It’s been weeks since I last saw an episode of Steven Universe. Guess they were on hiatus. It shows, too, because they came back with a revamped intro.
For a while they’ve been moving Connie into a more important role as her relationship with Steven grows. This one sort of takes that and runs with it. It’s been implied that she’s good with a sword before now. And when she fends off a bunch of seagulls diving for Steven’s snack using he violin bow, it jogs Steven’s memory. He just then remembers that Pearl knows all about swordplay and could probably teach Connie.
Pearl is naturally reluctant to teach her at first, but warms up to the idea after Steven lists off the times she’s helped him and Connie expresses her desire to protect her home planet. She drags them onto the teleported and takes them to an ancient Gem arena that housed some of the earliest battles of the revolution on Earth. As Pearl hands Connie a sword, she pontificates on the nature of being a knight, dedicated to a cause , listing off the ideals of the class.
She tells Connie to treat Steven as her liege, and then summons one of the training holograms. You know, one of the ones that fucking stabbed her through the heart last time. Steven immediately bubbles on reflex
We get a training montage and a song. The song, in and of itself, is pretty good. I’m not sure who wrote it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Rebecca Sugar had at least a hand in it directly, as she certainly has a talent for lyrics that stick in your head. Notably, the song is in part something of a summation of what proper swordsmanship requires; proper stance, swift footwork, focus.
Steven starts to get worried, however, as much of the rhetoric Pearl is teaching revolves around reducing one’s sense of self for the sake of someone else (in this case Steven) mixed with a willingness to die for the sake of that person or a cause. So much so, that he tries to find a way to talk to Connie before her next training session.
They teleport away before he can express his concerns. Garnet and Amethyst show up and ask him what’s wrong, and he fills them in on the situation. Garnet explains that the reason Pearl is teaching Connie that way is due to the fact that that is how she fought for Steven’s mother; constantly jumping into harm’s way for the sake of Rose and getting brutally injured time and time again at the risk of her own destruction. Steven realizes what this means, and hops on the transporter.
He gets to the arena just in time for Connie’s test to begin, with the arena becoming shrouded in fog. He steps onto the battlefield to begin searching for her, coming across a hologram first. Connie dispatches it, and they finally have their chat. They decide that they will work as a team. Pearl is not happy about this, as she’s conflated her feelings for Rose with her belief in Steven as Rose’s legacy, which explains why she taught Connie the way she did. They have a brief fight, with Pearl coming out the victor; she doesn’t want them working together, as she believes that in a real fight they might not be together. After all, Steven is too important in her mind to be fighting at all. She’s totally confused Steven for Rose by this point, as evidenced by the little Freudian slip she lets out in regards to protecting Rose.
After Pearl’s meltdown, Steven and Connie walk over to her. Steven tells her that the whole “you’re nothing” part of her regimen really freaked him out, and Connie asks if Rose made Pearl feel that way. Pearl, however, tells them that she felt as if she was everything to Rose, and that’s why she protected Rose the way she did. She resolves to teach them both the right way, and tells Steven he has a lot of catching up to do.
This was a pretty good episode. It had an awesome song, and it dealt with a bit more of Pearl’s feelings in regards to Rose. And I also find it interesting that Steven and Connie are in sort of a Knight & Guardian Jumi relationship, which is interesting as there are a lot of parallels between the Gems and the Jumi from Legend of Mana.
Final Thoughts:
– The Gem they keep showing Pearl fighting (and losing to) looks a lot like Jasper.
– It’s darkly hilarious that Pearl forgets that humans don’t regenerate when mortally wounded.
– not exactly a coincidence, but the Jumi had someone named Pearl too…
About Author
