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(THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS, SO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK)

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say Heart Of The Crystal Gems has been one of the biggest and most striking arcs in this show’s entire run. The buzz around them has been huge, especially after the show dropped one of its biggest revelations since we found out Garnet is a fusion way back at the end of season 1 during the last episode, A Single Pale Rose. 

The centrepiece of the previews and the like for this arc has been the way it’s affecting Ruby and Sapphire, who were shown unfusing and fighting after finding out the truth about Rose. As far as I’m concerned, it’s understandable why they’d do this, given how immense an effect meeting Rose had on them and the fact that they consistently seemed the most admiring of her out of the Crystal Gems. While I do think getting to see Steven’s reaction in a lot of detail would’ve been nice, it’s not like he’d be so hurt since we’ve already seen him show some cynicism towards Rose, especially in episodes like Storm in the Room; he’s gravitated towards trying to support the people in his life now before this point.

The other big thing getting a lot of attention, and rightly so, is Ruby and Sapphire’s wedding, the first explicit gay marriage on children’s TV. Steven Universe has kinda always been ahead of the curve with queer representation, and fortunately almost everyone seems to agree it’s genuinely wonderful to see them take that up a notch. But does the rest of the bomb live up to that? Well, read on to find out.

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Now We’re Only Falling Apart

One of the things I thought was a bit of a shame about A Single Pale Rose, in retrospect, was the way it turned Garnet’s hopeful monologue about Rose’s story from Your Mother And Mine into a bit of a damp squib, since it seemed to be based on a lie. Now We’re Only Falling Apart actually serves to fix this, and to my mind, does a great job.

After Sapphire berates Ruby and runs off to Rose’s fountain in tears, Steven and Pearl follow her, with Pearl explaining the truth about why Pink became Rose. It’s actually fairly close to the backstory explained in Your Mother And Mine: Pink saw the beauty of the colony and her subjects, and wanted to save it from destruction, but trying to persuade her superiors was useless and she had to resort to drastic measures. The difference is instead of a lone Rose Quartz fighting her superiors, it’s Pink discovering what she’s destined to do and rejecting it, finding a better destiny through others, especially the denizens of Earth and, it’s finally revealed, Garnet.

Interestingly, we see it was Pearl who first started Pink off on the path to becoming Rose, suggesting she could go down and see the colony in the first place (although Pink clearly changed her too, given her extremely literal interpretation of what Pink says used for comedy in this episode is a trait which she mostly grew out of). We also get to see some moments showing her infatuation with Rose, especially when she persuades Rose to try to fuse with her after the two meet Garnet.

In effect, this retelling of the story is interesting as it shifts the focus away from one source and makes it less focused on hero-worship of Rose; Pearl even actively acknowledges Rose didn’t necessarily do the most mature thing sometimes. Overall, to my mind it’s a very strong start to the bomb, giving a lot more depth to Rose as a character, and has some really neat moments for Sapphire as well (particularly her freezing much of the floor of the Temple and then Rose’s fountain to symbolize her fear and disgust).

It’s a nicely-executed, engaging episode, although I can definitely understand people getting annoyed about the revisionism of Rose’s past (in the same way I get people being annoyed by Luke’s characterization in Last Jedi- I get it, but I don’t agree at all).

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What’s Your Problem

I don’t think I’ve been so conflicted after watching an SU episode for quite a while. I can definitely say I liked more about What’s Your Problem than I disliked about it, and to be honest I kinda related to it in a lot of ways, although I think it had its flaws.

After finding out Ruby has run away, Steven sets out to find her, roping in Amethyst to help him. After looking around town for her, the two get lunch and talk through how what they found out about Rose has affected them, with Steven trying to work out how Amethyst feels about the situation and Amethyst being determined to have him admit to being worried.

