Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Now We're Only Falling Apart (Steven Universe Season 5 Episode 19) - 'Toon Reviews 29

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Now We’re Only Falling Apart


It goes without saying that the recent reveal that Rose Quartz was actually Pink Diamond putting on a façade is a major shakeup to showcase the boldness of the main plot.  However, with it come a few unfortunate implications.  She was in charge of Earth’s colonization yet stopped it by starting a war that took the lives of many Gems when she could have just ended it herself.  Is Pearl’s love for her even reasonable now that it’s known that she was a servant for her?  More importantly, were all those statements of how beautiful life on Earth is true? 

With all these uncertainties, it’s great that this cartoon, coming immediately after “A Single Pale Rose” deals with all of these concerns.  It also starts a trend of showing how each Crystal Gem deals with the reveal that their original leader was not who she said he was.  As a culmination of her flawed retelling of Rose’s backstory and having problems with her future vision, Garnet becomes so hurt by this reveal that she unfuses.  In a major twist, it’s Sapphire who’s hurt about it while Ruby’s desperate to reason with her.  A big reason for this is because Sapphire never looked into Rose and just listened to her so she's led to believe that everything, including her and Ruby’s relationship was a lie.  She even harshly tells Ruby that she can never know anything ahead of time just before she runs off.  Steven and Pearl eventually track her down to settle all the concerns, for since Pearl’s seal is broken with Steven figuring out the truth, she’s free to explain everything about Pink. 
Settling one concern to her relationship with Rose, she starts by saying she was given to Pink Diamond instead of made for her like all Pearls are.  A flashback shows that she was even able to think for herself, with her addresses to Pink seeming like she was trying to follow a standard instead of them coming naturally.  We also see more of the true Pink where rather than being an all-out dictator, she was quite innocent and fun-loving, finding running a colony to be very boring.  With the announcement of even the slightest activity on Earth, that was enough to excite her.  Pearl even becomes pro-active by coming up with a plan for Pink to go down and explore it while shapeshifted into a Quartz soldier so Yellow and Blue wouldn’t notice. 
So far, it appears that Pink’s actions were all in the name of fun which isn’t much better than what’s known, but her reported feelings on Earth soon became genuine.  It was also Pearl who convinced Pink to explore more of the planet beyond the Kindergartens, and Pink’s reactions to the plants and organic beings is full of true appreciation.  It also shows that for all of her desires for excitement, Pink was able to find out things other Diamonds don’t know or care about.  They’re not making life, they’re taking it. 
It’s also here where the Gem War has a legit cause when Pink actually tried to talk the other Diamonds into letting her stop the colony, but they wouldn’t let her.  This was the main reason she changed her form into Rose full time, and while the Gem War was still not the best decision, its occurrence does make sense.  Things don’t even stop there when it turns out that seeing Ruby and Sapphire fuse for the first time further influenced her.  In addition to convincing Pearl to show affection to Pink, who had long since stopped being a dictator by now, without being told to do so, Pink’s goal was set up. She would fight for Earth and the liberties of all Gems to do things like fuse with different Gems.  Directly tying itself to events of “The Answer” by meeting up with Garnet after coming to this conclusion helps too. 

The expansion on Pink Diamond’s story turns out to be quite inspirational with lesser Gems being revealed to move the actions of a Diamond.  It makes it easy to handle the reveal if any legit concerns turn people off from it.  The only thing holding it back is that there are several instances that bring to mind many grand-scale cartoons like the previous one and “The Answer.”  With them in mind, it’s hard to shake off how this doesn’t measure up to them with standard staging and not as much artistic or emotional integrity.  Plus, you just can’t help but wish it would reveal more, such as who Pearl belonged to before she was given to Pink.  Other than that, this is a very worthy follow-up to the biggest reveal of the series to date.
A

Season 4 Ranking

1.      I Am My Mom

2.      Storm in the Room

3.      Mindful Education

4.      That Will Be All

5.      Steven’s Dream

6.      Last One Out of Beach City

7.      Are You My Dad?

8.      The Zoo

9.      The Good Lars

10.  Gem Heist

11.  Gem Harvest

12.  Three Gems and a Baby

13.  Adventures in Light Distortion

14.  Buddy’s Book

15.  Know Your Fusion

16.  The New Crystal Gems

17.  Lion 4: Alternate Ending

18.  Doug Out

19.  Kindergarten Kid

20.  Room for Ruby

21.  Future Boy Zoltron

22.  Tiger Philanthropist

23.  Rocknaldo

24.  Onion Gang

Season 5 Ranking

1.      A Single Pale Rose

2.      The Trial

3.      Jungle Moon

4.      Off Colors

5.      Stuck Together

6.      Pool Hopping

7.      Can’t Go Back

8.      Now We’re Only Falling Apart

9.      Lars’ Head

10.  Letters to Lars

11.  Lars of the Stars

12.  Your Mother and Mine

13.  Raising the Barn

14.  Sadie Killer

15.  Back to the Kindergarten

16.  The Big Show

17.  Gemcation

18.  Kevin Party

19.  Dewey Wins

 

 
The next Steven Universe review follows how Amethyst deals with the Pink Diamond reveal while all Steven wants to do is find Ruby.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "An Ed Too Many" and "Ed-N-Seek" from Ed Edd n Eddy.
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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