Steven Universe: Bubble Buddies
December 31, 2014 12:17 PM - Season 1, Episode 7 - Subscribe

Steven, in the process of saving his crush Connie from falling rocks, traps the two of them in a force bubble he doesn't know how to deactivate.

Written and storyboarded by Kat Morris and Aleth Romanillos.
posted by JHarris (4 comments total)
 
*** I forgot the Rewatch tag again dammit. There are spoilers in this recap. ***
  • Amethyst: "Cool, Steven's got a bike!" She didn't know? How does Steven get his stuff? Does his Dad support him? Do the Gems? If the latter then how'd he get a bike without Amethyst knowing? Or maybe she doesn't concern herself with such things. And... where do they get money from?
  • This is the episode that introduces Connie, Steven's friend/crush. Most often in shows where a magical character is friends with a normal human, the normal is the boy and the magical one is the girl; Steven Universe inverts this.
  • This is the episode that pays off the mysterious glowing ring in the freezer from the first episode, which he saved when a girl he never met dropped it a year earlier. I think Greg's observation from Space Race is right: his family might have a problem.
  • After Steven runs back to the Temple, we notice that the Gems were watching him from the window of Steven's Room. When they figure out about his crush on Connie, Amethyst and Pearl are so excited. They've got the whole mother-hen thing down very well.
  • The bit of rock that nearly crushes Connie is one of the locks of hair from the huge Temple statue, continuing its deterioration.
  • Connie is a very strong character I think. Notice she doesn't warm to Steven immediately, which makes sense when a strange boy you don't know saves your life but in the process traps you with him in an unbreakable force bubble. She serves as the normal human perspective to Steven's weird adventures. Her life is relentlessly ordinary: S: "Hi! I'm a member of the Crystal Gems, we fight monsters and protect humanity and stuff!" C: "Oh, that's kind of like my Dad. He's a cop. Well... more like a private security guard." Connie's role in the show is to both be a normal kid for Steven to interact with and, because she doesn't have prior knowledge of Steven or the Gems like the rest of Beach City seems to have, to provide an audience perspective for the weird stuff the kid gets up to.
  • By the way, Connie's turning the pages backward in her book. Maybe it's a manga?
  • When the bubble appears, it does so out of the sudden blooming of a huge rose.... In later episodes it seems that Steven gains more control over his bubbles, but they also don't seem to be as indestructible.
  • I like that they set up why the Gems don't immediately come to Steven's aid -- he told them not to watch because they'd mess up his "funky flow," and they can't get their Super Steven Ball up the ramp that leads to the Temple, forcing them to see aid elsewhere.
  • At Big Donut Lars is at his most obnoxious, but Sadie makes a game attempt at popping the thing. When Steven says that Sadie and Lars are "crazy about each other," it's foreshadowing.
  • We meet someone new, the odd silent little boy Onion. Who can lay hands on a ship-mounted harpoon gun if the need arises.
  • "Funland?" "Yeah! Horrible accidents happen here every day!"
  • The Boardwalk Parade: Greg's "float" is just his van with bubbles, a skirt that looks like a sponge, a sheet over it and a banner saying IT'S A WASH. On, and Steven sitting on top.
  • "Oh Connie. If I had returned your bracelet to you then, you wouldn't be stuck in this bubble with me now." "No, it's okay. I'm having fun!" * POP * Moral: having fun pops magic bubbles. It's so obvious!
  • This is the first time a gem monster is defeated entirely without the intervention of the elder Gems. It doesn't necessarily take magic powers to beat them. I wonder what effect heavy artillery, or a tank, would have against a gem monster?

posted by JHarris at 12:25 PM on December 31, 2014


I love Connie. I think she is an awesome character.

This episode is, I think, the beginning of Steven seeing the gem monsters as more than just crazed beasts that need to be dispatched. When they're dealing with the giant worm, Steven pays attention to its behavior and realizes that it's attracted to the glowing orange stuff, then uses that to trap it (and it basically destroys itself).
posted by sleeping bear at 11:13 AM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Hyper-cute drawings of Connie, from a staffer. She notes that this was before she had a model sheet, so they may little a little weird in places (sometimes no nose).
posted by JHarris at 3:35 PM on January 26, 2015


And this one too, with Steven and a turtle. Why yes I've been going through the Crewniverse archives lately why do you ask?
posted by JHarris at 3:37 PM on January 26, 2015


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