“I was there. I saw it with my own eye.”

In The Return, the penultimate episode of Act I, Steven learns something terrible about Rose Quartz. He’s being driven away from an alien threat that nobody thinks he’s ready to face, and his father finally tells him that his mother wasn’t just an alien, but an alien invader. The Gems were attacking Earth, and while Rose ultimately became a hero, she came to the planet as one of the attackers. It’s something the Crystal Gems never told him, but Greg’s words allow Steven to see his mom in a new light that shapes his relationship with her in Act II.

In Back to the Moon, the penultimate episode of Act II, Steven learns something terrible about Rose Quartz. He’s in the thick of an alien threat that he’s more than ready to face, and an enemy finally tells him that his mother is a killer. The Gems were attacking Earth, and while Rose ultimately became a hero, she did it by murdering the leader of the invaders. It’s something the Crystal Gems never told him, but Eyeball’s words force Steven to see his mom in a new light that shapes his relationship with her in Act III.

That one of these stories is true and the other is false is irrelevant to how they alter Steven’s perception of his mother and the Crystal Gems. Even if Rose didn’t actually shatter Pink Diamond, Garnet and Amethyst thought she did and and decided not to tell him, and Pearl knew but couldn’t tell him, because even if Rose didn’t kill Pink, she was still capable of acts as monstrous as removing a friend’s free will.

The effects of learning Rose was an alien invader are instant: Steven is galvanized to return to his friends and save the day, and spends the next fifty-odd episodes looking up to a departed parent who disavowed an evil regime in favor of Earth. I’d argue his relative lack of visible growth in Act II is a direct result of this: he has a simplistic view of his mother as a hero, and his goal to become just like her is futile because he doesn’t have the full story.

Learning Rose shattered Pink Diamond is a slower, more painful process. Yes, there’s the immediate tearful denial, but we jump right back to the main plot that we’ve been following for eight minutes. The scene after the reveal focuses on Amethyst as Jasper, followed by a final confrontation with the Ruby Squad. When Steven speaks, he betrays no signs of dismay: he’s either congratulating Amethyst for a job well done, or trash talking Giga Ruby before launching her into space. But his silence in between speaks volumes, both subtly as he holds Garnet’s hand off to the side, and more openly in my favorite shot of the episode, complete with a somber, high-pitched variant of the Diamond harmonette and strings.

Perhaps Steven’s moments of normalcy seem odd, but as we’ll see in Bubbled, our kid is in shock. It takes a while for the weight of this information to sink in, and he spends the next fifty-odd episodes recovering his shattered pieces and rebuilding himself into a stronger individual than ever. He’s not Rose Quartz, and he never has been, but this is final arc is about him realizing that he shouldn’t be.

So that, to me, defends his odd behavior. What I find less defensible is the level of coincidence involved in the reveal. It’s not a huge deal, but from a storytelling perspective it’s just sloppy to have Jasper mention Pink Diamond for the first time by saying Rose did something to her, then for Steven to learn what Jasper was talking about one episode later, and for those two events to have no bearing on each other. Steven would’ve been told about Pink Diamond whether or not Jasper said a thing, which takes a lot of the narrative oomph out of her last words. All we needed was for him to mention Pink Diamond, just to spark the conversation, and I’d be fine with this. I can forgive the Ruby Squad just happening to show up right when Jasper is defeated—I would’ve loved to see Jasper and the rubies teaming up, but that would be a wholly different story—yet the execution leading up to Eyeball’s explanation irks me to this day, because there’s no good reason for it. If I extend a generous reasoning, perhaps it’s to signify Steven’s lack of agency in this story? Enh. Naw, it still just comes across as contrived to me. Again, it’s not a huge deal, I just wish it was a little tighter.

Obviously the major twist is worth talking about, but Back to the Moon is so much more than than a game-changing revelation. The episode itself doesn’t focus on the consequences of the twist, so we’ll be covering the fallout in Bubbled (y’know, the episode about the fallout).

It’s surprising that Back to the Moon is another Amethyst episode, considering we just get a ton of Amethyst episodes, but what’s more surprising is that it doesn’t feel like an overload of the character. By all accounts we should be a little tired of paying so much attention to her, but this story works by acting as an epilogue to her arc, rather than a continuation. It’s the first of three such epilogues: over the course of Act II, Amethyst learned to accept herself, Garnet became more capable of understanding others and making her identity as a fusion understood, and Pearl stops letting her longing for Rose sabotage her relationships, and Back to the Moon, Mindful Education, and Last One Out of Beach City bask in these changes to the status quo. They aren’t resolutions so much as reflections: our characters have already grown, and now we’re seeing what that means for them.



After struggling against Jasper directly and indirectly for five episodes, Amethyst is able to transform into her rival without a speck of angst. We see that this isn’t physically easy for her, because if it wasn’t a struggle, the whole point of her arc is muted: the terrific exasperated expressions from Lamar Abrams and Katie Mitroff are supplemented by Michaela Dietz’s wonderful Jasper impersonation, complete with slips to her regular voice (it kills me that her idea of good acting is just saying “I’m Jasper” a lot). And I love that we see her deciding to go through with it in the background while Doc rants, which I only noticed in like my fifth viewing. Details matter, people!

Amethyst saves the day by being her best self: a fluid improviser whose self-confidence shines after a severe bout with doubt. She’s the best shapeshifter in the Crystal Gems, and the most impulsive, so she’s the only one capable of taking this approach and the only one wild enough to go through with it. She’s pretty sure she can get away with such an obvious ruse (she was the one who claimed that rubies are dumb in Hit the Diamond, after all), and she’s right. We even get a callback to the days of Amethyst and Pearl as rivals, with Pearl constantly criticizing the plan only to see it succeed despite its clear flaws; in fact, as soon as Pearl praises Amethyst for the trick, it stops working.

