Review: Steven Universe “Serious Steven”

So, what happens when Steven gets serious? Get all of the details after the jump!

Spoilers Below

Steven and the Gems are going to the ancient Gem battlefield, where they find an upside-down pyramid. They reach the inside of the pyramid, and Steven finds a floating mini one on a pedestal. He touches it, and causes the whole chamber to flip. They wind up in another chamber, with 16 doors. The gems decide for Steven to go with Garnet, and Amethyst and Pearl split. Garnet and Steven face a room where they have to stay on the lighted squares. Steven makes it but falls when the room rumbles. That causes the floor to shatter, revealing a firey death. Steven falls in, but Garnet catches him. They get into the next room, where Steven pushes in a picture, which reveals spiked ceilings. Steven and Garnet start to make their way through until Steven drops his ukulele.  Garnet activates her powers and blocks the spikes.

Steven gets a lapse of normal Steven when he sits there to re-tune his ukulele. Garnet urges him to finish the room instead. They make it out, but Steven has a mini-breakdown, where he has a flashback to the teacup ride incident from a couple of weeks ago. He wakes up after Garnet gets them across the room. They make it, and they’re back where they started. Pearl arrives and is a little disturbed. Amethyst is flying through the rooms and is definitely gone. Steven realizes that the rooms are spinning, just like the teacups. Garnet catches on and smashes the floor. Everyone lands on a spinning platform, and Garnet launches Seven into the pillar in the middle and grabs the gem that has powered it. It explodes, and everything works out. Well, except for Steven, where he gets attacked by butterflies.

This episode finally has them on the track to collect gems. We got it on the first episode, then got slowly sidetracked to develop more characters. That’s, hopefully, done for the interim. I am still holding out hope that there is something of an overarching story, but my hopes are slowly getting dashed. It’s ok because all of the episodes thus far have been excellent. Steven’s coming of age realization is that sometimes it’s ok to throw up, and cause a teacup explosion because you didn’t want to throw up. You never know when that knowledge is going to help you later.

Garnet finally showed a softer side while trying to protect Steven. It was cute. Rebecca Sugar is knocking it out of the park, and the development of the characters are great. You don’t get the development of characters this fast, and it’s rather refreshing. Steven trying to be serious for a change is funny because even when he’s trying to be, he is far from it. I wonder how long it’s going to take for him to finally get his powers, though. I know it will be a season finale type of thing, but I hope it comes sooner.  They are going to need to do something so the show doesn’t go stagnate.