Steven Universe: Kindergarten Kid

August 11, 2016 5:04 PM - Season 4, Episode 1

Peridot tries to capture a corrupted gem in the Beta Kindergarten.

Whew! What a long wait for the fourth season!

posted by Small Dollar (21 comments total)

Strong Looney Toons vibe on this one. Peridot the Crystal Gem is coming along nicely. Apparently she's just too tough to poof and regenerate with a star.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:18 PM on August 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

All that's missing is an Acme product.
posted by divabat at 5:21 PM on August 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

This was a wonderfully fun episode to start the season off with.. but I admit to a strong Peridot bias.

I've decided that Peridot isn't actually any different from era 1 Peridots and homeworld, for reasons we don't know, hasn't told them the truth.

And to quote my Lapis loving SO when I mentioned that Lapis didn't question a green bubble suddenly appearing: "Lapis gives no fucks about anything"
posted by INFJ at 5:25 PM on August 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

I know! If I were a storyboarder I'd've just stuck an "Acme" on the marshmallows. A wasted opportunity if you ask me.
posted by Small Dollar at 5:25 PM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wasn't expecting a Road Runner riff here, and it was beautiful. The bit with the boulder was maybe the very best thing.

Steven encouraging empathy for monsters was also touching. I like that even though he's being shown he can't reach everyone, he continues to try.
posted by mordax at 5:29 PM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I had to show my kid a Road Runner cartoon afterwards, as he'd never seen one. KIDS TODAY.

I liked Steven's Infinite Bag of (Marshmallow) Holding.

We don't see what happened before they started poofing gems; they would have gone back to the barn, I suppose, in the ship, rested, then collected Peridot (Lapis saying "nope!") and gone on the mission. I guess they want to get Peridot trained on this stuff.

Pearl is so much less concerned about Peridot than about Steven. I like that about her.

They're leading up to more information on corruption, clearly. It doesn't exist on Homeworld per Peridot. We know why, but it hasn't really been explained, and Peridot would be a good person to explain it to, or Steven, or them and Lapis. Anyway, someone better explain what happened that day, exactly, at some point.

Clearly we are going to get The Story of When Rose Shattered Pink Diamond at some point also. But when? Not soon enough. Or else tomorrow. No way of knowing!

I miss Greg and Connie I hope we get to see them soon. Will Steven keep a lot of what happened from Greg? I think he'll tell all of it to Connie.

Maybe Greg knows the PD story, that would be a cool way to tell it.

That Ruby ship is like a Chekov's gun. It's going to get used or cause Plot Developments at some point.
posted by emjaybee at 6:08 PM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

MEEP MEEP!!!
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:01 PM on August 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

So at this point the cluster hasn't emerged, a minor Peridot went native, one of Homeworld's best Quartzes has disappeared along with the squad of Rubies sent to retrieve her. Soon we're going to see a serious response from Yellow Diamond regarding this Earth nonsense and it'll be a good gauge of what exactly Homeworld can muster when it comes to serious responses. Peridot speaks highly of Homeworld's power but I bet Pearl and Garnet (And Lapis!) and other Era 1 gems would say it's declined a lot since its heyday, with use of technology to offset the lack of raw magical power in Era 2 gems. Lapis did say it's changed in The Message.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:10 PM on August 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

When Peridot poofed the bubbled gem, I was worried it would go back home— to Homeworld.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:21 PM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

And then some know-nothing would have popped it, leaving a big Road Runner-esque tongue monster loose around Homeworld, for centuries. It'd escape into the air ducts and live there, watching, waiting for gems to become isolated, at which point it leaps down, scratches it up good, then flees. Its existence always denied by the Diamonds, but enough gems get accosted over time that an urban legend forms, about the THING haunting the corridors of Facet 5....
posted by JHarris at 8:04 PM on August 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

I identify with Peridot (and Lapis) so hard. If they ever do a fusion it'll just be a drawing of me, voiced by me.

I'm guessing corruption doesn't exist on Homeworld because that would require them firing the corruption weapon on their own people, at home. That would be like the US dropping the atomic bomb on itself. I have a feeling the corruption weapon was meant to put an immediate stop to the rebellion, then use the resulting broken & corrupted gems to destroy the planet. The Gem people are nothing if not practical. Rose's shattering of Pink Diamond either caused or was caused by the corruption weapon.

