“Maybe you can help us out.”

Ten episodes ago, Steven witnessed Yellow and Blue Diamond hatch a plan to bring more humans to the Zoo. Ten episodes in the future, Steven and Connie will finally reconcile from the fallout of the actions he takes to stop that plan. Thirty episodes ago was the first half of a double-sized story where we got our first major hint that Rose was imperfect, ending in a fight over whether Steven and Rose are the same person. Thirty episodes in the future is the second part of a quadruple-sized story about how imperfection is okay, ending in a fight over whether Steven and Rose are the same person. So yeah, in case the name didn’t give it away, I Am My Mom is central to Steven’s identity arc.

I’d argue that the arc revolves around I Am My Mom even more than A Single Pale Rose, and not just because the latter comes so late to the game. As huge as the Pink Diamond reveal is for the series, this isn’t Rose’s story. It’s Steven’s, and his story is about finding peace with his identity and growing out of his martyr complex, so it hinges around an episode where he assumes his mother’s identity to save his friends at his own expense. Solving The Case of the Shattered Diamond is crucial, but when it comes to big Steven moments, nothing beats the sacrifice we’ve been building to since he lost his Rose-tinted view of the past.

We start with a bang, setting up the stakes in record time: it takes mere moments to recap that Homeworld is stealing Steven’s human friends, there’s no way to chase them if they leave the planet, and Steven isn’t taking it well. When asked whether Aquamarine and Topaz are important, Deedee Magno Hall gets an early knockout with Pearl’s “Uh, yes!”: it’s vintage Frantic Pearl, but just a little snobby as well, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world that these are dangerous foes. We already have a great first impression of the pair, but this line read amps up their reputation in a way only Garnet or Pearl could provide context for.

It’s quick, but I also love that we establish how Amethyst leads the charge on gathering information and getting things moving. After confirming that their ship is gone, she asks Steven about who the kidnappers were, asks Pearl about whether these Gems are big deals, and asks everyone why only Steven’s friends were taken. She’s even the one who asks Steven if Connie sent more photos during the search. These questions could’ve been divvied up among the Gems, but it’s Amethyst who’s sensible enough to pose all of them, subtly informing her thoughtfulness and understanding of Steven’s concerns when he’s too upset to step back and think the situation through.

Rather than draw out the search to fill the entire episode, we keep up this fast pace by veering right back to horror: the use of Connie’s ringtone from Alone Together is just a killer, taking one of the most joyful moments of the series and letting it echo throughout the empty boardwalk until it’s drowned out by Topaz’s heavy drone. And after more bratty intimidation, Aquamarine even gets the question of why Steven’s friends are targets out of the way, so we can spend the episode focusing on the aftermath instead of scratching our heads.

Planting the seeds of this story all the way back in Marble Madness is, as I said in that review ages ago, some Rowling-level plotting: it’s so long ago that we get an honest-to-god flashback instead of just explaining what happened, complete with Andross Peridot. This not only ties the plot together in a way that makes logical sense, but after a season of Steven stewing over his mother’s actions and their consequences, we now have a consequence of his own actions to stew over.

Yes, he’s somewhat culpable in Greg’s kidnapping, in the sense that if they hadn’t gone to Korea they never would’ve met Blue Diamond. But it was still Greg’s decision to talk to her, and Blue Diamond’s decision to “rescue” him. He magnifies his own involvement until the only person he blames is himself, because guilt has become a cornerstone of his identity of late, but it’s clear to us that it’s not his fault. But this time is different. He and we barely need to do any work to connect his friends’ kidnapping to his actions, because he literally told Homeworld who they were.

There are obviously mitigating factors here as well, namely that there’s no way he could’ve anticipated that a casual listing of names would lead to Homeworld targeting those specific people in an eventual human hunt. There’s also the vast distance of time and maturity between the Steven of Act I, who knew virtually nothing about Homeworld, and the Steven of today. But that second point just makes the theme of the past catching up with the Crystal Gems all the stronger, because it’s not like Rose Quartz shattered Pink Diamond a week ago. It took a while, but the bill came due, and Steven doesn’t even need his guilt complex to pick up the check on this one. The episode keeps on rolling after Steven’s big reaction, as its explanation of Aquamarine’s confusion over “my dad” seems to be the major takeaway, but his shame isn’t going anywhere.

