“Hey! Don’t forget about me!”

(If you don’t want spoilers for a movie that came out in 2009 based on a book that came out in 2005, go right ahead to the next image, but more importantly, read more books. Love, a children’s librarian.)

I’ve never been big on nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, so I always make note when my suspension of disbelief is thrown off by a seemingly minor issue. What bugs me isn’t necessarily the clumsiness, but the laziness: all-around poor plotting is one thing, but when a problem in an otherwise decent work could have been fixed very easily with a bit more forethought, it drives me up the wall. My go-to example for this is the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when Snape reveals that he’s the titular Prince.

This is supposed to be a huge climactic moment, but, uh, Snape has no idea that Harry has been looking for the Half-Blood Prince. The film not only cuts out several key elements from the book that help Snape figure out that Harry’s been reading his old textbook, but the reveal is rephrased to only make sense if Snape knows how much the Half-Blood Prince means to Harry. Compare:



Book: “You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them — I, the Half-Blood Prince!”



vs.



Film: “You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? Yes, I am the Half-Blood Prince.”

This scene could have been fixed by literally a single line of dialogue wherever the filmmakers wanted. At any point after Harry gets the book, he could mention the Half-Blood Prince within earshot of Snape. Harry could speak of it when Snape fixes up Malfoy after our first Sectumsempra. Snape could just say the original line, which doesn’t require knowledge that Harry’s been on the hunt. Anything. Anything. With even an ounce of foreshadowing, Snape’s admission has serious oomph. But instead, what should be a major moment in the story feels like it came out of nowhere.

And yeah, that’s Super Watermelon Island for you.

It’s not the episode’s fault that we’ve only focused on Malachite once since her debut. Or that aside from Chille Tid and off-handed comments in Love Letters and Nightmare Hospital, we literally haven’t mentioned her in all of Season 2; the name “Malachite” has been spoken a grand total of twice before now. It’s not the episode’s fault that we’re right at the end of the Cluster Arc, which has nothing to do with Malachite and is revving towards a wholly unrelated conclusion.

Season 3 is fantastic, and Lapis is a big part of that. Not just because she’s a great character who adds a fascinating new dynamic to the cast, but because of what she represents: the new fluidity of the status quo, reinforcing Peridot’s opening of the new friend floodgates. By that metric, getting rid of Malachite ASAP is a necessary evil to allow new stories. It just sucks, a lot, that a show defined by its incredible effort and planning feels this lazy about it.

To its credit, Super Watermelon Island does try to work with what it’s got. Malachite only has three notable traits coming into this episode—she’s scary, she’s made of two Gems that don’t get along, and Jasper hates Steven—and all three are on display. That last one’s more about Jasper than Malachite, but apparently Lapis is fine with her partner’s ritualistic destruction of Steven effigies considering Malachite goes to town on that watermelon without much of a struggle, so I’ll be nice and let that count. (Again, the episode tries to work with what it’s got.)

Malachite is otherwise portrayed as a being in conflict, with Jasper having to convince Lapis to work together after breaking free of her bondage. This is a good call, and I appreciate that the impetus for their attitudes finally syncing up is a fight against the Crystal Gems. Lapis has hated our heroes (minus Steven) since her very first episode, so with Steven back at the barn she has no reason not to stage an Ocean Gem rematch.

The fight is visually superb, a well-choreographed kaiju brawl between two superfusions letting loose. I love the way Alexandrite swaps between the clever fused weaponry of Opal, Sugilite, and Sardonyx, and while Jasper’s side only really emerges in a Sonic spindash, Lapis’s water powers get a nice showcase in this ocean setting. Buuuut…

I don’t really care?

I don’t care about Malachite right now, because even though she had an awesome debut and a terrific aesthetic (including her amazing discordant motif), she arrives right out of the blue here, and feels so random that we don’t get any of the dread that makes monstrous villains like this so watchable. I don’t care about Alexandrite because she’s frankly the most boring fusion with speaking lines; even the largely silent Opal is defined by her combination of power and elegance, while Alexandrite is just a big ole monster. I don’t care about what’s happening on this island because the show has just spent eight episodes in a row priming us for a wholly different cataclysm. It’s a great fight. The team worked really hard on it. But thanks to the environment that Super Watermelon Island is crammed into, I just don’t care.

I can’t help but think that with a little more time spent on Malachite, even if it was as simple as talking about her in the same way the returning Homeworlders are talked about at the end of Season 1, this whole episode would’ve carried far more weight. It didn’t even have to be that much; just a few comments here and there to keep Malachite fresh in the characters’ minds would’ve done the trick. Without any dread leading up to this confrontation, the stakes feel artificial. This abruptness is a problem with an easy solution that for whatever reason wasn’t solved before Super Watermelon Island debuted.



