“Earth is a prison.”

Beta was a difficult episode to write about on its own, because it’s the first half of a story without the resolution. Earthlings makes up for it by being the most definitive resolution in the series until Change Your Mind.

It might seem odd to choose such a negative header quote for such a positive episode, but Jasper’s baggage is responsible for the culmination of four, count ‘em, four Act II (Seasons 2-3) character arcs. And her response to Peridot’s earnest defense of the planet begins a final speech that sets the tone for Act III (Seasons 4-5). Love her or hate her, Jasper is the most important character in this story, and even though things go great for our three heroes, her story is a tragedy.

I’m not here to say that Jasper is just misunderstood, because she remains monstrous at the start of Earthlings, taunting her Corrupted prisoners and going further than ever to extol her hatred of weaker Gems. But at last, her bullying attitude is given an ethos: it’s been clear from the start that she’s a classic believer in Might Makes Right and a loyal Homeworlder, but watching her explain the values behind these virtues is both disturbing and illuminating. Bismuth, the most hardcore Crystal Gem soldier we’ve seen, radically defends the ability for Gems to choose their own paths. So it holds that Jasper, the most hardcore Homeworld soldier we’ve seen, believes the exact opposite with equal fervor.

Jasper is a bigot, and like all bigots she believes her views are backed by “facts” about the worth of other lives relative to her own. Unlike humans, Gems are made for specific purposes, so there’s slightly more merit to her beliefs than those of real world bigots. But like humans, Gems are capable of free will, and by imposing the oppressive power structure of Homeworld, Jasper becomes the ideal nemesis for characters whose identity crises are the result of this oppression. Meaning all of the Crystal Gems, really, but specifically Amethyst and Peridot given Jasper’s focus on physicality.

Still, for all the work done to set Jasper and Amethyst up as rivals, we should take a step back and remember that Amethyst cares way more about Jasper than vice versa. The lopsided fight means everything to our scrappy Crystal Gem, and Jasper indulges and belittles her from time to time, but it’s clear that she has another Gem on her mind, and it isn’t Peridot.

It’s a fascinating choice (and the right one, because otherwise the episode’s focus is right out the window) to have Lapis Lazuli sit this fight out, considering she’s the reason any of this is happening. Jasper’s arc has almost nothing to do with Amethyst: it’s about an emotionally stunted savant who has no idea how to handle a bad breakup, and doubles down on the one thing she does well instead of seeking alternative solutions. Unfortunately for all involved, Jasper’s single area of expertise is violence.

Our first impression of Jasper is a brutal Gem who looks down on fusion, but decides to fuse the second the going gets tough. She’s prideful, but cares more about winning than her pride, so she takes a pragmatic approach to besting the Crystal Gems after losing a fight to a fusion. However, Malachite only brings Jasper more misery, and not just because her abuse of Lapis is soon met in kind: that taste of power is stripped from her, then her ex rejects her, and now she’s wandering her home planet, a planet she despises, alone. She could have ruled the oceans forever, but instead she’s stuck in the desert where she was born.



The tragedy of Jasper is that she tried to branch out and explore something that we know is good, but she did it for the wrong reasons, it didn’t work, and it kills the small part of her that was willing to look beyond her myopic worldview. Here she becomes desperate enough to fuse with a monster, and even the monster rejects her, and the only thing she has left is her convictions. And at her lowest point, in the face of her own demise, she refuses to betray them again. She said from the beginning that she respected Rose’s tactics, but now we know she’ll never accept her help, and is too stubborn to fathom that a Gem could be so capable of transformation that Steven is a different person. So Jasper loses her mind, and it never would have happened if she’d been able to change it instead.

It’s fitting, then, that the three Gems she faces are the ones who have transformed the most over the course of the series: Steven and Peridot through character growth, and Amethyst as the character who has literally transformed more than anyone else.