As a temporary salve for the escalating tension, the first fight of I Am My Mom is full of cartoony elements, like Garnet’s impact leaving a Garnet-shaped hole in the wall and Pearl being launched into a glint in the sky a la Team Rocket (I know it’s a common trope beyond Pokémon, but I doubt anything with the blasting off again twinkle touched mainstream America in the same way). It mirrors the similarly slapstick battle of fellow second-parter Ocean Gem, complete with the shift in seriousness as the fight continues. In the Lapis fight, this occurs when Steven and Connie are nearly drowned in bubbles of water, but Aquamarine and Topaz manage to top it.



Aquamarine is horrible from the start, smug and impatient as she merrily bullies everyone around her. Her cruel sarcasm sets her apart from villains like Jasper and Yellow Diamond: while all of them drip condescension, at least the latter two are earnest about it. She sees the fight as a game, toying with the Crystal Gems’ emotions as their human friends are put on the line and employing her all-powerful wand to embarrass instead of wrapping things up quickly. But as soon as she’s bored, she goes a step beyond and drags the show into uncharted territory.

Shattering has been on the table a few times before, but it’s shocking for a villain to threaten to murder Steven’s friends. Aquamarine dances around the subject in her own trolling way, but her intent is intensified when Topaz grabs Jamie—a source of comic relief in the series as a whole and during this episode—and squeezes his head. Slowly. Effortlessly. As he quietly begs for help.

The intimacy of this threat packs a far greater punch than Yellow Diamond’s desire for the entire planet to die for a few reasons. First, it’s easier to wrap our heads around a smaller horror than an incomprehensibly huge one: as the classic possible Stalin quote says, a single death is a tragedy but a million is a statistic. Second, Yellow Diamond is light-years away and is talking about what she wants, while Aquamarine and Topaz are right in front of our heroes and demonstrating what they’ll actually do. And third, while we can assume that this show would never allow Earth or Jamie to die, it’s at least more likely that a single character is killed off than the entire planet.

Aquamarine’s threat does so much for the show beyond establishing her as a significant villain. The stakes of the series, which were already pretty high, ratchet right up. The possibility of human characters dying is introduced, which puts us in the right headspace for Lars’s shocking death; even if he comes back, he still dies on camera. And it steels Steven’s resolve to protect his friends by any means necessary. He might have let himself and his friends all go to the Zoo with a plan to escape later if their safety was assured, but it’s not worth the risk to have anyone he loves anywhere near this maniac.

But even now, Aquamarine remains monstrously petty. Far from the hardcore loyalists like Peridot, Jasper, and Holly Blue Agate, she’s lazy and willing to do a poor job if it means ending her mission early. Her overconfidence allows her to be fooled into bringing Steven along, but his overconfidence allows him to get captured for real as he tries and fails to make his bubble from inside Topaz.

As with the battle, we get another easing of tension as Steven struggles to escape. Given the circumstances we might expect more drama as the Homeworld ship escapes with the humans still stuck, but Lars expresses his fury through little smacks to the face, and Jamie recovers from his tight squeeze by going Full Jamie, to the annoyance of Onion and Aquamarine alike. And when the bubble finally does work, it makes Topaz look ridiculous as she inflates like a balloon.

Both the fight and this interlude help push this episode from great to outstanding, because I Am My Mom is enough of a downer that it needs some levity to get us through it, but too much levity could undermine the tone. It’s a delicate balance when the situation is this grave, but despite two major opportunities to falter, the crew pulls through.

With freedom comes Steven finally verbalizing his guilt, not acknowledging Connie’s suggestion to fuse and instead muttering in despair as the ship takes off. As he puts up a shell that foreshadows his imminent sacrifice, we cut to Lars similarly isolating himself from Sadie; while Steven’s stoic determination is traditionally considered heroic and Lars’s instinct to run as cowardly, neither is healthy for their relationships with Connie and Sadie. Sadie isn’t even mad when Lars flees after seeming to steel himself up to save her, it’s just one more disappointment she has to swallow before biting Topaz’s finger and skedaddling with an assist from Connie.

I think it’s this, more than the events that follow, that hurts Connie the most. It’s bad enough that she’s left on Earth while Steven goes off to space again, but on the ship, when she’s fighting her heart out to help everyone, Steven has already given up. As mentioned in Are You My Dad, Stevonnie wouldn’t have done much against the sheer might of Aquamarine, but Connie and Steven don’t know this in the moment, meaning he’s willing to put himself in danger but doesn’t consider her as an option before making that call. It’s not an unfounded complaint that he doesn’t consider her a true equal, and he unfortunately reinforces this mindset with his dismissive attitude in Dewey Wins.