It doesn’t help that the events leading to and resulting from the fight feel so contrived. Sure, Steven just happens to dream-possess a Watermelon Steven and find Jasper right when the team is prepared to drill, eliminating the three senior Crystal Gems from the Cluster confrontation. The fight happens to destroy the Warp Pad, ensuring these Gems aren’t coming back (why Steven can’t try to send Lion is a whole other issue). Jasper happens to slip out of grasp, so we can have her pop in later this season.

All of those complaints count as those nitpicks I just said I don’t care about. But that’s the thing about half-hearted plotting: once you’re jolted out of the zone, it gets harder and harder to ignore other issues in the story. There are plenty of little plot holes in any show, Steven Universe included (I have a whole regular segment about it in these reviews), but considering how good the show usually is, I either let them go or don’t even notice. Episodes with issues as prominent as Malachite’s don’t get away with nearly as much.

Now, this doesn’t mean there’s nothing good about Super Watermelon Island. We’ve barely even talked about the Watermelons themselves, which are easily the best part of the episode. The society is absurd but adorable, and while Zach Callison has already proved himself by voicing Onion, it’s nice to see his skill includes inarticulate fruits as well as inarticulate boys named for vegetables. Leaning into the absurdity was a great move; if we’re already fine with the melons having sacrificial ceremonies and statues and dogs, why not give them bows and catapults and hang gliders? Where Malachite’s part of the story strains my suspension of disbelief, the melons are so delightful that I can go right back to suspending.

This is a banner episode for Aivi and Surasshu, who get to play with three very different leitmotifs. Malachite’s aforementioned theme blends with Alexandrite’s own jumble of instruments throughout the first half of the fight, but the winner here is the lovely Watermelon theme. It dominates the peaceful opening sequence, then comes back in full force for the second half of the fight, turning the tide with an adorable interruption to the badassery.



Finally, as I said, the fight looks amazing. The animation is outstanding, especially the focus on our Gems’ triple fusion dance (Garnet snaps her finger like a boss). But the highlight of highlights is the incredible final blow, evoking and one-upping Laser Light Cannon with panache. With a better story around it, this could’ve been one of the greats.

While the problems of this episode run too deep for me to chalk it off as a bad first impression, it would be disingenuous to say that my disappointment wasn’t compounded by the lengthy hiatus between the end of Season 2 and the beginning of Season 3. Just as more time spent focusing on Malachite would have raised the stakes, utter silence for months raised the anticipation for a major event. Moreover, the spoiled appearance of Lapis meant that this break was sort of ruined anyway by knowing that Malachite was due for a breakup.



However, the fact that this is a season premiere doesn’t matter too much to me in terms of building expectations. I discuss the seasons as officially identified purely to have a shared vocabulary to avoid confusion; in my mind, the original series is best digested in three 50-odd episode chunks (Act I being Gem Glow through Jailbreak, Act II being Full Disclosure through Bubbled, and Act III being Kindergarten Kid through Change Your Mind). It’s arbitrary to have Season 1 be double the size of future seasons, so Super Watermelon Island’s status as a premiere carries little weight.

Still, this should have felt important, and instead it’s a table-setting episode first and a character-based conflict fiftieth. Lapis was out of the picture and we needed her back but she was stuck in that pesky fusion, so the crew gets her out of there so they can move right along. So let’s move right along.

Future Vision

I’d consider Melon Dog to be Pumpkin’s half-sibling who’s like thirty years older and already has kids. Closely related, but otherwise distant. One’s got a rind and one’s got a shell, one’s a fruit and one’s a vegetable, but they’re both good plant-dogs.

Escapism follows the aftermath of Steven’s interference here, as the peaceful-to-a-fault society led by the Watermelon Sage gains a violent rival sect led by the flower-necklaced Watermelon Warrior. And at the end of Steven’s adventure, he fades out of his melon body in a shot that mirrors the final shot of Super Watermelon Island.

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

I’m thrilled for anyone who liked this episode. It sucks to be disappointed, and I’d rather have people disagree with me than have a bunch of disappointed people. But yeah, by my reckoning the treatment of Malachite is the biggest blunder in Steven Universe (even if, to be fair, there isn’t much competition for blunders on such a good show).

Funnily enough, the initial fandom reaction to sister episode Escapism was largely negative, but I loved it, so maybe I’m just not in sync with the melon vibes. Or, y’know, the fandom.



Top Fifteen



Love ‘em



Like ‘em

Enh

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club

4. Fusion Cuisine

3. House Guest

2. Sadie’s Song

1. Island Adventure

(No official promo art, but crew member Aleth Romanillos made this amazing image for the Steven Zine.)

