There’s no episode of Steven Universe that A Single Pale Rose changes more than Rose’s Scabbard. There are multiple episodes that are fully about Steven thinking Rose shattered Pink Diamond, but none of them even come close.



When I first wrote this post, I felt the episode was best characterized by the header quote “Sometimes, you even sound like her.” It’s one of Deedee Magno Hall’s best reads, which is saying quite a lot: a crushingly quiet way of Pearl telling Steven how much she loved Rose, and how much she misses her. He doesn’t get it, but we do, and it’s heartbreaking.

I love that quote. I didn’t want to change it. But after A Single Pale Rose, it gets upstaged by a line that seems like a throwaway until it very suddenly isn’t. A line that means so little to Steven, but a line that means everything to Pearl in ways that she literally can’t say. We didn’t get it, but now we do, and it’s heartbreaking.

“Can you keep a secret?”

There’s a layer of melancholy that informs nearly everything Pearl says or does. This is distinct from being sad all the time; rather, sadness seems to color her view of the world, regardless of her mood at any given time. As I mentioned in Coach Steven, Deedee Magno Hall portrays this somberness so well that even Pearl’s roll call in the theme song sounds wistful.

In Rose’s Scabbard, we begin to find out why.

In my review of On the Run, I likened Amethyst’s character with anxiety and Pearl’s with depression. Again, this isn’t an attempt to clinically diagnose alien cartoon characters by someone who got a C+ in his freshman psychology prerequisite, but regardless, as someone whose depression usually outweighs his anxiety, I’m so grateful that Steven Universe provides a familiar soul for kids struggling the way I did when I was younger. Back in my day, Lisa Simpson and Eeyore and Charlie Brown were pretty much it.

It’s a good thing Pearl is so lovable, because she messes up a lot. Pearl is easily the most morally flawed Crystal Gem at this point in the show (I mean, look at who her teacher was), which so far has manifested in her gaps in empathy and her inability to realize when she’s wrong. In Monster Buddies, she doesn’t understand how Steven could actually befriend a Corrupted Gem. In Space Race, she doesn’t understand why Steven might be against going into space for fifty years. In Warp Tour, she doesn’t understand why Steven doesn’t agree with her sound logic over what he claims to have seen with his own eyes. Her multiple clashes with Amethyst stem from their similar stubbornness, but Pearl’s side of the feud is drenched in self-superiority.

(Flaws like these are why I can’t stand episodes like House Guest or Fusion Cuisine, because look at how much depth we get when a character’s faults are consistent!)

This undercurrent of sadness is intrinsic to Pearl, but we see her more or less hold it together, which makes it all the more powerful when Rose’s Scabbard finally breaks her. At this point in the show, we know nothing about pearls being a servile caste, or that Pearl was specifically a servant to Pink Diamond. We don’t know that she was the first Crystal Gem, one of the sparks of the rebellion. We don’t know that she was trusted with so many secrets that she was physically forced to keep them locked away, and that when she says she was the only person Rose trusted, she really, really means it. Without any of this knowledge, Rose’s Scabbard still hurts. With it, her meltdown is just devastating.

As Pearl copes with the weight of betrayal, we (and potentially Steven, based on his level of awareness) learn something that has secretly shaped her for the entire series: she loved Rose. Loved how? It’s all but said here, and reaffirmed soon, that it was traditional romantic love. But she also loved having that leader to turn to, and she loved having order and consistency, and she loved feeling like a special confidante, and these mainstays for thousands of years are also gone.

This is arguably the moment when she finally realizes that Rose didn’t love her back. Which isn’t to say that Rose didn’t love Pearl in her own broken way, but it’s impossible to truly love someone that you feel the need to control.

Why is Pearl a crumpled mess in this episode? Because she just found out that for all her years of love and loyalty, she only amounted to a vessel for her old master, full to the brim with objects and secrets and unrequited affection, and left emptied without her guidance. Pearl wanted to be Rose’s sword so badly that she managed to believe it was true, but now it’s finally clear that she was only Rose’s scabbard. And she can’t even tell anyone.

Now, this is a lot for Pearl to take in, and we all are capable of doing terrible things when our lives fall apart, but none of this is Steven’s fault, and it’s not okay that he bears the brunt of her breakdown. If she had stopped at the horrific “You’ve never even met her!” it would’ve been way too far, so the ensuing chase, culminating in The Glare and leaving him to climb back up without help, is borderline unforgivable.

But not to Steven. This episode might be important because of what we learn about Pearl, but it’s great because it’s also about Steven’s astounding capacity for grace. Back in Lars and the Cool Kids, when exposed to a similar Rose-related sucker punch, Steven is furious. Pearl’s behavior here is far worse than Lars’s there, but our lead has grown into a hero able to not only forgive her, but to try and make her feel better.



(The twist of this, of course, is that the very thing that makes him such a great hero is what causes him to suffer the most: his instinct to put others first to a self-sacrificial degree. Rose’s Scabbard becomes more and more of a masterpiece the further you are in the show, and the more you understand that being a saint in episodes like this has lasting effects on Steven’s psyche.)



