Steven Universe Review: “The Answer” (Season 2, Episode 21)

“The Earth. 5,750 years ago. It was a promising site of a new Gem colony, but progress was being thwarted by a small, persistent group of rebels. A team of diplomatic Gems were sent from Homeworld to investigate. Among those Gems was Sapphire, a rare aristocratic Homeworld Gem, with the power to see into the future. Assigned to her were three Rubies, common soldiers, with a mission to protect her.” – Garnet. Hey, as long as we don’t have to alternate between intergalactic Senate hearings and pod races, I’m cool.

Airdate: January 4th, 2016

Written By: Lamar Abrams and Katie Mitroff

Plot: The clock has struck midnight on Steven’s birthday. As a result, Garnet decides to partially fulfill a promise she made to herself… by telling Steven the ballad of Ruby and Sapphire.

5750 years prior, the diplomatic Sapphire was assigned alongside the rest of Blue Diamond’s troupe to analyze the Earthican gem colony. While there, Sapphire predicts a rebel attack on the base… which happens. She also predicts that seven gems will be poofed – four civilians, two out of three Rubies, and herself. Well, four civilians are cut down. Two out of Three Rubies are also cut down after having fused into one Mega Ruby. However, the Third Ruby refuses to let that stand. One save attempt later, Garnet is formed… leading to disgust from everybody not to fly the banner of the Crystal Gems. The duo all but leg it down to Earth, where they come to terms with what the hell just happened.

Review:

So.

“The Answer”.

In a show with quite a few beloved episodes… this is one of them.

In fact, while Steven Universe has had plenty of iconic episodes before and since, and plenty more “important” episodes to the canon or the show’s overall popularity, I could make a case that “The Answer” has become the most iconic episode of Steven Universe to not involve a punch-up with Jasper. I mean… it was adapted into a children’s book. A fecking children’s book!

Only the deliberately contrarian would try and call the episode trash… which I won’t do in this review. Because I don’t hate the episode – far from it. I think it’s one of the most well-produced, heartwarming episodes of the entire show, up there with “Alone Together”. If anything, the only question I have is simple… is this episode somewhat overrated?

Not to a level of “this episode is actually a load of rubbish”, but is it merely “great” rather than the masterpiece that fandom holds it up to be?

For one, a lot of this episode’s appeal rests in Garnet. For a long time, she has served as the show’s primary enigma, even in a cast full of characters with increasingly tragic backstories. During Season 1B and Season 2, though, a lot was peeled back to reveal Garnet’s virtues and vices. Her stoicism, a front to mask the effects of the chains of command, often gives off an aura of distance from the personal issues facing the Crystal Gems. Her seriousness has been toned down to reveal a more light side of her relationship with Steven. Meanwhile, we start to get vulnerabilities in her powers – how her future vision is not guaranteed and is limited to a certain point of view.

Probably the most dramatic was the reveal of Garnet’s genesis, that of her being the combination of polar opposites Ruby and Sapphire. With that, we got a new angle as to the weight of her philosophy, the internal conflict between the superego and the id within, and the source of her powers. Simple enough, right? In fact, as the episodes have passed, Garnet has become a warmer, more open character.

Hence, how this episode starts – Garnet removes the shades (hinting that this story is genuinely going to remove much of the clout around the character’s origin, given the symbol of the shades being something of an emotional wall), and at the stroke of midnight on Steven’s birthday, wakes him up to tell him a story about her genesis. Helping matters is that she’s fulfilling a promise originally intended for this very day, as mentioned in “Jailbreak”:

Steven: (elated, despite almost dying minutes before) I can’t believe you’re a fusion all the time!
Amethyst: You met Ruby and Sapphire?
Pearl: Oh, no! We were going to introduce you – Garnet, your plan…
Garnet: We were waiting for your birthday.

So, since it is the stroke of midnight on his birthday…

Steven: Are you finally gonna tell me that you’re a fusion of the Gems Ruby and Sapphire like you promised?
Garnet: You already know that.
Steven: Ah, it’s true.
Garnet: But what you don’t know is how Ruby and Sapphire first met…

And thus, we get a look at Garnet, and how she was a product of Earth herself… sort of. What we actually get is a first-hand look at the class stratification back on Homeworld, which is something of a theme running through these past three episodes, am I right? But the contrast between the classes could not be depicted any more starkly here. After all, if the prior episodes depicted how Earth society was the great equalizer for Gems of different types, this episode depicts the reality as it would be under Homeworld society.

Take Sapphire, for starters. Introduced as a very rare class of gem, her role is to serve as not only Blue Diamond’s liasion, but also her ultimate line of defense. Her methods of precognition allow for the government to escape trouble, no matter what the cost – personal or otherwise. Her philosophy (or at least, the use of her power) is fatalistic, as she concludes in her position that her life – or at least, this variation thereof – will end in an unsuccessful attack on the base. Her status as both a diplomat and an aristocrat only serves to highlight the lack of social mobility present.