In a way, it’s sort of a fight between two people determined to bottle up their feelings to help the other, and Amethyst’s speech at the end, in which she declares she just wants everyone to realize they shouldn’t have to shoulder the blame of what Rose did and that they can acknowledge the awfulness of the bad things and then move on, is a pretty neat encapsulation of what I was hoping the show would argue, although I don’t think it’s without fault; Amethyst’s earlier rant in the pizza place came off as her saying she didn’t want to help, although given how hard talking about such emotional topics off the cuff is, I can see why she wouldn’t be totally coherent. 

On top of that, once again we get some neat symbolism (Amethyst asking Steven to get off her back and then out of her head when she turns into a helicopter), and in a way I’m kinda grateful the show gave more screentime to both Steven’s feelings about the Pink Diamond revelation and to Amethyst more generally, since she hasn’t been much of a focal point lately. So all in all, a decent episode for what it’s worth, if a bit weaker than most of the rest of this season.

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The Question

One episode you’re down, the next you’re right back up again. I absolutely loved this episode, even if it took me a little while to get the drift of what it was doing, and it’s probably the sweetest episode we’ve seen in a long time.

When Steven and Amethyst finally get to talk to Ruby, she declares she wants to try and live for herself without Sapphire and without being Garnet, and despite Steven’s misgivings, Greg agrees to drive them out to the prairie so she can try out what she wants to do: being a cowboy like a character from one of her comic books.

While that might sound silly, it was foreshadowed in the last episode, and more importantly, leads to a really fun story. It takes the audience’s expectations about Ruby going back to Sapphire and flips them completely on their head, with Ruby being allowed time to try something else and then think over how she feels about Sapphire.

It’s a really nicely executed episode and gets across a really important message- sometimes people need a bit of time apart in a relationship to appreciate their partner, especially if they’ve had a fight and lost sight of why they need each other. That doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t love each other anymore, just that they might have to resolve their differences on their own before they can talk again.

On top of all that, Ruby’s song, ‘Ruby Rider’, is a sweet and cheesy Western-style song, and it’s just really kind of fun to see the show do something this out-there with its story progression. And of course, what’s not to like at the first lesbian proposal in the history of children’s animation?

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Made Of Honor

Bismuth has become a major point of contention in the show because of the values she espoused and the conflict she had with Steven when she was originally introduced in the hundredth episode, and I can just imagine the mouth-foaming rage of a certain subset of the fandom in response to Made Of Honor. Then again, it’s rare that they’re right, and today is no exception.

When Sapphire gets regretful that there are so few Gems left to see their marriage, Steven decides to unbubble Bismuth, tell her the truth about Rose and invite her to the wedding. But Bismuth is reluctant to just saunter back into the Crystal Gems’ lives, so Steven has to convince her they’ll take her back.

Effectively, Made Of Honor is a sort of breather episode between the major turning point in Garnet’s arc represented by The Question and the intensely built-up arc-ender Reunited, and does something I like seeing the show do occasionally: taking a small number of characters and focusing on their dilemmas for an episode, sort of in the same vein as Storm In The Room or Can’t Go Back. 

It’s an understandable move: in the wake of the Pink Diamond revelation, her feud with Bismuth over whether using weapons to shatter other Gems can be seen in a whole different light, and Rose’s reasons for not wanting her to use it make more sense not only because she had more of a personal connection to the Diamonds and Homeworld Gems than Bismuth originally realized, but because Rose’s arc as we’ve seen it play out shows even people of extreme privilege and selfishness are not irredeemable and can change in the right circumstances. 

I do see why people take issue with the show taking this stance for coming across as paradox of tolerance-y, but I feel like a lot of those critics forget a significant aspect of the show’s ethos is teaching tolerance and respect for people who are different to children, and things like the argument Bismuth was racist because she’s black-coded seem kinda shaky claims to me (I mean, Garnet is also black-coded and is never treated the same way).