The end of Jasper’s arc is tragic, but the end of Amethyst’s is triumphant. The mismatched battle between Amethyst and Jasper is tough to watch, but important: so many kid’s shows have heroes who beat impossible odds through sheer willpower, and while it’s a great message to try your best, it doesn’t account for the fights we can’t win. If the media you consume keeps telling you that you can do anything if you try hard enough, some part of you is gonna blame yourself for not doing the impossible when you meet impossible challenges in real life. Amethyst’s arc was never about beating Jasper alone: it’s about accepting that her inability to beat Jasper alone doesn’t make her any less wonderful. It’s okay to be vulnerable and rely on your friends and family when the going gets tough, and that’s exactly what saves the day.

It’s a hell of a thing for the culmination of a character arc to be a new fusion, but what better way to show that Amethyst has accepted teamwork again? Smoky Quartz is the perfect design of a fusion made from two friends who are finally okay with their flaws: their brown mop of hair clashes with their skin color, and they have that gross extra forearm instead of the symmetrical bonus limbs we’re used to, but they’re just so pumped to be here. Their theme is a jubilant blend of Steven’s chiptunes and Amethyst’s drumkit, and Natasha Lyonne, herself no stranger to turmoil, imbues just a hint of her typically snarky delivery (see: Orange is the New Black, Russian Doll) to make Smoky a goofball with an edge. They aren’t bubbly because they’re naive or stupid, they’re bubbly because they’re on the other side of a tumultuous personal struggle.

We once again get a clever-as-hell fusion of our heroes’ weapons, combining Amethyst’s whip and Steven’s shield to make a yoyo. And while they do best Jasper in a fight, the more important thing is that they’re having fun instead of obsessing over a jerk. They crack puns, they cheer themselves on, and they even let dramatic developments like Jasper’s fusion with a Corrupted Gem slide right off. Yes, Amethyst is technically winning a fight in an arc about how it’s okay that she’s not gonna win the fight, but she does it with Steven, and even though we see her bubble a Gem’s gem for the first time, she doesn’t earn the final blow.

Peridot may have hit a major milestone in her character development upon joining the Crystal Gems, but if we’re talking about the story of her becoming an earthling, this is the actual culmination. As with her encounter with Yellow Diamond, she shines when contrasted with a former superior, standing up for herself and her adopted home when it matters most. She’s still a ham, spending most of the episode struggling to show off her metal powers, but her signature hubris is now tempered with a healthier form of self-confidence: she doesn’t hesitate to defend her dignity or lifestyle, and beautifully ends an arc that began by thanking Steven all the way back in When It Rains with a simple “You’re welcome!”

So Jasper’s arc, Amethyst’s arc, and Peridot’s arc all come to a close at the same time. Who are we missing…

Oh right.

This may not be the finale, but it’s the climax of Steven’s Act II character arc, meaning it’s the end of an era for the series that shares his name. There are many ways to read our lead protagonist’s character development for the original show’s three acts, but I see it as a sort of hierarchy of needs: from the beginning, he needs to become a Crystal Gem, live up to his mother’s legacy, and become a hero in his own right, and at the end of every act he checks off one of these goals. He correctly declares himself a true Crystal Gem at the end of Act I, and manages to find himself after his connection with Rose is forever changed in Act III, but Act II is a less obvious story about where he’s going in life, because his life is relatively stable throughout the second and third seasons. It’s everyone else whose lives are in flux: the other Crystal Gems have clear stages of growth and the Week of Sardonyx to deal with, Peridot and Lapis switch sides, Connie becomes a sword fighter, even Greg gains comical wealth, but Steven seems to stick to the status quo.

