Healy wrote:Man, I hope you guys were watching the latest two episodes of Steven Universe! The brobdingnagian encounter we were waiting for all week, the confirmation of a fan-favorite fan theory, Garnet sings! and one of the nastiest, just barely kid-friendly ways for a villain to go. (Not that I don't expect to see them again, of course.)
oh mah gawd it was so good. Enough people are talking about the show now that I think its earned its own thread.
This post will be basically entirely spoilers up to and including Jailbreak and I really don't like doing entire post spoiler tags so I'm going to do this without unless for some reason people complain.
These episodes were fantastic. Since the introduction of Peridot (and reinforced by Lapis' message) I've been thinking about how with how common the 'ancient advanced species separated from home' (I'm sure tv tropes has a better name for that) the idea that the current technology would blow them away doesn't come up enough. They followed through with it well too.
It will always frustrate me when the bad guys have an obviously superior weapon but ditch it as soon as the good guys but stop using it when the first attack isn't immediately successful, but other than that they kept the suspense high from the start of The Return through most of Jailbreak. The "everything will be okay moment" didn't show up for me until the generically evil announcement by Jasper that teamwork is for losers who aren't strong enough on their own.
Square Mom's song felt a little weak at first but first thing this morning I pulled the episode back up to watch it again. Ruby & Sapphire's fusion felt perfect in the way that Steven U always gets it. The animation, the line delivery and the direction just did a perfect job of showing the perfect ecstasy of the two being back together. We know that Sugilite took over Garnet and Amethyst's personalities completely after only about a day together, and these are two gems that have wanted nothing more than to be together, and have been, for millennia. Every bit of their reactions before and after the fusion show this off without sacrificing individual personalities.
My only real complaint is the ending and how they handled Lapis Lazuli. Yes, Malachite's ultimate fate was pretty hardcore, and I'm totally fine with finally delivering the Connie punchline after it because, again, the animation sells their real emotions. But everything about the rushed feeling of the C. Gems giving up on Lapis an the cut to her resigned look then suddenly the gems are back in feel good party mode as soon as they get out of the wreckage. It really stole away from the mirror gem / ocean gem reveal that the C. Gems are capable of some very dark stuff and Steven is their conscience from me that her presumed death was written off so easily. Then they follow it up with a fusion that happened and sustained with practically no effort despite the reluctance of both parties. I'm ready to forgive that as just something these heartless gems are somehow capable of, but all together this is the first scene that I really feel was shoe-horned in without a strong connection to the narrative.
Anyone else spend way too much time thinking about this yet?