'Toon Reviews 6: Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 35

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Here’s another entry of this season whose story leaves a meaningful impact.  The central aspect is Steven wanting to learn more about what his mom was like which is already an emotional conflict.  With Rose Quartz essentially giving up her life just to give birth to her son, Steven really has no way of knowing the real her which is a pretty heavy thing to deal with.  Even with the amount of emotion, new creative aspects to the magical elements and solid comedy fit in seamlessly.  It comes in when Lion hears Steven wonder what his mom was like, leading to scenes of him laying on top of Steven as he sleeps.  The scenes bring most of the cartoon’s comedy from Steven’s annoyed reactions to Lion’s strange behavior.  They also include additional bits of humor like Steven realizing Lion’s on top of him while he’s having a Dogcopter-related dream that cleverly connects with reality and Pearl noticing what Lion’s doing to Steven and sheepishly claims that she likes to watch Steven sleep.  At the same time, there’s a sense of mystery what happens and not just to why Lion keeps doing what he’s doing.  Every time he lays on Steven, Steven wakes up in a strange dimension he can’t breathe in with tall pink grass and a small island in the center.  It’s certainly not an ordinary circumstance, so it’s easy to ponder what the reason for this is.  Cleverly, we get the reason when Steven hugs Lion sending him through Lion’s mane to that same dimension.  It gets even better when the discovery of how to get to the dimension leads to Steven exploring the island set to a beautiful piano piece.  Amongst the various items on the island such as Rose’s sword, the same picture of her and Greg which he also has, a bubbled Gem with a heavy past we go on to meet in a later season, and a treasure chest we still don’t know about, Steven comes across a tape meant for him.  That’s when we get the highlight of the cartoon when Steven watches the tape at the Big Donut with Sadie and finally gets a glimpse of what his mom was like.  We start with a few scenes of her and Greg having fun on the beach, but then comes a beautiful speech from Rose about how wonderful Earth is and how excited she is for Steven to be a part of it.  It’s certainly a moving conclusion to the cartoon that not only demonstrates the appeal of Rose’s loving nature to both Steven and the audience, but also the beauty of the world we live in, and what all our mothers do for us.  It’s especially shown as we end with Sadie calling her mom about how she packs lunches for her as a follow-up to an earlier scene.  Basically, with this powerfully moving conclusion led into by many charming and insightful moments with Steven and all associated with him, of course this cartoon is top-tier material. 10/10

The Ranking

1. Ocean Gem
2. Lion 3: Straight to Video
3. Coach Steven
4. Mirror Gem
5. An Indirect Kiss
6. Space Race
7. So Many Birthdays
8. Steven the Sword Fighter
9. Lion 2: The Movie
10. Bubble Buddies
11. Monster Buddies
12. Laser Light Cannon
13. Giant Woman
14. Lars and the Cool Kids
15. Steven’s Lion
16. Watermelon Steven
17. Gem Glow
18. Steven and the Stevens
19. Island Adventure
20. Rose’s Room
21. Cheeseburger Backpack
22. Secret Team
23. House Guest
24. Serious Steven
25. Joking Victim
26. Beach Party
27. Cat Fingers
28. Tiger Millionaire
29. Together Breakfast
30. Fusion Cuisine
31. Frybo
32. Onion Trade
33. Arcade Mania
34. Garnet’s Universe
35. Keep Beach City Weird

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode featuring the debut of another Gem outside of the Crystal Gems (at first at least) in "Warp Tour."

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