Just because a cartoon focuses on strong parts of the series,
in this case fusion and Steven and Connie’s friendship, doesn’t mean it’s
going be strong. This cartoon is still
fine, but some choices keep it down from being something great. For starters, we’ve heard bits of how Connie
has strict parents in her previous appearances, and this cartoon brings the
issue to the forefront. It turns out
that Connie has become so desperate to have her parents permit her to hang out
with Steven that she told them he has a nuclear family when in fact he only has
a dad and three guardians. Following an awkward
funny moment of Garnet posing as Steven’s mom when Connie’s mom is on the
phone, both families plan to go out to dinner to get better acquainted. From all this, the whole conflict has been
fueled by a boneheaded move of Connie lying to her parents about Steven. Seriously, what’s strange about having a
single parent and/or guardians?
Regarding fusion, even more stupidity occurs when Steven, figuring that
all the Crystal Gems have strong mom factors, decides to combine them all by
having Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl fuse into Alexandrite. This makes for an unbelievable scenario of
Steven appearing to have a regular-sized dad and a huge, multicolored mom, yet
Connie’s parents don’t see anything suspicious about this. As for Alexandrite herself, compared to other
fusions we’ve seen, she’s not very interesting or visually pleasing mostly
because the Gems making her up are constantly at odds during the whole ordeal,
especially with Pearl being hesitant of eating.
We also don’t get to see any interesting powers of her since she’s only
required to attend a dinner party. Now,
Connie’s parents finally realize the act when Alexandrite unfuses, and after
they berate Connie for lying to them, we do get a nice scene of Steven rushing
to support his friend. It too has
stupidity of both of them deciding to run away because of what happened, but
their care for each other is still apparent.
They get stopped though which sadly gets Steven harshly grounded from TV
for 1000 years which is enforced until the early part of the following season. I get it was wrong for him to consider
running away, but the Gems should consider that he had good intentions. Plus, I know that they don’t feel the effects
of time the way humans do, but since Steven is half human, they should know
that 1000 years is way too long for him to be punished. Despite these concerns, it’s at least nice
that their strictness convinces Connie’s parents to let her continue to hang
out with Steven. In the end, I can’t
fault the many nice and occasionally funny moments of this cartoon which make
it good overall, but there sadly are a fair number of detracting factors I
can’t ignore. 7/10
The Ranking
- Ocean Gem
- Coach Steven
- Mirror Gem
- An Indirect Kiss
- Space Race
- So Many Birthdays
- Steven the Sword Fighter
- Lion 2: The Movie
- Bubble Buddies
- Monster Buddies
- Laser Light Cannon
- Giant Woman
- Lars and the Cool Kids
- Steven’s Lion
- Gem Glow
- Steven and the Stevens
- Island Adventure
- Rose’s Room
- Cheeseburger Backpack
- Secret Team
- House Guest
- Serious Steven
- Joking Victim
- Beach Party
- Cat Fingers
- Tiger Millionaire
- Together Breakfast
- Fusion Cuisine
- Frybo
- Onion Trade
- Arcade Mania
- Keep Beach City Weird
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Steven's childlike mindset is placed in the forefront as he spends the runtime interpreting "Garnet's Universe."
If you would like to check out other reviews on this blog, click here for the guide to all the reviews posted so far. 
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