Since the last time Steven and Connie fused, it’s been brought up only a few times. Well, now Greg knows.
Steven and Connie are helping Greg organize his record collection. Connie makes note of the fact that, as her parents keep nothing but classical music in the house, she’s never heard of any of the bands they’re helping him sort through. Greg takes the one she happens to be holding (The Philosophy Majors. Hahaha) and drops the needle on it. Connie and Steven start dancing, and wind up fusing.
His reaction causes them to cancel the fusion. He can’t believe that they can fuse, and Steven tells him that the Gems think it’s because he’s half human. Connie is worried that he’s going to tell her parents, who certainly wouldn’t understand half the shit she’s been involved in. Greg puts her fears to rest, telling her that he’s probably one of the only people on the planet that actually understands all of it. S6teven pretty much demands story time, and Greg takes them back to the ?0’s (probably 80‘s) by popping in an old VHS.
Yeah, Amethyst strikes me as a drummer. Anyway, Rose and Greg sing a duet of sorts, and Pearl is noticeably absent from the lineup. That’s because she’s stewing slightly offstage. It’s been hinted that Pearl had feelings for Rose that were never really returned in kind. This pretty much seals it, because here you can tell that she really doesn’t like Greg budging in on her territory. So, in the middle of the song, she goes up to Rose and convinces her to fuse. To his credit, Greg keeps shredding until they come apart and Pearl drops the mic.
After Rose and Garnet leave, he pays off Amethyst with a bag of pop rocks. Pearl rubs in the fact that, to Rose, Greg is just soup de jour, a passing dalliance. Greg counters that he doesn’t know that, but he knows Rose is into him. Pearl tells him that he knows nothing about Rose, and he’s just a novelty because he’s human. She tells him she knows this because humans can’t fuse. He asks her if any human had ever tried fusing with a Gem. She says there hasn’t, and Greg resolves to be the first and drops the mic. Pearl walks off, and Greg realizes that microphones are expensive what was he doing ohmygod.
Later on, he’s going through the tape, trying (and failing) to imitate Pearl’s dance moves. Amethyst and Garnet show up, and Amethyst is hyped about the concept of video technology. He tells them that he’s trying to wrap his head around the whole fusion dance thing. Garnet tells him that he literally doesn’t have the means necessary to accomplish it, and Greg starts to have a breakdown. Garnet hurls a stick for Amethyst to fetch, and kneels down to give him some advice. She believes he can do it, but not if he imitates Pearl. He has to be himself.
Later, Rose shows up, and Greg sets an album to play. They dance, he leads the dance to a small stack of equipment he set up, and they kiss. Greg realizes aloud that they failed to fuse, and that sends Rose into laughter. She flat out tells him that it’s impossible for them to fuse. He finally opens up about his worries about the future of their relationship, but she can’t take anything he’s saying seriously. He can’t take it and asks if they could just talk like real people, which causes a full stop in everything around them. This leads Greg to the realization that she really is an alien and that they’re so different it just might not work. They embrace each other, and talk. Apparently, the story of how Rose met the others is a long one, and this is an 11 minute show.
Their conversation leads to Whether Rose had ever loved, or rather, been in love with, a human before. He describes the process as torture, and she asks him if being with her is torture, to which he tells her that it is. She’s confuse, he’s confused, they have something in common. Pearl, behind a rock on the beach, sees them dancing again and wonders why they’re bothering when it didn’t work the last time. Garnet tells her that it did work, but Pearl simply doesn’t understand. She comes to the conclusion that she was no longer Rose’s favorite. Back in the present, Greg offers his ear to Connie, since the whole gems and humans thing is still pretty new.
Oh, hey, another song I’m going to find myself humming for the next week. Stupid musical Steven Universe staff, co-opting my subconscious. This episode was much lighter than the last, though, and I’d argue that was necessary.
Final Thoughts:
- Everyone knows that a fusion dance only works between two people with similar power levels.
- Orange Magic Orchestra is the most delightfully thinly veiled ELO reference ever.
- Shit, Garnet was the only one that both approved and understood Greg and Rose’s relationship.
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