“More classic than fishing?”

Way, way back, in the second episode of the series, I talked about the ubiquity of Bad Dads in media. It’s one of the reasons that Greg is such a great character: it’s refreshing to see an imperfect but fundamentally good father figure portrayed without irony. But although he’s the best, he’s not alone in Steven Universe: this isn’t a show about moms, it’s a show about parents.

Mr. Fryman might get flustered at times, but he knows and loves his very different sons. Kofi is tougher his twins, but his gruffness can’t hide a good heart in Beach Party. Mayor Dewey has plenty of issues, and Buck implies that he has a history of being withholding, but we see his affection in Shirt Club. Doug is a bit of a wet blanket, but he’s not by any means bad (and we’ll get to know him better in Doug Out). And while Yellowtail doesn’t show a lot of personality until now, we see a close connection with Onion in Onion Trade.

So I guess it’s about time we meet a dad who’s total garbage.



Marty, Kevin, and Aquamarine are the three worst people we meet on this show; the Diamonds might do more damage, but each of them has at least one redeeming quality. Ben Levin and Matt Burnett have explained that the detestable Aquamarine is based on Cartman from South Park, and Kevin so perfectly captures the entitlement of toxic masculinity that the GOP might put him on the Supreme Court one day (I’m kidding of course, he’s not white), but Marty is a different creature. When we first met him in Story for Steven, he was shown through Greg’s perspective as an exaggerated monster in the style of Aquamarine. In Drop Beat Dad, we learn that Greg wasn’t exaggerating.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that Marty is scummy, but Jon Wurster sells it for comedy at first, hyping up laminated business cards and beginning phone calls that he initiated with “Marty here, talk to me.” His support of Sour Cream might at first seem like an earnest attempt from a lousy dad to bond with his kid the only way he knows how, or at the very least take advantage of his kid in a way that doesn’t cause active harm. But nope! The whole scheme was to promote a soda that isn’t even good (as a drink or as a dip), and as soon as he gets called out he tries gaslighting Sour Cream by accusing him of selfishness.

Sour Cream fortunately doesn’t buy it for a second, pointing out that he’s never needed Marty for anything and has already done fine on his own. But here we get the part of the episode that I feel needed work: Sour Cream’s relationship with Yellowtail. Yes, it’s funny and sweet to see Sour Cream shouting in Yellowtail’s “dialect” (Brian Posehn continues to impress as a teenager with a grown man’s voice), and I love the subtle connection of fishing as a classic father/son bonding activity with Sour Cream’s perceived pressure to help his fisherman stepfather at work. But the moment feels unearned, especially because it precedes Yellowtail’s gesture of support: perhaps it’s to show that Yellowtail is already more of a father than Marty, but Sour Cream is siding with his stepfather when more realistically he’s not a fan of Marty or Yellowtail at this point.

It’s hard to know where Yellowtail truly stands on Sour Cream’s deejaying because we never know what he’s saying and it’s not unheard of for teenagers to feel more persecuted by parent figures than they actually are. But it’s clear that Sour Cream feels unsupported at this point in the episode. And while Yellowtail’s show of encouragement is a nice conclusion to their conflict, I think it’s a bit rushed for Sour Cream to start calling him “Dad” just like that. Maybe he’s just caught up in the moment, but it rings false to me.

Marty is compellingly awful, even more so upon rewatch when it’s clear what the G on his shirt stands for the soda he’s promoting: he didn’t expect to see his kid, meaning his primal instinct when hearing about Sour Cream’s interest in music is manipulating him in a spur of the moment promotional deal. But between his huge persona and Yellowtail’s incoherence, what should have been an episode where both father figures are at odds becomes an episode where the loud one takes front stage and the quiet one is pushed aside until convenient for the plot.

This doesn’t make Drop Beat Dad a bad episode: how could it be, with Roadie Steven on the job? Even though Steven’s interest in being a roadie seems sudden, especially considering how Sadie’s Song establishes that he prefers being on stage to supporting the talent, it makes sense that a musician like Greg would have instilled respect for the craft.

Steven’s new gig gives him a chance to further show off his power set after Steven Floats: it’s not quite a twist that he’s strong in the physical way, considering he’s gotten into plenty of fights with superpowered beings, but it’s awesome to see him carrying incredible weight with barely any commentary. And if you go back and watch Coach Steven, we never actually see him struggle to lift anything heavy. He might still be weak compared to full Gems with years of fighting experience, but next to regular humans he’s a powerhouse.

Greg has surprisingly little to do in an episode about Marty and music and fatherhood, but considering how crowded Sour Cream’s story is already it’s okay for him to take a back seat. He still has a few important moments, and while his explicit summation of the episode’s moral isn’t very subtle (something he’s guilty of from time to time) the reminder that his business is struggling is an artful way to prime us for his sudden influx of wealth. Does it undermine the lesson that you don’t need to make money to be fulfilled by your craft? Enh, a little, but we’ve already seen that lesson in practice during Greg’s poor days.

Our last townie episode was Sadie’s Song, right before Peridot rolled in, and it shares a lot of similarities with Drop Beat Dad besides Steven’s aforementioned support role for a teen musician performing on the beach. Both are about burgeoning artists with difficult relationships with a parent in regards to their art (and in that way it actually continues a thread from Shirt Club), but Drop Beat Dad succeeds by putting Steven in the side role he needs to be in for a story that’s not at all about him (and by, y’know, showing the resolution of the child-parent conflict instead of glancing at it for three seconds while Steven sings).

We’re about to get a lot more townie episodes. Even episodes about Peridot and Stevonnie are gonna take place in Beach City proper. While they aren’t everyone’s favorite, I’ll reiterate my main takeaway from Ocean Gem: Steven might be half-Gem, but he’s also half-human, and it’s vital to see that half through his interactions with the mundane. What’s exciting about this season is that we’ve shifted from townie episodes introducing characters to expanding them, and I love what we see of Sour Cream here. Deejaying is just about the only thing we know about him prior to this episode, so it makes sense that it’s the focus of Drop Beat Dad. But this sole character attribute is used as a lens for a new story about a teenager navigating the emotional landscape of a blended family, and while it doesn’t do it perfectly, it’s a great sign for things to come.

Future Vision!

Considering Marty calls Greg “Starchild,” he naturally refers to Steven as “Starchild Junior.” Which makes for a neat parallel when another tall, pale bully calls his mother “Starlight” and refers to Steven as the same name.



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



There a bunch of little problems that keep this episode from being great, but I’ve got a soft spot for Sour Cream that keeps it on my good side.

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