By the way I can't see the word "cluster" at work without hearing Peridot screeching it now. The Cluster!!
posted by bleep at 10:43 PM on August 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Awww, Peridot considers the barn/Lapis to be home. I guess there's an element of visualisation to poofing the bubbles. Peridot doesn't know where home is or what it looks like -- or am I mistaken that she hasn't seen the bubbles?
posted by tracicle at 11:50 PM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

> Peridot doesn't know where home is or what it looks like -- or am I mistaken that she hasn't seen the bubbles?

She has.
posted by INFJ at 3:09 AM on August 12, 2016

And then some know-nothing would have popped it, leaving a big Road Runner-esque tongue monster loose around Homeworld, for centuries. It'd escape into the air ducts and live there, watching, waiting for gems to become isolated, at which point it leaps down, scratches it up good, then flees. Its existence always denied by the Diamonds, but enough gems get accosted over time that an urban legend forms, about the THING haunting the corridors of Facet 5....

I mean, if you wanted to cause chaos on Homeworld and didn't have compassion for the corrupted Gems, you could just send all the bubbles there. Let them fight/contain all the monsters.

But they'd probably shatter them, so it would be mean as well as hilarious.
posted by emjaybee at 9:35 AM on August 12, 2016

So the bubbled gems go to where the bubbler considers home? Which is why all of the bubbled gems before this episode go to the temple and Peridot's goes to the barn?
posted by meemzi at 10:48 AM on August 12, 2016

I guess? Steven's bubbles go to the temple rather than float around the skylights of his house. I wonder if Lapis and Peridot plan on continuing to add to the barn until it's something even more substantial? This reminds me of the fact that we still haven't ever met anyone (other than maybe Bismuth) who seems to have the skills necessary to build a programmable space like the temple, and the fact that the temple was almost definitely built post-rebellion makes the possible list of builders very short indeed.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:06 AM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

"This is life for you now! Endless suffering!"
posted by Foosnark at 10:10 AM on August 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I wonder if there was ever a (mostly) silent draft of this episode, with Peridot solo against the Road Runner gem? Would have been too on the nose, I imagine. Peridot strikes me as the most "cartoony" of the cast, but she's more a snarky '90s cartoon character than anything else so it was fun to see her involved in some old school action. People mentioned the lack of ACME branding above, I would have also settled for a circular puff of smoke after the cliff dive. Oh well!

I kinda suspect that this episode started out as a "We need to show that Peridot is hard to 'poof' for upcoming plot reasons" brainstorm and ended up somewhere great.
posted by comealongpole at 3:41 PM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Other story developments (besides how hard it is to poof Peridots):
Peridot can bubble and warp gems now! The key to gems being able to do this seems to be respect, or maybe empathy? Her bubbles are green.
Developing that respect/empathy is an important part of Peridot's own developmental journey.
When gems warp bubbles, they appear to go to where that gem considers to be home.
This appears to be a quality all gems possess, but only on Earth do gems tend to develop it? Is this because of some property of Earth, or some property of non-Homeworld life experience?
Peridot didn't even seem to realize that she could do it before it happened. Is this knowledge kept hidden on Homeworld?
Lapis reads manga.
posted by JHarris at 10:06 PM on August 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

They're leading up to more information on corruption, clearly. It doesn't exist on Homeworld per Peridot. We know why, but it hasn't really been explained, and Peridot would be a good person to explain it to, or Steven, or them and Lapis. Anyway, someone better explain what happened that day, exactly, at some point.

Garnet was real keen to get them past whatever was on the second floor of the moon base, just sayin'. And I am deeply interested in why so many Homeworld visitors come standard with visors. Jasper's helmet has eye protection, the Ruby leader has a visor, and Peridot always has her eyes covered. It's like they're worried about the light somewhere fundamental inside themselves.
posted by Jilder at 10:56 PM on September 2, 2016

I've felt like ever since Peridot's face-turn, she's been Rebecca Sugar's outlet for playing with Looney Tunes styles, and it was fun to see that taken to balls-out extremes here.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:51 PM on August 16, 2019