Wednesday, May 29, 2019

The New Crystal Gems (Steven Universe Season 4 Episode 15) - 'Toon Reviews 29

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The New Crystal Gems


It’s easy to forget how big the cast of this show really is.  A good reminder is the possibility of cartoons that bring together characters you’ve never seen interact with before.  That’s a huge selling point with this cartoon featuring the first team up of one of the most important human characters, Connie, with major supporting Gems, Peridot and Lapis.
Everything goes down in a flashback highlighting what went on back home while Steven and the main Crystal Gems were going to the human zoo.  This gives potential to see how well these characters can take on the task of their usual task of protecting humanity, or at least help Beach City in some way.  Ultimately, what they ended up doing while in the role of the Crystal Gems was kind of lacking in scope and action. Rather than doing something like protecting people in deadly situations or stopping a corrupted Gem, Connie, Peridot, and Lapis basically did menial work by running the carwash. 
Disappointing as this is, there are plenty of factors to make this direction work.  While Connie has had experience dealing with heavy Gem missions, protecting humanity is somewhat new to Peridot and Lapis.  Sure, Peridot had a hand in stopping the Cluster, but that didn’t involve directly interacting or helping people, and was different from the Crystal Gems’ usual work.  They can’t really do the usual tasks if they can’t help with little things like managing a carwash.  Plus, since Lapis and Peridot's thing is observing and trying to understand the customs of Earth, this whole event turns out to be a pretty fun display of their thought process.  Peridot getting analytical over the concept of working as the Crystal Gems team is a humorous approach with a slightly off conclusion that it means acting as someone on the team.  Plus, her ego where she believes she should be the strongest of the group, Garnet, makes for a few humorous lines.  Lapis even gets a good laugh by playing her part and showing that she can tell who's who, which is big considering her complicated relationship with the Crystal Gems. 
At first, this setup was effective as they impressed the carwash customers by running things with their powers, particularly Peridot’s metal controlling and Lapis’ use of water.  This is the true way to manage things in Beach City by being true to themselves.  Eventually, acting as other characters turned more important than doing a great job.  Desperate attempts for Peridot to be the best and Lapis trying too hard to be funny like Amethyst just caused a lot of commotion and destruction.  This is where the cartoon starts losing points for being so quick to turn away from a productive practice for actions that obviously wouldn’t work.  Further boneheaded was Peridot and Lapis fighting over dominance without regard for anyone and Connie being too awkward to give a speech as good as Steven’s. 
Thankfully this part is short and Connie eventually did what was best by pointing out logical solutions.  It was because of her that everyone realized that acting as people they’re not is not as effective as doing their own thing.  This put everyone on the right track through at least cleaning up the mess and making a new carwash sign as who they really are, the Crystal Temps. 
Ultimately, the light-hearted story doesn’t make this cartoon stand as monumental as it could be.  Still, it brings plenty of good for Connie, Lapis, and Peridot to prove their worth as part of the team with mostly strong chemistry all throughout.  It’s a fun show of characters be they human or Gem.
A-
Season 4 Ranking

1.      Mindful Education

2.      That Will Be All

3.      Steven’s Dream

4.      Last One Out of Beach City

5.      The Zoo

6.      Gem Heist

7.      Gem Harvest

8.      Three Gems and a Baby

9.      Adventures in Light Distortion

10.  Buddy’s Book

11.  Know Your Fusion

12.  The New Crystal Gems

13.  Kindergarten Kid

14.  Future Boy Zoltron

15.  Onion Gang

The next Steven Universe review plays more to the show's strengths as Steven deals with the emotional turmoil brought by his questions of his mother by finding a way to talk with her in Rose's room.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Gown and Out" and "Breaking Dad" from The Loud House.
If you would like to check out other Steven Universe reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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