Review: Steven Universe “Lion 4: Alternate Ending”

I’m surprised VCR’s are still a thing on this show.

Spoilers Below

The episode begins as Steven tries to look for possible hidden messages from an old heartfelt video associated with his late mother Rose from the episode “Lion 3: Straight to Video“. Steven tends to overthink whether or not a hidden message is even there at all until Lion starts to cough something up out which turns out to be a large pink magical key. After cleaning it up, the rest of the episode is spent on Steven accessing the various gem-related realms he can primarily enter but none of them provide an answer. Steven eventually convinces Lion to take him “somewhere new” which turns out to be the realm where Lion was found and Lion proceeds to take him to a palace where the key is designed to be used.

As Steven opens this door, it turns out to be a “trash dump” full of random junk. When Steven kicks a baseball helmet in frustration, he finds a VHS tape buried in the sand with the words “For Nora” which leaves Steven wondering if he has a sibling or not, so Lion teleports him to Greg’s present location. Steven shows his father Greg the tape asking what it all means and Greg immediately recognizes it. The footage reveals that since neither of them knew what gender the baby would be, a female name was picked in case Steven turned out to be a girl which was “Nora” and the video was meant for her but of course “Nora Universe” doesn’t sound quite as catchy.

Steven is left further puzzled because he believes there’s a “Magical Destiny” out there for him but Greg assures him that regardless of what gender he could’ve been, the future remains so uncertain that not even Garnet could predict what gender Steven would be either. The episode ends on a heartfelt note when Steven realizes his purpose wasn’t predetermined, but to just be the child of two loving people.

Our Take

On a personal level, we’ve all questioned how our lives would turn out if something different happened to us. Any parent who actually prepares for childbirth knows that it’s an unpredictable genetic lottery. To quote “Mewtwo” from the Pokemon movie: “The circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.” And I think that’s what Steven took away from all this.