With so much competition on the cable dial, a TV show would have to be insane to hide its intelligence. But that’s exactly what Steven Universe has done. The Cartoon Network show, from former Adventure Time storyboard artist and writer Rebecca Sugar, appears to focus simply on a young boy (the titular Steven Universe) and his adoptive monster-fighting alien family the Crystal Gems—but it's one of the stealthiest, smartest, and most beautiful things on the air.

As the first season has progressed, the premise's apparent simplicity has revealed itself to be intentional: It's just how the world looks to Steven. He's been too young to grasp the full emotional depth of the people around him, a fact that both he and the audience become increasingly aware of as he becomes more mature. But as he's encountered more of the world, so too has the series fleshed out both the Crystal Gems and the people inhabiting his hometown of Beach City, an approach that allows exposition to be introduced only when Steven is equipped to understand it—and makes his character development all the more exciting. (The show is equally interested in developing both of those settings: the Gems do crazy stuff like hunt down time travel devices, but Steven’s friend Sadie’s issues with her overprotective mother are given, if anything, more weight.) Like Steven himself, this process has been artfully restrained, growing in ambition with the series, something that’s allowed Steven Universe to do something truly surprising: deploying science-fiction tropes from the perspective of a child.

Starting with just Steven’s Gems family—Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl—the series has hinted at an entire world of Gems, complete with long-standing histories of alien warfare and evil harvesting fields, that Steven barely understands. The Gems’ powers are similarly being revealed bit by bit as the show goes on—like a process by which two Gems can combine to create a supersized, synergistically powered "Fusion Gem." (At first Gem fusion is a technique used solely in serious fights, or to create the Nicki Minaj-voiced Sugilite, but in the episode "Fusion Cuisine" it's deployed so that Steven can meet his friend's parents.) Last month's episode, "Future Vision," possibly the best yet, introduced a new and exciting idea: Garnet is capable of using her third eye to see the potential outcomes of situations, and that flood of uncertainty drives Steven crazy.

"Future Vision" makes literal the terrifying, exhilarating epiphany of childhood growth—the realization that anything can happen at any time, no matter how much we might want it not to. The idea that there are multiple possible futures has simply never occurred to Steven, and he imagines a series of increasingly implausible deaths for himself (including being killed by the mascot for his favorite brand of ice cream sandwich). In turn, the resolution of "Future Vision" hinges on Steven’s strengthening relationship with Garnet, an adult who's supremely concerned with his own welfare. It’s one of the best uses of genre-as-metaphor for growing up since Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[Warning: Minor spoilers follow in the form of plot points from tonight's article.]

Tonight’s episode, "Winter Forecast," unpacks how that would work in practice, and it plays out kind of like Groundhog Day, except with a dude in a cherry sweater voiced by Tom Scharpling. That’d be Steven’s dad, the fantastically-named Greg Universe, a good-natured doofus who tries to appear to be a responsible parent by getting Steven's friend Connie home in a blizzard. Problem is, Steven wants her there—but future vision allows him to see that each time he tries to delay the trip, his half-measure causes some kind of catastrophe, whether it’s Connie’s parents being unhappy with the Universe men or a mysterious Gem mission turning explosive.

Yet, the show treats those two backfires—at first glance so unmatched in weight—with equal importance. For Sugar and the rest of the Steven Universe creative team, two friends trying to spend a night watching the show fall couldn’t be higher in emotional stakes. And indeed, the episode is atypically non-superpowered. Instead, storyboard artists Lamar Abrams and Hellen Jo (also responsible for "Fusion Cuisine" and "Future Vision") spend their time depicting Steven and Connie’s smiling faces and big eyes, which gives their quiet togetherness more impact than any fight scene could. Yes, the show’s battles are gorgeous—animated and scored in a way that practically demands repeat viewings—but Steven Universe is at its best when there’s no one to hit, and the superpowered aliens just have to deal with playdates coming to an end.

Future vision allows Steven Universe to approach the very things its sci-fi conceits (and those of the show's prestige-drama cousins) are designed to help explore. "Winter Forecast" engages the idea of human action and response in a way that’s smarter than The Affair’s empty split recollections, and with a steadier hand than Lost’s alternate timelines. Rather than simply pointing out that hey, people act differently in different situations, "Winter Forecast" threads in a few character details—say, that Connie’s family is all about safety—and allows them to play out in different, context-dependent ways.

And that's key. Rather than actively distancing itself from being a kids’ show, Steven Universe has leaned into the supposed limitations of its form, and in the process has created something that plays well for adults precisely because of its relative simplicity—a possibility that’s lost on many "adult" shows. That’s not even counting the loads of other things that make Steven Universe special—absolutely gorgeous animation, a surprisingly large cast of vital, oddball characters, and some of the most adorable music this side of Sugar’s work on Adventure Time. Simply put: there’s a potential future where you don’t hop on the Steven Universe bandwagon, and it’s a disaster.