I mentioned it in Steven vs. Amethyst, but it bears repeating that this act begins with Steven baring his heart and saying he’s not sure whether or not he’s his mom, and ends with him baring his heart and saying definitively that he’s not Rose Quartz, a sentiment he repeats here. The first two acts are about Steven trying to fill the void his mother left behind, but this goal shifts as he learns additional information. He’s uncertain in Act I because he knows very little about her, so he’s just trying to be a Crystal Gem. He then learns she was an alien invader who chose to protect Earth instead, so he spends Act II trying to live up to this expectation. The two stories may seem similar, especially compared to how different things are upon hearing that Rose shattered Pink Diamond, but I think the distinction is most easily found in the midpoint of each act.

Midway through Act I, Steven gains his mother’s healing abilities, learns that the Gems are aliens with opposing sides, and immediately loses his mother’s healing abilities. He’s in over his head, sporadic with the skills he inherited from Rose and clueless about her origins. Midway through Act II, Steven recruits a new ally, saves the planet from a Homeworld weapon, and immediately recruits another ally. He knows now that Rose was a defender of Earth and a friend to all outcast Gems, and is choosing to continue these traditions.

Act II is the part of the story where Steven helplessly watches the Crystal Gems struggle through a serious personal rift, then learns to help each of them overcome their inner demons. He mediates, he inspires, and he grows his “army” by being a good friend to Connie, Peridot, and Lapis. Unlike Act I, he’s competently and intentionally following the footsteps of the Rose we’ve heard about for the entire series. But still, he questions his worthiness.

Steven’s second arc ends with him helping Amethyst, but failing to help Jasper, and it’s just the sort of bittersweet victory that fits a story about trying to personify an idealistic version of a flawed figure. He gets a lot of things right, and looking up to the concept of a perfect Rose is responsible for a lot of good in his life, but it also leads to self-doubt when he can’t possibly live up to this illusion of a standard. And when he tries to keep fulfilling that legacy by using her healing powers to help Jasper, Rose’s other legacy is what gets in his way. Jasper gets a tragedy, Amethyst and Peridot get triumphs, but Steven gets something in the middle: he wins the day, and he becomes stronger in the real way over the course of two seasons, but he fails to become just like Rose because not even Rose was just like the Rose he thought he knew.

For all its resolutions, Earthlings is still an episode that sets the table for a finale that opens a floodgate instead of closing the door. We see the crest of the Diamond Authority more clearly than ever as Jasper exposits about the intended purpose of Gems, and given the slow trickle of lore we’ve gotten so far, this could’ve been it. But then, after a bevy of hints throughout the series that something is up with the diamond on the bottom of the crest, we finally hear Pink Diamond’s name.

That story is about to get a lot more complicated, and I appreciate that we aren’t teased about what Rose did to her Diamond for long. But thanks to Kimberly Brooks (who kills it in an episode that gives her plenty to do), this inherently compelling name drop is given additional weight by the anguish in Jasper’s voice. We’ve seen her down before, and she sounds more defeated than ever when bemoaning her bad luck with fusion partners, but Jasper’s last words are a chilling blend of her signature rage with despair. This is someone bent on Gems fulfilling their intended purpose, and thousands of years later, she’s still devastated that she couldn’t fulfill her own. She wasn’t just made to fight, she was made to win a single war, and she lost.



The table is also set by another cliffhanger, because this may be the end for four huge stories all at once, but it’s not the end of Act II. Strap in, folks, it’s time for Steven’s third arc to begin.

Future Vision!

I mean, it’s a short turnaround, but Eyeball had better get used to being bubbled alive.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!



Keeping It Together just got back into the top list, and back down it goes. Sorry! But Earthlings is an incredible all-around episode. Terrific character work that coincides with terrific big picture storytelling, lore galore, great music, great action, a new fusion, and a tentative sense that everything’s gonna be alright that leaves us nice and warm until the other shoe drops. The scary thing is that this would be even higher if it and Beta were aired as a single entity.

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5. Horror Club

4. Fusion Cuisine

3. House Guest

2. Sadie’s Song

1. Island Adventure

(No promo art for this second half of an episode, so instead we’ll go with HeavenSevenEleven’s gorgeous depiction of Jasper. Not used to that much color up there!)