In contrast, we have the three Rubies assigned to defend her. Instantly, they’re characterized as brash, willing to fight off an attack that unbeknownst to them Sapphire had declared a somewhat pyrrhic victory. Their fighting (which makes me wonder if a longer episode would make them out more to be analogous to The Three Stooges) causes one particular Ruby – you know, the one with her gem on her palm – to bump into Sapphire. In Ruby’s confusion, Sapphire denies that the former did anything wrong, a movement that actually makes her intrigued, as well as a bit flustered. Tying these two divergent paths together is a conversation shortly after…

Sapphire: What a beautiful place to build a colony. I wish I could have seen more of this planet.
Ruby:  Um, there’s still time.
Sapphire: That is a nice thought, but… no.

Almost instantly, we get a look at the two differing perspectives. Ruby is the id, one that despite not valuing her own personal life as that important, admires those who can admire the universe around them. She introduces a divergence from the plan, only for Sapphire to reject it as an impossibility.

Making this contrast even more striking is the artistic style found within the front half of the episode. It’s inspired by Lotte Reiniger, a Germanic film director who was the pioneer of silhouette animation, found in such films as Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed. Rebecca Sugar has cited her as one of her favorite animators, noting her innovations of a relatively new craft, as well as how rare comparable works have been.

What makes this use unique is the execution. In layman’s terms, the character models and backgrounds are more simplistically colored, and characters not central to the story (the Rubies, Sapphire, the Rebels, and to a partial extent, Blue Diamond and her Pearl – inclusion necessary for contrast) fall into the background, like shadows. What we sense here is how Ruby and Sapphire took their lives on Homeworld, particularly in hindsight. Sure, they had roles and jobs, but there was also a je ne sais quoi present. Their lives before and after are starkly different… less complete.

Of course, the rebels attack, and for just being a duo…

….they still manage to fulfill Sapphire’s prediction at first, taking out six gems. This includes a Ruby fusion, which makes… an even bigger Ruby! You know, Ruby, but biggerer! Thus, we get the ideal Homeworld fusion circa 3750 BC – might makes right. Your strategy doesn’t work? Treble in size. And even then, if you’re the wrong type of gem, eh, you’re pretty much useless. See ya later if you get poofed, and who gives a flying smeg if you get shattered?

However, things go south for Sapphire’s prediction when Ruby realizes just what Sapphire meant when she said that there was no time to explore Earth. She can’t abide by the implications thereof. The reasoning, I reckon, is dual-sided. For one, it would not be doing her job to let Sapphire get killed. I mean, in this society, you would suspect letting her get poofed would not end well for any of the Rubies.

But she was also the only Ruby shown to have something of a direct communication with Sapphire. She is fascinated by this diplomat. More so than any of the other Rubies. A romance has budded, even though at this point, we’ve only seen one side of the infatuation. In defense of the woman she loves (some could argue her boss due to the societal structure of Homeworld), she jumps up and pushes her out of the way of danger…

…and it results in this.

I love the framing of this whole scene. Just how this simple act of defense and love managed to spark something within Sapphire’s subconscious. It was clearly breaking with protocol, but it was something completely unusual. Suddenly, the relatively simplistic colors of Ruby and Sapphire and their background gave way to the vibrant – if rather mismatched – Garnet, as well as a much more exquisite, detailed background compared to the land of shadows.

She isn’t the perfect fusion between these two different Gems. Far from it. But she is transformative in that there was no recorded “inter-gem” fusion. It completely catches everybody unawares – particularly the rebels, who take this time to escape (“Uh, bye!”). However, it’s not the rebels’ escape that gets their goat, but this hitherto unforeseen form of fusion that downright disgusts the populace. (“Unbelievable.” “Disgusting!” “This is unheard of!”) The kicker was that it was a freak accident, one that sent the two into the history books… and put Ruby on the chopping block for intercaste fusion. Reminds me of that quote from First Contact: “Don’t try and be a great man – just be a man, and let history make its own judgments.” In other words, most people don’t set out to make history, they have it thrust upon them by their own impulses.

Unfortunately for Ruby, history appears to have judged her poorly at this point in time, or at least, Blue Diamond has. (Insert your own allegory to interracial/gay/cross-class romances here, because really, it could hit all three.) Sapphire is having no part in watching her literally smashed to pieces – she books it with Ruby in tow and falls to Earth. From the technocratic heavens above to the wild, rainy world below, washing them of the society they fled… at least somewhat.

