“Good things the kids are keeping themselves busy.”

It’s been exactly fifty episodes since Onion Trade, and it’ll be another forty-five until Onion Gang. Awfulness of the latter episode aside, this seems like pretty good pacing for a character as beautifully bizarre as Onion to get the spotlight.

Steven is largely kept out of the Gems’ story throughout the Week of Sardonyx, and that’s never made more explicit than in his romp with Onion. Amethyst’s voice during dinner is drowned out by Steven’s fascination and revulsion with Beach City’s weirdest weirdo, and the episode revolves around Steven putting up with him for Amethyst’s sake. We don’t even see Pearl or Garnet, but we don’t have to: Onion Trade is all about Steven’s separation from the grown-up’s table.

Let’s start with his story before we get into the meat of the Week of Sardonyx implications. His main function, as per usual when he’s paired with Onion, is to serve as the straight man. In true sequel fashion, Onion’s absurd creepiness from Onion Trade gets ramped up: right off the bat he’s hiding in Steven’s cupboard to steal his food (as the latter narrates his own actions to nobody, because this is a silly episode from the start). Even if we learn he didn’t paint them, it’s honestly not even surprising to find portraits of Amethyst in his garage, because it’s hard to be surprised by anything he does.

After a relatively tame dinner scene—Onion is probably too old to be messing with his food, even if his age is hard to pin down, but this is still normal kid behavior to an extent—we reach the nightmare that is his room. We still get a nice blend of regular weird and creepy weird, aided by Zach Callison’s fantastic portrayal of bewilderment. He’s just so confused about Onion bounding on his bed instead of a trampoline, and even if this is hardly the strangest thing about this environment, I love that Steven’s still upset by it.

But like Charlie Brown with the football, Steven keeps up hope. He somehow sees no reason to be suspicious about Onion’s mouse or video tape, which makes their inevitable twists hilarious and super gross. So of course, when he finally decides enough is enough (featuring Callison’s best-ever use of the word “okay”), Onion decides to perform his first unambiguously kind action. Does he do it just to subvert Steven’s expectations? Or does he also consider sharing his snake and birth video “kind”? Even if he could talk beyond Callison mumbling, I doubt we’d ever know. But throwing a wrench into his actions by giving him a moment of true friendship is a great way to keep Onion unpredictable.

While it lacks the narrative oomph of Garnet being revealed as a fusion in Jailbreak, this episode gives a similar sense of satisfaction as all the implications about Clan Onion are confirmed. At first, the only hint that he and Sour Cream are related is the pun we get when combining their names, but more clues start piling up as we start to get a sense of their family. We know the unnamed fisherman who speaks gibberish is Onion’s dad from Onion Trade. We learn in Joy Ride that Sour Cream’s stepdad is a fisherman who speaks gibberish. We meet Vidalia (a type of onion) with Marty (who looks an awful lot like Sour Cream) suspiciously leaving Greg’s van in Story for Steven’s flashback. With this knowledge, we can shape an image of a family featuring Vidalia and the fisherman as parents and Sour Cream and Onion as half-siblings, but it’s never stated outright until Onion Friend. It’s not really a twist, as all the information (save the fisherman’s name, which we learn here is Yellowtail) was already there, but it still allows for that gleeful “I knew it!” moment.

Vidalia is the fifth mother we’ve met on Steven Universe, but only the second we’ve seen interact with her child-aged child (Nanefua’s kid is a grown man, Rose is only accessible by videotape, and Barb was on the job). Vidalia is the polar opposite of Dr. Maheswaran: a chill artist with free range kids and a shotgun in the house. We don’t even know her last name, just as we don’t know Dr. Maheswaran’s first name (although Ian Jones-Quartey says it’s Priyanka). They both love their kids, but where one expresses it through strict control, the other does so with wild freedom.



While neither style is strictly superior—compare and contrast Onion and Connie on your own time—I’m thrilled that the show’s desire to portray different types of mothers extends beyond the Crystal Gems. “Moms are people too” is a refreshing stance to take in a medium where mothers are often the portrayed as the most grounded (read: boring) member of the family.

One thing I find fascinating is that both of these mothers are voiced by women who have worked extensively behind the scenes in animation beyond voice acting. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (who also played Major Motoko in Ghost in the Shell) is a veteran anime voice director, starting with a bang with the legendary English dub of Cowboy Bebop. And Jackie Buscarino (who also played Pacifica Northwest in Gravity Falls) worked her way from production assistant on shows like Spongebob Squarepants and Dexter’s Laboratory to full producer on shows like…well, like Steven Universe.

There’s nothing wrong with actors who are just actors, but even if it’s just a coincidence, I love that some part of the casting crew went for known industry multitaskers to play family matriarchs. Because yeah, no disrespect to Yellowtail and Doug, but Vidalia and Dr. Maheswaran are obviously running their respective houses.

(If Buscarino wasn’t so great at portraying Vidalia, I would’ve killed to have Wendy Hoopes in the role, because I’m pretty sure Vidalia is who Jane Lane grows up to be.)

As important as it is to see Vidalia as a mom, this episode is also about seeing parents as people outside of that context, which is why Onion and Steven are shooed out for Amethyst and Vidalia to talk. There’s a risk in making an episode about Amethyst talking about her troubles that features only a moment of eavesdropping, but this is another benefit of the Week of Sardonyx’s structure. We know why Amethyst is upset. We hear just enough to know how she’s dealing with it, and how valuable Vidalia’s friendship is. And we know how freaked out Steven is by Onion, making his quiet decision to return to his room surprisingly touching. Surprising not because it’s in any way out of character for him, but because this is otherwise a really goofy episode.

Subtlety is also used to shed a new light on Amethyst’s backstory. She’s always been the Gem most interested in humans (outside of Rose), attracted to human things like food and stuff and pop culture. She uses human slang and wrestles with humans and has that sisterly bond with Steven that makes the two feel like close peers instead of a parent and child. While we know she was fascinated with Greg and hung out with him alone, it’s awesome to see more of how he indirectly affected her forays into the human world.

There’s no indication from the two seconds we get of Vidalia in Story for Steven that she and Amethyst would be best buds, but they’re both punky and rebellious and we see so much of how they would’ve gotten along in their photo montage. Vidalia styles Amethyst’s hair to look like Rose’s. Amethyst morphs into Marty so they can make fun of him. It’s kind of amazing how quickly we’re able to accept that these two utterly nonintersecting characters have a history that informs Amethyst’s behavior to this day.

We sadly don’t see much of these two hanging out after this, but we don’t see Purple Puma and Tiger Millionaire wrestling between Tiger Millionaire and Tiger Philanthropist either, and are led to believe they’ve been regularly fighting the entire time. In that sense, I’ll just assume these two are getting into all sorts of trouble when Steven’s not around. Slippers included.

Future Vision!

This is our first look at Sour Cream’s weird backstory with the Crystal Gems, as Amethyst remembers hanging out with him as a baby. We’ll see more in Greg the Babysitter, but Sour Cream has a unexpectedly major role in Steven’s existence and it’s cool to see that referenced so early.



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

Despite the angst behind the scenes, Onion Friend is at its core a comedy showcase. It’s a little too forgettable compared to more well-rounded outings, and not quite funny enough to sit with the bigger comedies, but I’m still a big fan.

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