“That’s Earth for you, always bouncing back.”

In many ways, Back to the Kindergarten can be read as an analog to Gemcation. Both follow big breakups and show a character reeling in the aftermath, both feature an outside character suggesting a change of scenery, and both see our lead remain upset throughout the bulk of the episode no matter what their friends try. But as we begin the latter half of the Breakup Arc, this episode provides something that’s normally commonplace in Steven Universe, but has gone unseen since Dewey Wins: joy.

This is by no means the happiest or silliest episode of the series, but in its own weird way, it acts as the successor to Peridot’s cooldown adventures (Log Date 7 15 2 and Kindergarten Kid and The New Crystal Gems) by providing the first instance of relief after an avalanche of drama. At long last, we get a story about the power of hope, one that still acknowledges that things suck but finally shows that they’ll get better. And even if the rug is once again pulled out from under us over the course of the episode, we know by the end that everything will be okay for Peridot. Someday, somewhere, somehow, she’ll love again.

After so many scenes of Steven’s earnest angst, Peridot’s own anguish is morbidly amusing. It isn’t played for laughs in a mean-spirited way, but it’s still played for laughs; I mean, just look at that mug. This is a character who routinely dials her emotions up to 20, so when she’s knocked down, she doesn’t just brood by a phone. She crashes face-down in a bathroom listening to country music, which isn’t just vintage Peridot melodrama but the perfect fit for a hero who lost her girl and her barn on the same day (all she needs now is for her truck to break, her dog to die, and to find salvation in Jesus Protestant Jesus to win Country Song Bingo).



And I do appreciate that the barn is a major factor in Peridot’s misery. It doesn’t take away from how sad she is about Lapis to acknowledge that losing a home also sucks, so we don’t get any sort of running metaphor where she talks about the barn but really means her barnmate. She has enough room in her big green heart to miss both, so she does. And homelessness is what forces her back to the bathroom, marking a backslide that’s especially painful for a Gem who takes such pride in her character development that she calls it character development.

Steven, who knows from heartache and is enough of a martyr by now to give up his bathroom without a second thought, is fine letting Peridot mope forever. But Amethyst is sick of the gloom eating away at her friends, and while pushiness like hers needs an expert’s touch to work in the real world, she has all the necessary ingredients. Her friendship with Peridot is well-established, and each knows the other can handle tough love. Her idea of helping involves doing what Peridot enjoys, but it’s something Amethyst was gonna do anyway; it’s good if Peridot agrees to come along to the Kindergarten, but the activity doesn’t hinge on her attendance, easing the pressure of social obligation. From the lens of teaching young viewers, I see the potential for backfiring (it’s easy for a well-meaning friend to enter “Have you tried not being depressed?” territory) but it works with these characters, and Steven Universe has done plenty elsewhere to show the importance of sensitivity.

As the original series nears its end, our three lead Gems are honored with Finale Episodes of sorts. It doesn’t mean they’re finished, of course, but it’s nice to take a step back this deep into the show and look at how much our heroes have grown; heck, they made a whole movie about it. So as we start the process of wrapping things up, we get three distant sequels to Season 1 episodes, and our first, like so many other firsts on this show, belongs to Amethyst.

We’ve had enough Kindergarten field trips that they don’t come across as sequels to On the Run on their own, any more than a barn episode is an automatic sequel to Space Race. It isn’t until our trio takes a train instead of a warp, complete with lovely shots of the countryside, that the connection is made ironclad. Like On the Run, our three leads are Steven, Amethyst, and a brainy third Gem with a gem on her forehead and pointy hair. Like On the Run, it ends with a big fight and a delayed embrace. But playing both episodes in a row, it’s astounding to see the difference almost a hundred episodes can make.

Amethyst is still interested in showing off her place of origin, but this time she’s truly doing it for her friend, rather than paying lip service to it while focusing on herself. Amethyst is just as happy to see the old stomping grounds, but now it’s because she has a better understanding of the place as a home for other amethysts as well. While she was once running away in shame and seeking to build herself up, she’s developed a strong foundation of self-esteem and stands up for herself when put down without overreacting. Instead of drawing away from Steven when he uses his powers defensively, she gets close enough to him that they fuse. Steven’s big sister is secure and mature enough to not only look out for him, but take others under her wing.

Amethyst and Peridot are natural foils, but their dynamic from Beta and Earthlings has flipped: now Amethyst is the chipper one doing everything in her power to lighten things up, and Peridot is the one determined to suffer. It adds an extra layer of brilliance that Amethyst’s plan involves putting Peridot in a situation that recalls those episodes, allowing her to exposit about Kindergarten specifics and show off her smarts. And for a moment, it works: Peridot perks up when correcting Amethyst’s wrong guesses about which holes the other amethysts emerged from, and blushes when complimented for it.

But just like the scenic route, Peridot is too forlorn to see the bright side. In another situation, it would be inspiring that she values organic life so much that she no longer sees Kindergartens as the positive force on a planet that she did in It Could’ve Been Great, but even as she shows how much she’s grown, she bemoans the futility of trying to make a change. Plus, she goes so far in her Organic=Good/Kindergarten=Bad mindset that she insults Amethyst to her face. Twice. (Michaela Dietz’s sullen “Yo not better” after the clarification that only well-made amethysts left Earth is the joke of night to make up for it.)

It’s amazing how well the Kindergarten still works as a place of horrors. Even as Amethyst merrily spindashes up its cliffs to talk about her sisters, Kindergarten’s ominous music drones in the background, a constant reminder of its corruption of our planet. It lends depth to Peridot’s downer assessment, because this isn’t just a sadsack making the worst of everything; by the end of the episode, her pessimistic take on Kindergarten is validated. Amethyst’s appeal to positivity is nice, and it’s necessary to spur Peridot along, but it takes more than happy thoughts to get through hard times.

