“If I could begin to be half of what you think of me, I could do about anything.”

In the middle of Act I of Steven Universe, Steven saves the Atlantic Ocean, and in the middle of Act II, he saves Earth. These are large-scale victories that show his growing capabilities as a Crystal Gem in the global sense: he’s a defender of the world and all its inhabitants, and has two major accomplishments to show for it.

The end of Act I is more of a personal fight. The only lives at stake are those of the Crystal Gems as they’re brought into space, and Steven takes a more passive role in the finale, helping here and there but ultimately having the day saved by Garnet (and, arguably, Lapis). And it turns out the pattern of a more extreme sequel in Act II continues: in Bubbled, the only life at stake is his own, and despite being far more competent than he was in Jailbreak, he needs to be saved by others once again, because he’s been shattered.

As with Jailbreak, Steven spends a good part of Bubbled with another ornery ruby who gripes “Great! This is just perfect!” and barely gives him the time of day at first. In both episodes he tries and fails to help this ruby: our Ruby runs off on her own in impatience, and Eyeball tries to shank him and must be ejected from his bubble. But something interesting happens when you compare these rubies further, because beyond their opposing loyalties, there’s one major difference between the two of them: Ruby has such a low opinion of herself that she doesn’t think it matters whether or not she gets hurt, while Eyeball has such a high opinion of herself that she dreams of being the hero who defeats Rose Quartz, complete with glory from the Diamonds (and her own pearl). And really, this is one of the things the show is all about.



The flaws of practically every character in Steven Universe come down to the dichotomy between insecurity and overconfidence. At a glance, we can read our heroes as insecure and our villains as overconfident (Pearl and Amethyst good, Jasper and Kevin bad), but the actual lesson is that everyone has insecurities, and overconfidence is more often than not a reaction to it. As we learn more about our smug villains, we see the shortcomings that drive that smugness, and only then can Steven bridge the gap towards friendship. Heck, Garnet is the only truly confident Crystal Gem, and while I wouldn’t quite call her smug, at her worst she evokes the ice cold certainty of Sapphire more than the exposed nerve of Ruby. Like our villains, she begins as a mysterious figure, and her arc in Act II involves letting her Ruby out to become more balanced: she better understands her insecure family by embracing the uncertainty within, and uses this growth to reach out and help an insecure enemy understand her in Log Date 7 15 2.

Garnet might seem to have her act together compared to the other Crystal Gems, but let’s not forget that the emotionally healthiest character in the series is Greg Universe. He’s overconfident in flashbacks, but in the present is at peace with his shortcomings and happy with what he has without needing to compensate. He mourns Rose, but converts this grief into a celebration of his son’s life. Greg isn’t as dynamic a character as the rest because he’s already figured the important things out; he has his missteps, but his core is consistent and largely unchanging, even when he stumbles upon life-changing wealth. Steven tries to be like Rose throughout the series, but it’s not for nothing that Change Your Mind ties self-acceptance to sitting on the beach with a guitar.



I know I’m talking big picture here in terms of the characters and the series, but there’s not much to discuss about Bubbled at the surface level: it’s the misadventure of two enemies that sours to a breaking point, followed by a rescue. It’s actually a pretty slow bottle episode, consisting of a few long conversations broken up by two action sequences, and ending with another conversation. It’s similar in structure to Open Book and Gem Hunt, but far starker than either.

So the big picture is what matters when discussing Bubbled, because it’s a story about how Steven’s inner demons manifest, and will continue to manifest for the rest of the series. After all, Steven himself began as an overconfident kid, rushing into situations he wasn’t ready for and annoyed with not being considered a peer. He becomes far more tolerable after Steven and the Stevens, when he takes this attitude down a few notches and starts trying in earnest to catch up instead of looking for shortcuts or assuming he’s already there whenever anything goes right. But his insecurity is also clear, and now we get to really dig into the unique way this affects his character after examining how other insecurities affect other characters.

Amethyst’s insecurity raises her defenses like a pufferfish. Pearl’s insecurity makes her insensitive to the needs of others. Ruby’s insecurity compels her to verbalize her own worthlessness (while Sapphire radiates confidence and is only insecure when her signature ability to be secure in the future is disrupted). Connie’s insecurity drives her to prove her worth to others. Peridot’s insecurity causes her to belittle others to make herself seem bigger. Lapis’s insecurity magnifies her suffering and minimizes the good. Bismuth’s insecurity inspires her to overcommit to a righteous cause. Sadie’s insecurity lets people walk all over her until she snaps. Lars’s insecurity makes him a huge jerk. And Steven’s insecurity fuels a martyr complex that’s cranked up to life-threatening heights in Act III.

The most important choice Steven makes in Bubbled is a mind-numbingly stupid one: to tell Eyeball that he’s Rose Quartz, and to then do everything in his power to convince her. Eyeball is the reason he learned Rose shattered Pink Diamond, and she has given every indication that she despises Rose for this, and she’s an especially aggressive member of an aggressive team made of Gems designed to be aggressive. Steven’s reveal comes after Eyeball has made it explicit that her lingering hatred of Rose is the reason she even came to Earth. He’s alone in space with someone who will try to hurt him if she thought he was Rose (and who already wants to hurt him), and he has proven throughout Act II that he’s neither dumb nor naive enough to not understand the likely outcome here. But he says he’s Rose anyway, because he’s so obsessed with helping people that he’s willing to put his own safety at risk just to cheer up an enemy.