But why? Let’s unpack the impact of this fusion – it radically undermined the fatalistic viewpoint that Sapphire had held for her life. The crux of her existence, her raison d’etre, has been tossed to the wolves thanks to an errant maneuver from a mere soldier. And not just that, but the paths open to her – restricted to a merely linear prediction by the authoritarian society that they had just escaped from – have now been replaced by a world that is far, far, far broader. One that is also overwhelming.

And the kicker? As the shock wears off… she realizes that she quite liked the experience.

“I never had more than one!” She says that as a joke related to her lack of multiple eyes, but honestly, that means so much more. Simply put, on Homeworld, she could only choose options that satisfied Blue Diamond. Now the world – a vibrant, multicolored, deep world, all of it is their oyster.

Likewise, Ruby’s remark that she “never had a third eye before” also works to showcase the newfound balance that has been introduced to her. This impulsive gem has had introduced to her personality a temper. But there’s also this hope that maybe, just maybe, she isn’t doomed to be just a bodyguard. That instead of protecting something that she can’t even hope to become, she can be a direct part of something bigger.

Of something like Garnet.

The two saved each other – not just from death, but from a life of continued predictability, from a controlled existence… from a life that eschewed the romantic side of life.

Together, they raise each other up, delivering each other to Eden as a result. Really, this works a bit like a reaction to Genesis itself. If the book of Genesis represented human flaws and adversity by kicking the protagonists out of paradise due to the defiance of a plan set out for them from a higher power, “The Answer” has our protagonists renounce the cold Homeworld for a more wild, yet more beautiful Earth, after they reject a plan from godlike powers.

Sucrose saw, and said, it is good.

And with that, the sun rises on their brave new world… a world they’re still trying to figure out…

Where did we go? What did we do?
I think we made something entirely new.
And it wasn’t quite me, and it wasn’t quite you.
I think it was someone entirely new.

“Something Entirely New” divides me very slightly, as to the reason for its existence. On one hand, it just seems somewhat superfluous, particularly with this episode being told in flashback without any sort of overreaching musical elements such as those found in Greg’s backstory. I also think that it’s an excuse to try and skip over the more tense elements of a first relationship. I mean, remember “Love Letters”? “Love takes time, and love takes work.” Then again, this is Garnet depicting herself in the first flush of love. Heck, if you take her original costume for granted, you can tell there was a decent mismatch between the two at first.

And besides, the song ultimately does convey that sense of “holy hell, is this what we found? Is this what we actually did?” I can’t deny that the execution was intriguing – especially in the second half of the song…

Oh… um… well, I just can’t stop thinking.
So… um… did you say I was different?
And you hadn’t before?
Of course not! When would I have ever?
I’m so sorry…
No, no! Don’t be.
…and now you’re here forever!
What about you?
What about me?
Well, you’re here, too. We’re here together.

It really reinforces this idea that Ruby and Sapphire really did not seek out their position in history. What they just did and loved is still alien to them. Much as I decry the simplification of fusion into “science-fictiony sex”, I think the parallels there indicate that there was a similar level of intimacy with this first fusion. One partner is experienced, but this time the circumstances were radically different. The other has never done this kind of thing. Confusion reigns supreme, and there is a hint of shame, but they don’t regret their partnership. Not for a second.

And it’s not seen as randy. In fact, it’s the apex of romanticism. Take a look at those last three lines. Sapphire has basically told Ruby that, no matter what her status back on Homeworld, that she is worthwhile. Honestly, while I prefer some other songs in the Steven Universe canon, these last three lines are so beautifully, romantically democratic. That’s what I love about this show – it manages to be a lovely analysis of close bonds and a celebration of egalitarianism.

The brilliance of this has the two try and take on fusion again, but this time, much more deliberately. The duo create proto-melodies for later songs, which I am really divided on, as it seems somewhat fan-servicey in this regard. However, the rest of the scene is framed so beautifully – how it transforms a relative sense of darkness in a renewed light post-fusion.

With that, Garnet seems ready to take on this newfound Earth… and then she falls straight into the feet of one of the rebels, a terrifying, renegade Pearl… oh, and also the big pink lady. In effect, Garnet is confronted with the women who helped bring her to life, and who saved her components. This unusual fusion, however, seems to bother Garnet more than Rose, who is more intrigued than anything else.

Why?

That is the ultimate question.

“Why am I so sure that I’d rather be this than everything I was supposed to be? And that I’d rather do this than what I was supposed to do?” These first two questions are responded with a simple “Welcome to Earth.” Which I find fascinating as it continues this sort of opaqueness to Rose that remains through the next few seasons.

Following that, we get Garnet trying to perform her own post-mortem. “How was Ruby able to alter fate? Why was Sapphire willing to give up everything? What am I?” Because let’s face it, these questions do seem ripe for deep character analysis. And, if my review is anything to go by (I hope), most of these questions don’t necessarily have simple answers. However, there can be predominant answers, ones that take precedence over all else. As Rose puts it, “Don’t ever question this. You already are the answer.”