Not even seeing a flower sprouting in the barren rock is enough to give Peridot hope: it takes Steven and Amethyst to amp up its value and convince her to try again. The ensuing gardening sequence is where most of that joy I hyped comes from, a classic montage that evokes the silliness of an earlier episode. We’ve seen the result of Peridot’s green thumb by now, but this is the first time we see her process in action, and the simple act of doing good work well does wonders for the soul. We get a callback to Amethyst’s helicopter form, and deeper cuts like a lawn flamingo from Maximum Capacity and Dumb Police water guns from Together Breakfast. Steven, for the first time in ages, is happy. Peridot allows herself to smile. But we’re halfway through the episode, so there’s only one way to go from here.

Still, we take our time to bask in the warmth. Steven gets a jovial morning routine and the trio gets a pleasant train ride, visuals that show progression from the dour early scenes of the episode and match the budding hope from friends who are revved up to get planting. But beyond the realities of plotting that indicate something will go wrong, Peridot sets off warning lights when she expresses relief at being able to fix something.

Lapis, like most of the characters on this show (and people in the world), has issues to work through. But no healthy relationship has ever come from one person trying to “fix” another, because people don’t work on those terms. There’s an enormous gulf between trying to help someone and trying to fix them: the latter implies that a person is broken, that they lack the agency to take care of themselves, that they can only be “fixed” by behaving in a way that the one doing the fixing prefers. It should say something that the biggest advocate for fixing people in the original series is White Diamond, whose mindset makes her the final boss.

This hardly means Peridot is villainous, as she does want what’s best for Lapis. But she, like her mentor and drill-buddy Steven, is someone who’s so good at fixing things that she saved a whole planet. For him, it’s about taking parent-like responsibility for those around him, what with his mediation skills and support magic. For her, it’s about creation and maintenance, from her role as a Kindergartner to her role as a kinder gardener. These are good traits in a bubble, but the impulse to overextend them by standing on a pedestal and trying to fix situations while ignoring how others feel, or trying to fix friends instead of communicating as an equal, has led to two disastrous breakups over the course of this arc. It stands to reason that another instance of meddling in an area where their skills don’t apply is gonna bring more pain.



Peridot brings up the magic of sunshine as she lists everything wrong with Kindergarten, and sunflowers are used as a symbol of hope as our friends grow a new garden. But there ain’t no sunshine where she’s gone, only darkness every day. She loses it, and converts her negative energy from sulking to ranting as a dark version of her theme throws a tantrum of its own. She takes out her newfound anger on Steven and Amethyst, on herself for being stupid enough to hope that things would get better, and on the surviving flower.

There’s a crushing moment of remorse after she stamps it out that, in another episode, might’ve been a tragic little rock bottom. Instead, echoes of the Beta Kindergarten burst out as the flower reveals itself to be the goofiest Corrupted Gem this side of the Gem Runner of Kindergarten Kid, and Smoky Quartz must form to stop it. We’ve had another taste of sorrow, but this is an episode about finding ways to heal, so it’s time for more silliness.

One fight scene later, and Peridot is more indignant than upset. Just as she was right about which amethyst came from where, she ends up being right about the futility of gardening in the Kindergarten. The subtext of her struggle is so clear that they turn it into another joke, but then we finally get the actual lesson: a waterbender like Lapis might find comfort in being told there are plenty of fish in the sea, but our earthbound Peridot is instead told that there’s a whole world blooming around her.

It’s not as simple as “oh well, Lapis didn’t work out so forget her and find someone new.” It’s about having the serenity to accept the things you can’t change, the courage to change what you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Peridot’s relationship with Lapis isn’t doomed, but the type of relationship they were in certainly was: the love was there (whether romantic or platonic is something I’ll leave to y’all), but Peridot saw Lapis as someone in need of repair, and Lapis couldn’t let her guard down. They both have to work on themselves before coming back together, and for Peridot, that means knowing how to let go and devote herself to projects that are healthy instead of spending that energy on something that should be more of a partnership.

It’s okay to like fixing things, and it’s okay to like helping people. But keeping a firm line between the two is crucial to your own well-being and the well-being of others, and that isn’t just something for Peridot to learn. Steven is happier here than he’s been since well before his abduction, because helping others is his go-to move. And that’s okay! It only becomes a problem when it’s the only way he values himself, because it makes him obsess over fixing everything around him, situations and people alike, as a substitute for working on himself.

Peridot learns that lesson, but in a classic Steven move, he has a hard time doing what he teaches others. But more on that in the Future.

In the present, even though we have to eat another scoop of misery to get there, we earn some smatterings of joy. The joy of Steven finally able to take his mind off his suffering. The joy of Amethyst lightening the mood for her friends and connecting with her sisters in a new way. The joy of Peridot returning a hug after a couple of long days. The darkness of the past few episodes was necessary for the stakes of our two big rifts to sink it, but it’s time to climb back to the sunlight.



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

Timing is everything, and this episode might not be a favorite if there was space between the Breakup Arc and its debut. But as a first step forward after three steps back, it fills me with a sense of hope like no other episode of Steven Universe. Gemcation tells us that things can get better with time, but Back to the Kindergarten shows it.

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6. Horror Club

5. Fusion Cuisine

4. House Guest

3. Onion Gang

2. Sadie’s Song

1. Island Adventure

(No promo art this time, and a shocking dearth of fanart about this episode, so I figured I’d go with fanart from a heavy hitter in the sunflower fandom.)