Review: Steven Universe “Pool Hopping”

“Paint me like one of your Amethysts”

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

With nobody working the Big Donut due to Sadie being in charge of a band, and Lars being stuck in space, Steven out of curiosity, discovers that Garnet is employed there for the sake of “being random”. I have no clue how she’d get a job there, but I imagine seeing the job Interview for that would’ve been funny. As Steven questions the reason behind this major change, Garnet also goes into an interesting speech about how her prediction powers work in the form of an “object lesson” by using coffee drips on the counter, which help Steven figure out what she’s exactly talking about.

After Garnet immediately quits the job for the sake of randomness, a good portion of the episode is spent on Steven exploring Garnet’s theory of unlikely timelines & possibilities that her precog-vision is incapable of seeing within Beach City. Under Garnet’s guidance, she encourages Steven to do some random & impulsive things until they come across Amethyst’s friend Vidalia (the mother of Onion and Sour Cream) whom out of happenstance is seeking artistic inspiration, so Garnet & Steven decide to do a pose for her next painting, that is until they come across an adorable stray disabled kitten, and out of the sheer randomness that Garnet has been encouraging Steven to embrace, he decides to chase after it to see where it goes which abruptly disrupts Vidalia’s painting session.

Steven & Garnet encounter a small litter of kitten and it’s here we reach a major turning point. It turns out that due to the series of “improbable decisions” Steven made during the events of I Am My Mom, and Lars’ Head, it consequently left Garnet feeling uncertain in regards to the accuracy of her future visions. It’s a side of Garnet we rarely see due to her usually maintaining composure in tough situations, so it’s gotta be overwhelming on her end when people within her circle often come to her for guidance. While Steven may not have all the answers, he helps Garnet out of her personal conundrum by suggesting her to focus on the future they want, instead of the multiple choices presented to her. After deciding to comeback Vidalia’s place with the kittens and Steven setting up a meeting to have an animal shelter pick them up later, Garnet takes Steven’s words to heart and develops a new outlook on her future visions by no longer acknowledging Steven as weak & helpless. And due to the random choices they’ve made throughout this whole experience, the episode ends on a positive & cute note when we see the surprising end-results of those choices before the screen fades.

Our Take

Another filler episode, but this felt essential to Garnet’s character growth. There’s an unpredictable nature about the choices we make sometimes and whether or not they’ll be good ones in the long run. Despite the many predictions Garnet is capable of making that help her stay calm & collected due to her being part-Sapphire, It must’ve been an emotional hell for someone like her to not expect the tough & questionable decisions Steven made that indirectly changed everything in Beach City as exemplified during the events of Dewey Wins, but sometimes those changes don’t always have to be bad ones.

It was also nice to see Vidalia again as she’s often been a fun supporting character who rarely gets any screen time, but this is the first time we’ve seen her interact with Garnet. As for the ending, it was kinda cute what Garnet later does, and I hope to see future episodes further touch upon the last random decision she made after taking Steven’s advice.