recognized.

September 25, 2014, saw the debut of the “Mirror Gem/Ocean Gem” two-parter; these two episodes confirmed the launch of the show’s overreaching arc, cemented the space opera elements that are a significant element of the franchise, and introduced Lapis Lazuli onto the scene. March 12th, 2015 was the premier date of the Season 1 finale “Jailbreak”, an episode that signaled the arrival of Ruby and Sapphire, adding new context to Garnet and cementing the show’s place in the pantheon of LGBT pop culture; it fueled a wave of popularity in the series, and I would argue that it secured the show’s “imperial phase” that had built over the past 26 episodes. There’s August 4th, 2016, the debut of “Bismuth” which dared to shine a more cautious light on the show’s political philosophy and brought into focus Steven’s optimistic nature in the face of cruel reality; a divisive episode that seemed to shake the show’s once-cheerful fanbase, but one that struck at the core of the show’s principles and dared to defend them, albeit with a certain nuance.

And then there’s May 7th, 2018. In my opinion, that date marks the biggest flashpoint in the show’s history.

Where were you when “A Single Pale Rose” aired? Where and how did you first watch it?

Because, lads, this is the episode of Steven Universe, the one that shocked the bloody internet. It’s also possibly the most divisive moment in the entire goddamn franchise. To a sizable portion of viewers, it signaled the show finally losing it and either vindicated recent quality complaints or demonstrated that the show, erm, dropped the league lead late in the title race. To others, it’s one of the most fulfilling and brilliant twists in the entire series, as well as one of the best episodes of the show – some have argued that it is the best. For some, it is their “helmet catch” that secured the victory; for others, the Portillo Moment that signaled the show’s collapse.

So what is it?

Well, for me, there is one thing that biases my opinion – arguably, the episode from which the subject of today’s review stemmed.

“Rose’s Scabbard”. I’ve told the story a million times, but “Rose’s Scabbard” was the episode that made me truly fall in love with Steven Universe. It didn’t take long for me to declare it my favorite episode of the series, an opinion I’ve mentioned several times over. It was an opinion I held firm to from the word “go”, and I figured nothing else would top it.

Challenge accepted, said the gods above.

Steven Universe Review: “Can’t Go Back” (Season 5, Episode 17)

“I know I left too much mess and destruction to come back again.
I caused nothing but trouble; I understand if you can’t talk to me again.
And if you live by the rules of “it’s over”
Then I’m sure that that makes sense.”
– “White Flag”, Dido

Airdate: May 7th, 2018.

Written By: Miki Brewster and Jeff Liu

Plot: Ronaldo alerts Steven to a very fascinating discovery – he has located a barn on the moon! Steven puts two and two together and realizes that Lapis is probably near the moon base. His suspicions are correct, and he tries to convince Lapis to return to Earth. Her insecurities preclude such a scenario, but rumination causes some of her concerns to melt away. Yet, the nature of the moon base drives Steven to make another, far more striking and immediate discovery – one that will rock his world to the very core.

Review:

Lapis Lazuli might be the most pivotal character in the storyline of Steven Universe.

Now, let me clarify a few things. She’s not my favorite – Pearl has my heart, hands down. She’s not the most culturally important; Garnet – and, by proxy, Ruby and Sapphire – are groundbreaking for her, and their, symbolic representation of a same-sex (or otherwise unfairly taboo) relationship. She’s not quite the most iconic – Garnet and Peridot are probably neck and neck for that title, giving the world the aforementioned groundbreaking status in the former, and in the latter, meme after meme. And is she the most relatable? Personally, I’d go for Connie, the nerdy everywoman who turned into a skilled swordswoman, although Lapis is up in the Top 5 of that list to be sure.

But in terms of the narrative, Lapis Lazuli is the most iconic character in a precise way. For she is the alpha and omega. The sign of the show launching itself into the stratosphere, and the sign that the show was getting close to a climactic end.

It was her first appearance in “Mirror Gem” that signaled that this series was going to expand the worldbuilding beyond what we initially thought. From that moment forward, the slice-of-life antics took a backseat to drama, character introspection, and sci-fi opera moments. And it is her appearance in Season 5 that will signal the launch of the original show’s final major arc; the last moments before Steven’s preconceptions regarding his life are shattered and he is left to pick up the pieces once and for all.

