Snow Day
It’s often the case that characters growing and maturing is something to be proud of. However, this cartoon makes a point of showing that some characters growing up means they leave behind a lot of the charm of their youth.
It follows Steven endure the stress of his newfound responsibilities now that he’s grown up and taken up running Little Homeschool, all amidst a backdrop of a snow day. His schedule is completely booked of nothing but work, and he's constantly doing errands to get ready for the day. He’s also taken up mundane practices like having protein shakes for breakfast, being a vegetarian, and most notably, moving away from trademark elements of his younger days.
This steers us to how Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl approach Steven’s new demeanor. There’s a pretty stark contrast to how interested in Steven’s mannerisms they were when they were introduced in the beginning of the original series. With the possible exception of Amethyst, the main Crystal Gems were too concerned with their responsibilities to really take interest in what Steven introduced to them. This meant they rarely had time to hang with Steven and this in turn probably led to Steven growing to be more concerned with Gem matters than anything else. Now, the opposite is true. They’re all interested in what Steven introduced to them in the past, but he distances himself from them all. He forsakes his cheeseburger backpack, claims together breakfast has too much sugar for him, and shows little interest in the Dogcopter movie the Crystal Gems picked out.
The biggest instance comes the next day when the snow forces Steven to close Little Homeschool for the day, and the Crystal Gems try to get him to play Steven Tag. That’s a game where Gems have to shapeshift into Steven when tagged, but not just Steven. It has to be the way Steven looked back in the original series. Obviously, with Steven trying to take up more adult matters, he doesn’t want any part of this and wants to get to his schedule planning. Nevertheless, the Crystal Gems won’t let up when trying to get him to join in. Along the way are some notable highlights. A big one is Pearl joining in on shapeshifting when she’s tagged, mainly because of how her past of helping to fake a shattering made her hesitant to shapeshift at all.
The rest of them are more for spectacle, but do have a point to them. For the Gems to hold their shapeshifted forms, they fuse while looking like Steven, making for Steven variations of Sugilite, Sardonyx, Opal, and Alexandrite. As an extra measure, they’re introduced with big informative onscreen text like this is a wrestling match or something. This is all fun, but after a while, it becomes harder to shake off how childish these revered Gems are acting. How they escalate this whole Steven Tag game is pretty ridiculous to see so much of.
Eventually, Steven is tagged, and only then all this playing around becomes especially poignant. As Steven turns into his younger self, he expresses frustration that the Gems don’t seem to appreciate what he’s grown up to be. They see they went too far with wanting to spend time with him, and there’s an endearing compromise when as the snow melts next day, they go do errands together. So both sides reach an understanding where one lightens up, and the other appreciates true growth. It may be too silly for its own good, but the results are meaningful.
Too bad there are still many issues for Steven to work through.
A-
The Ranking
1. Volleyball
2. Little Homeschool
3. Bluebird
4. Snow Day
5. Rose Buds
6. Guidance
7. A Very Special Episode
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