While this extended final act is what sticks out the most about Rose’s Scabbard, the buildup is nothing to scoff at. Pearl’s initial excitement about battle gives us a fun moment of exuberance to contrast with her eventual sorrow, something she gets to briefly return to when she tells Steven more war stories at the end. And I love the dynamic of Steven’s obliviousness and Pearl’s manic frustration as we return to Rose’s training ground (finally named “The Armory”), especially Pearl’s light projection being used for comedic effect before it takes its dramatic turn to project an image of Rose.

Barring a cameo in The Test, this is the first time we see Lion since his lead role in Lion 3: Straight to Video. His lack of anthropomorphism continues to inhibit deeper characterization, but his balance of goofiness and zenlike wisdom brings out the best from the surrounding cast. The Gems verbalizing his connection to Rose prevents such an obvious plot element from serving as a cheap “twist” down the line, and his eventual acceptance of Pearl touching his mane makes for a lovely little arc.

Garnet and Amethyst are glorious in their background roles. It’s easy to miss their hilarious struggle to fit Garnet’s new battleaxe through the Temple’s door, as it happens off-screen and our lack of knowledge about Rose makes us pay full attention to Steven and Pearl’s conversation, but next time you watch this episode, focus solely on the other two Gems when they all first warp back. You won’t be disappointed.

Their contrast with Pearl may primarily characterize our lead Gem, but Amethyst’s anger is a great follow-up to Maximum Capacity’s exploration of her own relationship with Rose, and I love how Pearl’s outburst shocks Garnet back to her early-episode tacitness. Rose was important to all of them, even if Pearl was her closest ally, and Rose’s Scabbard wisely refuses to brush that aside.

While the visual wonder of this episode goes without saying (just look at the expressions in these screenshots!), and my love of this show’s music may be old hat for regular readers, I can’t let Aivi and Surasshu off the hook: the score is phenomenal. In terms of episode-original tracks, Moonlit Battlefield blends Pearl’s signature wistfulness with a furious tempo, punctuated by the shock of silence accompanying The Glare.

But if that wasn’t enough, the secondary melody of Rose’s theme plays prominently during Pearl’s heartbreaking retread of her conversation with Rose (note here the return of loaded phrase “Please understand”), and the theme for Rose’s legacy (as heard in Lars and the Cool Kids and An Indirect Kiss) provides an extra dose of relief and sadness to soaring strings of the episode’s final sequence.

A few episodes now have ended with a cut to black instead of the traditional star wipe. In Warp Tour and Alone Together, abrupt endings match the loud drama of their final scenes. On the Run has a similarly noisy conclusion, but this time it’s revving back up after the characters’ conflict is resolved, a reminder that Kindergarten has a lot more to say. Winter Forecast has my favorite, a peaceful version that doesn’t want to interrupt a lovely moment with a special effect. Rose’s Scabbard is yet another beast: a non-ending that shows that despite the resolution of this episode, Pearl is nowhere near finished processing her grief.

Neither love nor loss is easy, and while Steven’s childhood gives him the luxury of simplicity for now—to him, this is certainly a star wipe ending—Pearl isn’t so lucky. There may be many character arcs that span multiple episodes, this is the first instance where we see outright that Steven Universe won’t pretend huge issues can be solved in eleven minutes. Pearl’s weary stare before that cut to black tells us something: it’s going to be a while before it’s over, isn’t it?

Future Vision!

Interesting how Steven is about to make the incredible leap to Pearl’s sky platform but starts plummeting when she glares at him. Almost as if his ability to float correlates with his emotions or something.

The episode that begins the thread of Pearl loving Rose and the episode where she confronts her feelings about it (and her lingering animosity towards Greg because of it) both feature her in a top hat. Which very well might be a coincidence, but I bring it up because how could I not bring up how great it is that Pearl will one day wear a top hat again?



Rose’s Scabbard is about a loyal devotee to Steven’s mother feeling the sting of betrayal and lashing out at everyone around her, nearly killing Steven in the process, but being helped anyway due to his amazing grace. It involves a heavy conversation surrounded by flowers in which the betrayed party projects Steven’s mother, but we hear the projector’s voice instead of Susan Egan’s. I can think of worse ideas to repeat for the movie.

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

This is one of those episodes that invites an entire series rewatch just to catch all the hints leading up to its reveal (soon to be joined by Jailbreak). Signs of Pearl’s feelings are scattered throughout the preceding episodes, which only improves Rose’s Scabbard with every viewing.

And then it becomes one of those episodes that is itself redefined in rewatch. Before A Single Pale Rose, this was my #7. Now it’s #5. If going through every subsequent review I’ve written to rearrange the order of this list doesn’t tell you how great this episode is, nothing will.

(Oh, and it introduces a queer relationship and treats it the way queer relationships should always be displayed, but rarely are: as so normal that the fact that Pearl loved a woman needs as little comment as the fact that Greg loved a woman. It’s easy to forget how big of a deal that was when this first aired.)

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