The Kindergarten Kid or Green Grasshoper Learns Gem Fu

I must say I quite enjoy Steven Universe as a series: I love the Wacky Gem Hunt episodes, the Feels episodes, the Just Another Day at Beach City episodes, the Galactic Action episodes, and the Lore Bomb episodes… But there is one type of episodes I particularly relish: The Peridot episodes.I haven’t been much into which storyboarder is behind each episode, but the style here reminded me of other favourite P-Pisodes, Message Received and Gem Drill, so I guess I have started to recognize the ones that are helmed by Raven Molisee and Paul Villeco, who have great insights into P-Ddot’s character to match those by the Zuke/Florido tandem.One thing that I like about Peridot is that it is a character that goes beyond plain comedy relief, the kind of which Porky Pig played in Drip-Along Daffy, a classic cartoon by Chuck Jones, whose Roadrunner shorts are given here a fun and loving homage.Plain and classic comedy relief is there just to counterpoint the hero’s actions, and to be laughed at. Peridot is there to make you laugh, yes, but you always get to see what makes her tick, and how she grows as a character… To quote the Bard in Shylock’s lips, Peridot may be a zany, dorky clod, but the writers never forget that she’s got hands, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, as much as a titular hero would.This, of course, means we get her whole personality, warts and all, and decidedly, she starts the episode as a jerk: Peri’s ego got quite a boost after poofing Jasper and she’s laughing at the efforts of the more experienced Crystal Gems, to the point that even Amethyst (usually friendly towards the Pery-Dactyl) looks quite annoyed, and as you see in picture one here, looks now quite the grown-up, more mature Crystal Gem she’s becoming after her recent arc.I felt also that Peridot was being a douche when laughing at the corrupted gems, like an uneducated brat at the zoo: this hurt me all the more when it was evident in Gem Drill that she was compassionate about the gem shards and their dire fate, so I was shocked at her insensitiveness towards the gem monsters, who once were fully conscious gems like her. It made me as mad as when Taurine aficionados state that a bull feels no pain as the matador repeatedly stabs him.But, as we know already, when Peridot behaves like a jerk, Karma kicks her ass quite unsparingly. And here she’s a combination of the frustrated Daffy Duck of the late era and the tenacious but unfortunate Wile E. Coyote.Peridot, however vainly she states it, makes a good point at the start: the gems fail at catching monster gems when they try to outbrute them, and she is going to capture by outsmarting it. This shows she knows her strengths: She’s pretty aware that she cannot subdue a Gem Monster by brute force and Gem martial arts as Jasper would do, so she’s going to use her smarts and also a bit of her metal-bending powers, which seem to have upgraded slightly since the last time we saw them.Still, while adressing the monster problem with a different perspective is a good starting point, she fails spectacularly again and again, taking a level of punishment that shows that a Peridots can be as hardy as Rubies, or even more.Steven finally has to point to Peridot that the key to her failures is her contempt for the creature, which, by the way, demonstrates she’s pretty canny for a “mad beast”. “Corruptions aren’t dumb, they just think a little different” says Centipeetle’s buddy. When Peridot fails to get it, Steven provides a practical example of how the monster must feel, but of course, in his own Steven-y way, hitting the Kindergartener with… marshmallows.This leads to the most riotous scene (IMHO) of the episode when Peridot attempts an empathic approach to the Gem monster by mimicking her, in what looks pretty much like… well, a mating dance worthy of a Natural Geographic documentary (see gifs above).The monster, by the way, looks quite friendly here. In fact, a while back, it comes back and seems a bit concerned when big boulders fall over poor Peridot, and when she finally manages to get hold oh it and ends riding it, I entertained the idea of this “Roadrunner Gem” eventually becoming Peridot’s steed.Finally Peridot manages to poof the monster in a way that is both classic Coyote plunge and also recalls Major Kong riding the bomb in Dr. Strangelove (see: https://youtu.be/wcW_Ygs6hm0 ).In typical Peridot way, she learns after being humbled by her experience, and, possibly to underline her education, she unknowingly creates a bubble for the first time. Dammit, our Era 2 kid is sure growing up!I guess that The Kindergarten Kid might be a reference to The Karate Kid, but I might be wrong.If you listen closely, wood instruments play a theme for Gem monster (for instance, when she approaches Steven and Peridot), which definitely (and appropiately) brings a Carl C. Stallings touch to the soundtrack ( https://youtu.be/V1U9Jaq3CVE?t=3m45s Peridot is good at strecthing her tongue when she imitates the monster… I wonder if this might be a first step into her learning to shapeshift.Will green be the colour of the Bubbles made by Team Barn Gems?Deadpan Lapis is the best.