There are other reasons I think it makes sense for him to make such an obvious mistake. He’s definitely in shock, but he’s also grumpy and takes Eyeball’s disbelief as a challenge. This is an irrational decision made by someone who isn’t in a rational state of mind. But this only makes it more compelling that his gut instinct, the essence of Steven that emerges from this emotional turmoil, is to help someone else. We’ve already had a whole episode about balancing the needs of others with the needs of yourself in Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service, but remember, that episode ends with Steven falling asleep standing up, because he ignored his own health to help Kiki learn that lesson.

Steven’s greatest strength creates his greatest weakness. He’s empathetic and sensitive, and can do amazing things because of it, but he needs to value himself as much as he values everyone around him. Act III sees him stumble and scramble through more trying times than ever, and until Connie finally calls him out on it, he compounds his troubles with his self-sacrificial mindset. He’s not suicidal by any stretch, but he decides his own needs are irrelevant when others need help, which ironically makes him more selfish than ever as he determines that he and he alone can save the day and stop his friends from getting hurt. And even when the cosmic scale fades away, his obsession with helping others to distract from himself becomes the driving conflict of Steven Universe Future.



Eyeball works wonders as a foil: she opposes Steven, but isn’t savvy enough to manipulate him on purpose, so his error is both obvious and unforced. Telling her that he’s Rose Quartz needs to say more about him than about the person he’s telling, and Eyeball is just flat enough of a character that she doesn’t steal his spotlight.

Charlyne Yi once again kills it, and little moments do personalize Eyeball further, even if it’s nothing groundbreaking. The biggest, in my mind, is commanding Steven to “find cover, soldier!” as asteroids approach, despite their antagonistic relationship: her instinct to act as a team trumps her personal disdain for Steven, and while he assumes later that the two are bonding, this is as close as I think she actually gets to reciprocating. We see her get annoyed at being called Eyeball, which is a nice and reasonable gripe from a character whose gripes we tend to disagree with. And I love that her weapon is less of a knife and more of a shiv, with a squared edge that implies she’s got a really strong stabbing arm.



Like I said, she’s still flat—we may see her quirks here, but she doesn’t change at all over the course of the episode and we already knew she was a proud warrior Gem with a stubborn streak—but it works. It’s weird to use “flat” as a compliment, but I do mean it as such. She isn’t the real villain here, and “defeating” her feels more like failure than victory: Mindful Education hammers home that this is the third enemy Gem in a row that Steven couldn’t help, no matter how hard he tried.

While Bubbled feels pretty slow, it helps that the whole thing is beautiful to look at. The opening shot of Steven tumbling through space from his own point of view gets us right into the game, and the loneliness and sheer terror of his situation is highlighted with gorgeous, silent shots of space. Steven is processing a huge shift in perspective, and the setting reflects the magnitude of his new reality.

And then, to add an auditory counterpart to the visual story, his rescue is punctuated by Rebecca Sugar finally finishing Love Like You.

The song has played over the closing credits since the beginning of the series, using a variety of instruments before the lyrics trickled in. An acoustic version accompanies the end of Ocean Gem, as Steven celebrates with the humans and the Gems discuss what Lapis’s escape means for the future. A haunting reprise, unrecognizable at first while Steven struggles to find himself, joins the end credits for Act III. And wouldn’t you know, it’s a song about insecurity.

When I first heard Love Like You, and for years after, I was convinced that it was sung by Rose. Rebecca Sugar herself said that it wasn’t written with a particular character in mind, but nope, for me it was definitely about Rose. She’s singing to Greg about how she wants to capable of loving the way humans can, and Steven is the result of the conversation. And I still think that reading stands, and that it matters, but songs can be about more than one thing.

This is the third of four songs that encapsulate the two big lessons I take from Steven Universe. Strong in the Real Way reconstructs the notion of what true strength is, and alongside Stronger Than You, we’re told that what matters most is doing the right thing and being a good person, even when it’s hard, and that healthy relationships (romantic, familial, platonic, whatever) help make this possible.

Love Like You and our fourth big song, Change Your Mind, similarly work as a duo: where the Strong Songs are about the importance of relationships to emotional strength, Love Like You and Change Your Mind address how we as individuals can be strong in the real way. It’s important to have healthy relationships, but it’s also important to love yourself, and Love Like You is about that second part: the most loving network in the world can’t fix your insecurity if you’re unable to see yourself the way your loved ones do.

As Love Like You plays in the background, with the first non-diegetic lyrics we’ve heard in the series, Steven is finally told the truth. Garnet is right that Steven’s mother would have done anything for Earth, and while the details of her misdeeds are hazy at this point, the result is the same. Steven can no longer look to his mother as a paragon of virtue, and even though the Crystal Gems love him, they can’t fix this new problem, especially if their secrecy is part of the problem. They think the world of Steven, and now it’s up to him to see that he can do about anything. He could even learn how to love.



Future Vision!

Eyeball knows Rose Quartz not by her shield, but her sword. And we know Eyeball witnessed the “shattering” of Pink Diamond. And we know that Rose’s sword was built to not harm a Gem’s gem. Hints abound.

we know that Rose’s sword was built to not harm a Gem’s gem. Hints abound. The chase around the bubble ends because Steven stops and wonders aloud what would happen if his gem was taken. It’s the first time the subject is broached on the show. It isn’t the last.



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



Bubbled touches on major themes of the series, but in a bubble on its own, the glacial pace hinders the storytelling. This is a great finale, but it’s not that great of a solitary episode. I like it fine, there are a lot of great things about it (the art in particular), but I don’t rank this one very high by itself.

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