Love.

Because, let’s be real here, love makes us do insane things. It’s a trope as old as time itself. In the Red Dwarf episode “Holoship”, the normally self-serving Rimmer rejected the premise that one would give up their career for the one they love… only for him to give up his placement on an advanced holoship to a woman who sacrificed her place for him to advance. To this day, “Holoship” remains one of my favorite episodes of Red Dwarf largely for showing just how altruistic Rimmer could be. This time, there’s that added gravitas of breaking with an entire societal system compared to the mere personal philosophy of prior examples.

Even further, true love is democratic. True love is egalitarian. When it comes to love between consenting adults (and workplace power imbalances don’t count), it doesn’t matter what race, sex, gender, class, etc. you are. What matters is that you treat each other with a certain level of respect, recognize the other’s humanity/agency. That, my friends, is what makes Garnet work. There’s no end game, there’s no hidden agenda… we just have two entities respecting and admiring each other to the point where they merge into a single entity.

And yes, Rose herself is just as enigmatic in this as before. I mean, the fact that she gave Garnet a home when her previous society rejected her is admirable. But I do wonder about her motives. Was she genuinely fascinated by this unprecedented fusion when others were disgusted? Or did she sense the impending disaster and try and use Garnet to strengthen her reserves? This becomes more pressing with the weight of a certain episode that aired recently, but I do think this question was valid beforehand. And besides, that doesn’t make her response to Garnet’s questions any less valid.

TL;DR: Love makes you find yourself.

So, as you can probably tell, “The Answer” is an absolutely fascinating episode. It conveys the concept of a first love admirably, conveys a fascinating sense of artistic style to express symbolism, and reduces the enigmatic aura around the show’s most enigmatic character.

But I have to get back to my original question… is “The Answer” overrated?

The short answer is no. The long answer is no, but while others might LOVE LOVE LOVE it, I merely love it, with one love.

This is more based on preference. I think that more time allotted to the story could’ve allowed for further development between Ruby and Sapphire, maybe to reinforce the “love takes time and love takes work” message seen in “Love Letters”. I also have that tiny je ne sais quoi about the song that makes it slightly less brilliant than other songs in the Steven Universe canon. Lastly, the episode almost verges on being in love with itself, an attitude that I don’t see in the rest of my favorite Steven Universe episodes.

So this ultimately does fall outside of my top 10, up to this episode. But I do quite love it anyway. It’s unique, memorable, and full of fantastic character work. It’s just another example of why Rebecca Sugar and her team, for any flaws that might be present, are so widely admired.

Tidbits:

• Some fans have compared the back half of the episode to Sleeping Beauty, stylistic-wise, with comparisons to Aurora and Prince Phillip’s dance, as well as Garnet’s original style and that of Aurora’s dance. I don’t know if that was particularly intentional. And I don’t think I can accurately comment since I have never watched Sleeping Beauty – closest I’ve gotten was reading reviews on the internet.
• Notice how Blue Diamond scurries out of there as soon as the rebels announce their intent to attack. Nobody that votes for war ever picks up a gun for the conflict they vote for, instead, letting many innocent men and women take bullets? I hope that the consequences of their votes at least ring in their head. Reminds me of a quote from Capt. Edmund Blackadder: “Not even our own generals are mad enough to shell our own men. They think it’s far more sporting to let the Germans do it.”
  • On that note, it’s intriguing how Blue Diamond is portrayed as callous and venal in this episode. Later episodes will add a more tragic aura to her. This, in effect, showcases the impact of point of view. Blue Diamond directly threatened Ruby’s life. Thus, any leniency toward her is out the window.
• Besides “Something Entirely New”, I again have to give props to Aivi and Surrashu for creating such an impeccable original soundtrack. It’s pieces such as “Garnet’s First Fusion” that absolutely leave me gobsmacked.

Wrap-Up:

Favorite Scene: That first fusion is absolutely breathtaking. I mean, breathtaking.

Best Character: Sapphire edges out Ruby here. I dunno, I think she got slightly more fleshed out.

Memorable Quote: “Don’t ever question this. You already are the answer.” – Rose. I think I explain my stance on that quote well above, but I think this is still one of the great thesis statements for Steven Universe.

Verdict: Platinum. For the flaws I did mention, it gets its status by being one of the most unique episodes in the canon. Admirable, admirable, admirable.

As far as the rankings go, it becomes the new barrier for “Platinum” status. It comes in at #14, just under “Cry for Help” and besting “Space Race.” On that note, I have also decided that partially to create a more equal bell curve, “Story For Steven” has been reconsidered and moved into the Gold tier.