While Amethyst gets the most focus, this is really a curtain call for all our friendly Gems now that we’re moving to a new era of the series. Garnet and Pearl, after hamming it up together while playing prisoner (Pearl is louder, but Garnet is funnier), remind us of how far they’ve come in mending their relationship’s lowest point with a cameo from their very hammy fusion. I appreciate the elegance of the Sardonyx factor, because it works as a capper for the Crystal Gems’ stories in Act II, but it also makes sense that these two would fuse to counter another big fusion, considering Amethyst is exhausted from fighting Jasper then playing Jasper.



Peridot and Lapis don’t have such an obvious moment of reflection, but we still get a finishing touch on their Act II relationship. They’ve gone from unwilling accomplices to reluctant roommates to friends, and they’re done with Homeworld conflicts. Lapis’s cheerful “Come on down!” while releasing rubies evokes game show lingo that goes hand in hand with her newfound love of television, and she’s otherwise her wonderful bitter self. Peridot doesn’t get as much to do, but she stands united with Lapis upon being offered the chance to play prisoner: as we saw in Beta, Peridot has gone from using Lapis as a tool to appearing more sensitive to Lapis’s traumatic past than even Lapis herself. I’m sure it won’t come back to haunt them in, say, Season 5.

Then, of course, there are the actual stars of the show.

Charlyne Yi had nothing to prove after voicing a swarm of rubies in Hit the Diamond, but they’re back and better than ever, complete with longer introductions and helpful nicknames from Steven (“Army” and “Navy” as references to the arm and navel are marvelous puns). Their individual personalities shine even brighter when separated and interrogated, and just in case it wasn’t clear enough that they aren’t a threat, we get Lapis and Garnet openly condescending to them. They remain a delight as a whole as well, kicking and punching at the ground to show their hatred of Earth and providing off-screen commentary about germs and Pearl’s overacting. We even get more speech from Giga Ruby than last time, and I relish the opportunity to hear Yi’s slow, deep “monster voice.”

The difference is that we have something of a main ruby this time around. Eyeball was the first member of the gang that we saw, all the way back in the last shot of Barn Mates, and is the most striking member of the team with her unusual gem placement. While the other rubies each get a moment in the sun, and Doc in particular gets a terrific rant about their search for Jasper, it’s Eyeball who takes the lead. Her devotion to Jasper almost retroactively characterizes our recently fallen villain, reinforcing how easy it would be for the other side to see her adherence to her values as heroic rather than stubborn and self-destructive. We get a hilarious shot of a single jealous tear as Doc sits in Amethyst’s lap, reinforcing Eyeball’s hero worship even further. And of course, Eyeball of all people is the person who finally lets Steven know about Rose shattering Pink.

These roles could have been split more evenly among the rubies, but Steven is about to spend an episode alone with Eyeball, and it’s smart to let us get to know her better before we do. Yeah, she’s grouchy and blunt, but there’s a real person in there who’s just as capable of love as our heroes, even if it’s directed towards her home planet and its champions. She hates Rose Quartz, but why wouldn’t she? This is not only the killer of a Diamond, but a traitor we’re talking about.

Here’s a convoluted but true sentence: Back to the Moon is the first half of the third two-part episode in a row (arguably the fourth, considering how seamlessly Crack the Whip leads to Steven vs. Amethyst). On top of this, it borrows from The Return, not only in the shared Rose reveal but in an opponent ominously saying “I was there” as a sort of invasion of Steven’s history. It also borrows from It Could’ve Been Great, returning to the lunar base that preceded our first full look at a Diamond. It’s a first-half episode that’s beholden to first-half episodes of the past: it has so much in common with others of its ilk that it’s unsurprising to see this story end in a cliffhanger. But the secret here is that if “this story” refers to the story of everyone but Steven and Eyeball, we get a pretty solid self-contained episode. Amethyst gets her win, the other Gems help save the day, the rubies are thwarted, and Lapis and Peridot are safe and sound on Earth.

It all feels a little mishmashed, to be honest: it’s a good Amethyst episode, but it’s also about the rubies, and it’s also about Pink Diamond, and it’s also about the end of Act II, and it also ends with our hero getting sucked into space. It shouldn’t work as well as it does. But considering how much time we’re about to spend on Steven all alone with someone who wants him dead, I’m glad to get a first-half episode that sends the rest of Act II off in style. Here comes the hard part.

Future Vision!

Theorists guessed that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond long before the latter was ever mentioned by name, and while Back to the Moon killed this theory for most, there were a few crazy holdouts who held true. I wasn’t one of them (I was iffy on the initial theory, even), but kudos to those who remained loyal, because they were right. And the first hint was right after Steven heard the story, in this heartbreaking shot that gets so much worse with context.

The gag of our heroes in space being this close to getting away with a ruse only to be caught in the last minute is repeated in That Will Be All.

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



This is a great Amethyst episode, and a humongous lore episode, but that by itself doesn’t get it in my top twenty. I still love it, as it contains a ton of individual elements that I love (the opening sequence especially, which might not stick out compared to the twist but is so much fun), but we won’t get the ramifications of its reveal until later. It might actually feel more complete if it was just an Amethyst episode, but it works wonders as it is, so I’m happy giving it a good home in the list.

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5. Horror Club

4. Fusion Cuisine

3. House Guest

2. Sadie’s Song

1. Island Adventure