“You’re reading them in order, right?”

Back in the halcyon days of 2015, when David Bowie and Prince were alive and the world wasn’t on fire, Cartoon Network presented us with our very first Steven Bomb to wrap up Steven Universe’s first season. Marble Madness, pivot episode extraordinaire, set the show up perfectly for its final stretch, and what ensued was a tautly paced week of ratcheting tension culminating in an epic two-part finale and its immediate aftermath.

However, to achieve this goal, the network slipped four episodes out of the final line-up. Here’s the intended order, courtesy of Ian Jones-Quartey, that was eventually used for the official DVD release (minus Say Uncle):

Open Book, Shirt Club, Say Uncle, and Story for Steven were shunted to the beginning of Season 2, which created a couple of continuity issues: Garnet retains her pre-finale look in Shirt Club, and the episodes’ title cards lack the rubble visible in early Season 2 openers.

Considering this, and the creators’ intent, many fans prefer the official order of episodes. While that’s fine by me, my reviews are going to be written in the show’s aired order instead. Here’s why!

Most obviously, the aired order is the order that I (and many of us) first watched the show, and it left a terrific first impression. Streaming services like Hulu, where I rewatched the episodes (before they moved to HBO Max or wherever they are in your present; I wrote this post years ago!), maintain this shifted format as well. Many new fans watching the show legally will likely continue to see it in this revamped order.

But more importantly, I find the original pacing to be perfect, while the intended order grinds us down to a halt after Marble Madness sets up a tense endgame. Rose’s Scabbard shows Pearl on edge after Peridot’s return, and The Message is essentially a point of no return, but the moved episodes have nothing to do with the Homeworld invasion and give no indication that the Gems are worried about it, even subconsciously. The intended airing sees all the air go out of the balloon for four full episodes, and The Message has to reinflate it rather than reinforce it.

I would also argue that all four skipped episodes work better where they’re placed in Season 2. Open Book coming later shows a more realistic time period for Steven to have properly finished a massive book series after Marble Madness (otherwise we’re to believe he really plowed his way through in just two episodes despite the chaos around him, and understood it correctly after all those misfires), and gives us a nice breather from the Homeworld Arc between Full Disclosure and Joy Ride. Shirt Club coming later lets us spend some time with Mayor Dewey and Buck by themselves before putting them together. Say Uncle…I mean, it can really go anywhere in this stage of the show, so might as well not have it interrupt the pacing.

But it’s Story for Steven that really pushes me over the edge on where to put this episode cluster. I love that we only see a full look of Rose once, as a glimpse, in the middle of Season 1. Contrasting this concrete link to the past, every other image of her is indirect: her closed-eye iconography, Amethyst’s shapeshifting, and Pearl’s holo-cast are shadows of the Gem that looms so large over the series.

Less is definitely more at this stage in the show, and having her show up in a full flashback takes all the oomph out of Season 1′s restrained portrayal. Steven Universe is a show segmented into fifty-odd-episode chunks—Season 1A and 1B are functionally identical to Season 2 and 3, respectively—and moving Story for Steven makes Season 2/3 feel like the start of a new chapter, a refocus on Rose that will continue to develop her character until it culminates in the devastating Pink Diamond revelation. Season 4/5 then deals with the aftermath of Steven learning this news until it culminates in everyone, Diamonds included, learning Rose was Pink Diamond.

Story for Steven’s intended airing order also gives us almost no time to dwell on the reveal of Pearl’s feelings in Rose’s Scabbard before making an offhand joke about it. I even love how the Gems’ reaction to Steven’s idea for a fence in Full Disclosure works as foreshadowing rather than a callback. When I rewatched the series “correctly,” this is the episode that really didn’t fit.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see the opposite viewpoint. I imagine many people prefer Joy Ride to immediately follow Full Disclosure to add the same tension to finding Peridot that I prefer in the end of Season 1 (even though that tension dissipates regardless in Season 2′s first half). Buck’s behavior in Joy Ride may not feel as earned without bonding with Steven in Shirt Club. You might want more Rose ASAP, and enjoy Story for Steven’s link between Steven hanging in Greg’s van watching videos with the start of The Message. Hell, you might want every episode to be Say Uncle, I don’t know you! And the creator’s intention certainly sounds like what everyone should go for (even though a keen eye might notice that we, like the bulk of the internet, have already switched Warp Tour and Alone Together from the intended order to the aired order).



But Steven, Universally comes from a place of love, and I love the show the way it was released. Once a piece of art is out there, it’s out there, and if Open Book teaches us anything, it’s that folks can still be friendly when they disagree about elements of a story they like.

I’m not gonna write the reviews of moved episodes in a bubble, and will acknowledge oddities created by the shifts throughout this strange segment of Steven Universe’s history. But beginning with Rose’s Scabbard (which is indisputably Episode 45, by the way) the first Steven Bomb will be detonated in the same order it was all the way back in 2015.