Growing Pains
A telling sign of how impactful an animated work can be is how deep it’s willing to go with certain topics and how they’re staged. What Steven is going through with his friends moving on without him as well as his pink glows whenever he deals with emotional stress does seem to raise concern.
After the major backfire that was his proposal to Connie, drifting away from others now seems to be self-inflicted. As his glows now lead to uncontrollable swelling, Steven even chooses to think nothing of them, especially when Connie calls to check on him. Out of all this is further heart and health to her relationship with Steven as she insists on getting him medical treatment despite what he says. Luckily she knows exactly where Steven can get such treatment at the local hospital with her mother, Dr. Maheswaran, works. As an extra layer to this process, attention is given to how this is the first time Steven ever been to the doctor. In fact, along with observations of his swelling, Dr. Maheswaren is majorly concerned about this reveal. Things like this could easily be written off as part of the setup of the series, but now, the lack of necessary practices Steven could have used is shown as a problem they’d be in reality. That’s a nice touch to how deep this story goes, and it doesn’t stop there.
During Steven’s session, there’s an observation of how he’s recovered from several physical blows to his body from over the years. Dr. Maheswaren gives a college-level explanation of how the body reacts to stress or dangerous situations. In Steven’s life, there’s no doubt that there has been plenty of stress and danger. Just to prove it, the staging presents Steven reacting more feared and disturbed as clips of traumatic moments of the past series play behind him. Again, these life or death encounters and experiences could just be written off as part of the nature of the series, but this moment brings them down to Earth, saying this is not normal. Then when Dr. Maheswaran says Steven’s dealing with this now because of losing supportive relationships or one particularly bad moment, that explains everything. We know Steven is struggling dealing with his friends leaving him, and Connie refusing his proposal left him depressed.
At that mention, his body reacts more violently than ever, giving a strong visual metaphor of his internal trauma. However, even through his most violent swelling, Connie is ready to come in and support him however she can. Heck, her mother is even insistent on being there for Steven’s medical emergency. Still, Steven says that being around Connie is making him worse and she honors his requests, promising to be there when he’s ready for her. You know, I loved Connie before, but this is where I respect her more than ever.
Steven is approached by Greg whom Connie called behind his back earlier, and he’s able to open up to his own dad. As he explains what happened with his proposal and his laments over acting like every little problem is the end of the world, it feels like a big weight is lifted. Really, that’s true for coping with any problem, and the cartoon ends with hope for Steven as he knows he has a present relationship with his dad. Just so you know though, even that won’t last long as we go into the next cartoon.
For this cartoon though,
it stands as one of the deepest and most personal Steven Universe experiences all executed in a healthy
character-driven manner.
A+
The Ranking
1. Growing Pains
2. Volleyball
3. Bismuth Casual
4. Little Graduation
5. Little Homeschool
6. Prickly Pair
7. In Dreams
8. Together Forever
9. Bluebird
10. Why So Blue?
11. Snow Day
12. Rose Buds
13. Guidance
14. A Very Special Episode