Welcome to “Can’t Go Back”, Lapis Lazuli’s moment of great introspection. And my word, it is as breathtaking as that description could ever imply. Yeah, I’m not burying the lead any further, this episode is gorgeous.

Norman Lear: 1922-2023

Sitcom creator, writer, and director Norman Lear has died at the age of 101. His death brings to an end a career that forever transformed the history of American television.

I speak no hyperbole there. Norman Lear might be the most transformative force in his realm, and if not, he’s surely the most transformative force in the history of the American sitcom. Naturally, I have to dive into the show that really started it all.

All in the Family is one of my favorite “classic” sitcoms of all time. It’s an adaptation of Til Death Us Do Part from the UK, but Norman Lear adapting it for the stateside market was a masterstroke. In one breath, he took television and sitcom boundaries beyond anything seen before.

Happy 10th, Steven Universe!

Ten years ago, the first episode of what would become one of the largest cult hits in animation aired. Steven Universe, created by Adventure Time alumnus Rebecca Sugar, debuted on Cartoon Network.

Over the past decade, the show’s reputation on the internet has sort of ebbed and flowed. It seemed to slip under the radar during its first year on the air. However, the launch of the show’s larger myth arc and the groundbreaking nature of some of its themes and relationships fueled a massive cult following, to the point where it seemed to capture the zeitgeist of the mid-2010s pop culture scene. It felt like a backlash emerged near the end of the series, but in recent months, some of that backlash has receded and the show has been re-evaluated more positively.

As far as I’m concerned?

I will defend this show until I die.

For all its faults, for its occasional slides in terms of pacing and character models, Steven Universe is one of the most genuine and stunning shows that I’ve ever seen. It’s rarely pretentious, honest in intent, it was groundbreaking in many ways, it turned into a beacon of hope during a time of increased cultural turmoil, it paid a loving tribute to the anime and sci-fi that preceded it, the characters remain engaging to this very day, ye gods the music is astonishing, “Rose’s Scabbard” is a goddamn masterpiece of an episode, the list goes on! I speak very little hyperbole when I say that Steven Universe improved the lives of many fans, and that’s what makes it so important to this very day.

Rebecca Sugar and Co. made a show I treasure to this day, warts and all. If you worked on Steven Universe and you’re reading this, take a bow.

Steven Universe Review: “Letters To Lars” (Season 5, Episode 16)

“I guess me and the Big Donut have a lot in common: we’re both empty inside.” – Bill Dewey

Airdate: April 30th, 2018

Written By: Lamar Abrams and Colin Howard

Plot: Steven writes a letter to Lars to keep him aware of the changes that have gone on in Big City. Chief among them is Bill Dewey trying to rebuild his career after being voted out of office by the townspeople. But no matter what, he’s not quite able to find his place in the town he once ran.

Review:

Well, lads?

This is how any semblance of normality in the Steven Universe canon fades away.

Yes. We are two episodes from the most epochal moment in the original series, if not the entire franchise. There will be a twist that will re-contextualize so much about SU, from minute one to Season 5 and even Future, it is almost impossible to look at the show the way it was before. If ever we as fans had a sense of “innocence”, the remnants of this – largely chipped away by the likes of “Bismuth”, “Rose’s Scabbard”, “I Am My Mom”, “Mindful Education”, and “On the Run” – will be wiped off the map.

Endgame is brutal for any show, especially for us fans who became so invested in the characters and setting. For Steven Universe, it is going to be especially staggering, on par with some of the prestige dramas that upended any semblance of a status quo in their dying episodes.

And it gets even worse. Because the first hint of the shock to the system comes more like a compressional wave, a brief comment from Steven in the front half of the episode. Innocuous at the first airing, it would wind up setting in stage every single thing that occurs for the rest of the series. A much clearer lean into the show winding itself down comes in the form of a more standard, grounded wrap-up of the goings on around Beach City. It feels more like a traditional “show is ending soon” episode – close down the arcs for our side characters.

Enter “Letters to Lars”, the denouement for many of the Beach City Citizens (“Cityzens” – they can share with the Sky Blue Mancunians), particularly that of early entrant William Dewey.