Review: Steven Universe “Rocknaldo”

Did this week’s episode rock?

Spoilers Below

Steven comes across Ronaldo handing out pamphlets on the boardwalk. The pamphlets are warning people to beware the rock people, who sound an awful lot like the Crystal Gems. At first, Ronaldo swears that the rock people and the Gems are two separate entities. It isn’t until Steven points out that the Gems do everything these rock people do that Ronaldo realizes that he mixed them up. That is when Ronaldo decides that he will become a Gem. The Gems reluctantly accept Ronaldo into their group.

Now living at the house, Bloodstone, Ronaldo’s Gem name, becomes intolerable. He frequently criticizes everything that Steven does. Eventually, Steven explodes on him. After Steven’s reprimand, Ronaldo passes out from a lack of sleep. The Gems take him back to the boardwalk.

Three weeks later, Steven finds Ronaldo again. Ronaldo realizes that he behaved poorly and apologizes to Steven. Instead of being a Crystal Gem, Ronaldo promises to help the Gems by distributing a pro-Crystal Gem pamphlet.

After the excitement of the past handful of episodes, this one was pretty darn boring. I suppose it was nice to see how humans might see the alien Gems but Ronaldo isn’t really the best of the humans in Beach City. This would have been better if it was literally any other human in town.