On the whole, I think this episode did a good job of re-introducing Bismuth and recontextualising her feud with Rose in a more explicit way, plus it had some funny and charming moments (particularly from Peridot, who it’s nice to see get a little more screen presence for the first time in a while). Now on to the grand finale! (But not the season finale, since this season has another two episodes afterwards thanks to Cartoon Network’s bizarre formatting.)

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Reunited

If A Single Pale Rose saw the biggest revelation the show has seen since we found out Garnet was a fusion, Reunited harkens back to Jail Break in a similar sense: it’s the third double-length special of the show, by far the most intense episode to date and, in my view, one of the best.

Ruby and Sapphire finally get their wedding, and with practically every resident of Beach City in attendance, it goes wonderfully until the ships of Yellow and Blue Diamond show up, reawaken the Cluster under Earth and attempt to destroy the Gems for good. The three ad breaks of this episode effectively serve to separate it into discernible parts, so try and discuss it effectively, I’ll do the same.

The first act is dominated by Garnet’s wedding, with a really sweet song from Steven, ‘Let’s Only Think About Love’, cute moments for a whole bunch of characters (especially Steven, Ruby and Sapphire), some very funny moments (like Steven shaving his one facial hair, Peridot aggressively throwing the flowers to each guest and Garnet throwing the bouquet) and of course, the piece de resistance of Ruby and Sapphire actually getting married, which is a really sweet sequence.

Most of the middle of this episode is taken up by the Gems fighting Blue and Yellow Diamond, and I personally enjoyed it a lot. It's intense and memorable, and practically the whole regular cast gets a moment of badassery that plays to their characters in a really satisfying way, with my favourite parts being getting to see Connie try to take on Blue Diamond when everyone else is paralyzed by her and continue to fight on with the Gems even after Rose’s sword gets destroyed (another nice bit of symbolism), and Lapis coming back to face the Diamonds having realized they can’t be worse than the trauma she’s already been through (a fantastic coda to her arc this season, in my opinion). Greg got a number of moments that were hilarious too, especially offering to try ‘the old Mr Universe charm’ on Blue Diamond and putting Steven to sleep with a few notes of a lullaby. My only real gripe would be that the Cluster is underused, basically being a background element to keep Yellow Diamond off the Gems’ back.

After Steven gets knocked out, he gets sent into an astral projection and gives the other Gems the will to fight, a sequence which I can see people taking issue with since it’s not exactly a clearly defined power of his, but then again, we’ve seen Steven have visions and emotionally connect with people through his dreams before in episodes like Chille Tid, Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service and Jungle Moon, so I’m willing to accept this as a natural extension of that. Seeing him try to physically muscle through Yellow and Blue’s resistance to him to make them realize he is Pink Diamond is almost as intense as the actual fight, and the revelation finally hitting home to them is a great cliffhanger, as it seems set to completely change the dynamic of recurring characters on the show for the first time since Peridot’s redemption arc began.

So yeah, on the whole probably not just my favourite episode of Heart Of The Crystal Gems and my favourite double-length episode, but a strong contender for my favourite of the season or possibly even the show overall. It’s intense, memorable, a blast to watch and just as the cherry on top leaves the audience with another seismic shift to the show’s dynamics.

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Conclusion

Even if you didn’t enjoy it (and personally, I really did), there’s no denying Heart Of The Crystal Gems is a crucial milestone for the show. It’s featured a number of massive turning points for the show’s cast, twists in the storyline and extremely memorable sequences and is set to lead into yet another substantial change for the next set of episodes. 

But on top of that, I personally thought it was a blast, with all the episodes being fun to watch, having some memorable, funny and charming moments, and some really great development off the back of the Pink Diamond revelation which has resulted in character dynamic changes that would’ve been unimaginable for much of the rest of the series, or if the plot twist had been different. 

I’m once again not sure where the show’s story will go, but I’m absolutely on board for the ride. One thing’s for sure: I’d appreciate it if we got new episodes before next year, Cartoon Network…