Steven briefly escapes his rambling funk when the door opens, and we get one last moment of humor when Onion performs a dive perfect enough to elicit a double take, but Aquamarine’s wand proves powerful enough to keep even Alexandrite at bay. And now, when all hope seems lost, Steven pulls his decisive gambit.

Steven has danced around identifying as Rose Quartz here and there, most notably in Joy Ride, where he tells the Cool Kids about Homeworld Gems thinking he’s his mom but adds “…and maybe I am?” to the end. But otherwise he firmly asserts himself as Steven when misnamed, even as he struggles with the sins of his mother’s past; Rocknaldo, of all episodes, reinforces that he knows he’s a different person at this stage of the show. So telling Aquamarine that he’s Rose isn’t a matter of him believing it, but deciding it doesn’t matter if it isn’t true, because he doesn’t matter if his friends are in danger.

The complicating factor is that his sacrifice is noble, and despite the protests of his friends, it is the best way to guarantee everyone else’s safety. So it’s hard to just say he does the wrong thing: Aquamarine presented a threat so great that fighting wasn’t an option, and has an attitude so toxic that talking wasn’t an option, so surrender is an understandable position to take. From this point of view, his baffled reaction to Connie’s later disapproval makes total sense.

But this is a show about working together, about love in all its forms and how it can overcome incredible odds. Steven refuses to put his friends in danger, but what if they all rose to the occasion at the Zoo, the way Lars does on Homeworld? Who’s to say that Steven as a uniter couldn’t bring the Boardies, the Zoomans, and the Famethyst together and stage a grand escape, leaving Earth fuller than it was when they left at the story’s end? Their safety wouldn’t be guaranteed, but at least it’s better odds for the group than Steven’s odds upon surrendering himself as Rose Quartz, and he doesn’t allow them the chance to prove themselves.

I don’t bring up this hypothetical because I wish it’s how the show went, even though it would’ve been great: Steven needs to fail to grow, and while it can be seen as a heroic deed, by sacrificing himself he fails himself. If he inherited one thing from his mother it’s the ability to inspire, and he can do it without her subterfuge, without even trying. He fails to value this ability, just as he fails to value his own safety, and his pathological selflessness wraps right back around to selfishness. It doesn’t matter if his absence makes his friends and family suffer, and it doesn’t matter that they have hidden depths that would allow them to work together and come home together, because by blaming himself for everything, Steven makes everything about Steven.

It’s a good thing to want to help people. And it’s easy to write a story about a self-centered soul becoming generous, because it’s a clear arc from Bad Trait to Good Trait. But it’s hard to write a story, especially a story for kids, that teaches the value of tempering helpfulness with self-respect, about setting boundaries and not taking the world’s problems on your shoulders alone. At a glance, Steven is doing what a hero does, but this is a show whose boy hero has the powerset of a support unit, a show that devotes two whole songs to the explicit lesson that strength isn’t about muscles. It challenges the norms of stories kids are told over and over again, and with luck, it might change some minds about the value of Stoic Loner Badasses over forging healthy relationships.

In Ocean Gem, Steven saves the ocean by talking to Lapis Lazuli in his own Steven-y way. In Gem Drill, he saves the world by talking to the Cluster in his own Steven-y way. And in I Am My Mom, he saves his friends by talking to Aquamarine, but through the same language of lies that his mother was fluent in, and this tainted methodology leads to a tainted victory. Steven Universe isn’t Rose Quartz, and I Am My Mom thrives by showing why he shouldn’t be.

Future Vision!

This is perhaps the harshest instance of Pearl’s inability to reveal what actually happened to Pink Diamond. It’s always tough to watch her cover her mouth post-Single Pale Rose, but this is the moment where the truth might matter the most in terms of immediate consequences.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

A nice, quiet image for a cacophonous finale. But I would’ve loved to see Aquamarine as a greaser or a goth or something, considering she’s already in uniform.

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



It’s low for being such a downer, in the same way The Good Lars struggles to reach higher in my top list, but even if I rarely rewatch I Am My Mom, it’s hard to deny its greatness.

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