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[Steven Universe] 'Jungle Moon' Review

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PREVIOUS REVIEW: Lars of the Stars
NEXT REVIEW: Your Mother and Mine

"Jungle Moon" is the 140th episode of Steven Universe, the 12th episode of Season 5, and the other half of "Stranded". Seriously I never understood why they decide to make a special event out of a 2-parter. This episode aired two and a half months ago, and is STILL currently the latest episode, because the scheduling team are a load of thundercunts.

In those last two and a half months I still haven't found myself a girlfriend, but I've been friendzoned three times.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Seriously. This one's actually worth watching!

And that spoiler tag wasn't kidding. I will say this right now. This is the best episode since "Mindful Education", hands down. I have come to realise just how... STALE Steven Universe got. Although I often consider season 3 the best, season 2 I feel was technically the best, from a writing standpoint. Back in season 2, everything was moving forward with so much momentum, so much purpose. Everything seemed like such a big threat and a ticking timebomb. The show was headed for a full-scale Diamond WAR! But then in season 3, everything changed. Almost all this momentum was lost. And it's never been regained. And whilst season 3 was still amazing in its own right, the show quickly got very stale and most of the episodes just became so sombre. The show almost stopped being fun to watch anymore. It lost its surface level (bye bye lengthy action scenes) and a lot of its deeper level too (bye bye progression of the plot). It was as if the writers just kinda... had enough. Almost as if the fans-

Not gonna open THAT can of worms.

I always thought "Mindful Education" was the last really good episode we were ever gonna get. I feel the show jumped the shark very quickly after that. It was the last episode to blow me away. It was the last episode to make me feel excited for more. "That Will Be All" I thought was quite honestly a little disappointing. Really, "I Am My Mom" came the closest to being top-tier. Wanted was pretty good also, but played very safe. And the post-Wanted episodes were a bit all over the place and very unfocused on what REALLY mattered.

Then came THIS episode. I do not even REMEMBER the last time we got an episode that took everything we thought we knew and just... INVERTED IT COMPLETELY. I think the last time we got an inversion on THIS magnitude was MESSAGE RECEIVED!!

Hot damn this is a good episode.

Now, it has to be noted that this is the first episode where Steven is TOTALLY ABSENT. And no, Stevonnie does NOT count as Steven. To quote Garnet, to Stevonnie themself - "You are not Steven, and you are not Connie. You are [your own person]". And let me just say that I think after this episode Stevonnie may just have to be my new favourite character of the show. Stevonnie almost makes a FAR better protagonist. I think it's just because I like Connie so much and... damn Stevonnie is SO great that it proves to me, a cynical jaded fan of nearly three years, that the Crewniverse CAN still write an amazing character.

I honestly think the show would be BETTER if Steven and Connie became a PERMAFUSION. But I know that will never happen.

This episode is just so DIFFERENT from ANYTHING the show has ever done before. A BEAUTIFUL new location that might just be dethroning Mask Island in the visual department. Seriously the moon visuals are BEAUTIFUL. I seriously never thought ANYTHING would top Mask Island as my favourite location visually.

Also... Aliens. Non. Gem. Aliens. This episode features aliens that aren't gems. ALIENS! I always thought I'd hate to see non-gem aliens in this show, but actually I don't mind the aliens here. So I do think the aliens are a LITTLE on the unoriginal side, but I'm just glad the aliens don't... ya know... break the show like I feared introducing non-gem aliens would. The alien creatures do seem a little too earth-like though. I mean, they literally all have mouths, eyes, noses, feet, legs and earth-like bodies. Could've been a bit more original there, but I am not going to knock it too hard since the aliens don't play THAT big of a deal. Also Stevonnie never cooks or eats the aliens, which is further confirmation to my long-running theory that the show is trying to secretly promote vegetarianism. All the life on the moon DOES feel a bit too earth-like, but you know, the location is so visually beautiful that I feel bad knocking this too hard.

The first half of this episode is a survival episode - similar to "Island Adventure" - only a hundred thousand times better. We see Stevonnie start to grow stubble throughout - which is REALLY interesting. Stevonnie's always been predominantly female (and I've had a hard time breaking the habit of referring to them as "her") - but now they have started to display male traits. I like the inclusion of trans without it being in our faces or a big deal made out of it. They show it with the stubble and that's all they need.

Just the survival stuff is really fun to watch as always, but honestly we're only just getting STARTED. Stevonnie (by astronomical Ruby-crashlanding-right-in-front-of-Steven's-house level coincidence) happens upon another moon base. I'm guessing these moon bases are on the moons of all the planets that were colonised by the Diamonds? But this is where things get REALLY weird. We have a really interesting, surreal dream sequence where Stevonnie becomes.......

PINK DIAMOND!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!?!

It somehow just really WORKS that Mrs. Maheswaran is Yellow. And my god that image of the two of them "fused"!!!! Can you even IMAGINE if that had leaked back in 2015? I will not go into this all too much (because this review's getting a bit too long) but let's just say this dream sequence was everything I ever wanted to see and more. We FINALLY GET TO SEE PINK DIAMOND'S FACE REVEALED as she smashes the wall of the moon base in anger at not being given her own colony. And let's just say this sequence opens up more questions than it answers, as is typical of Steven Universe. But MAN the dream sequence is just AWESOME!!! Seeing us start out in Connie's house then morph into Yellow Diamond's control room as we slowly realise what's going on and who is playing which part.

The final act is Stevonnie going up to the top of the moon base (and it's laid out exactly like the one on our moon) and tries to access some information. In doing so, they find a way to contact Lars and get him to bring them back to Earth. I REALLY wish Stevonnie had stayed on the moon for more than one episode, but we can't have everything now can we? Besides there's a moon base closer to home where they can access the same infor- oh wait Garnet smashed it. I really do wish they'd stayed a bit longer and tried to get more information before just deciding to leave like that but that's really my only criticism with this otherwise AMAZING episode.

ALL THIS HAPPENED IN ONLY ELEVEN MINUTES, GUYS!

And unlike "Lars of the Stars", it somehow DIDN'T feel rushed. This episode's pacing is PHENOMENAL. SO much happens at such a tight pace that this episode feels like it IS 22 minutes in the best possible way - I had to actually check the time after I finished watching it the first time to make sure it WASN'T 22 minutes!! Not gonna lie, this episode may actually dethrone "Sworn to the Sword" as best-paced episode of the show. It's amazing to see because pacing is usually something this show STRUGGLES with.

I loved this episode so much. They just took everything and threw it out the window. This was something NEW. A real breath of fresh air into a show that jumped the shark over a season ago. A show that I felt went stale a year ago.

And as I write this, the trailer for the upcoming episodes NOW AIRING ON THE APP IN FOUR DAYS HOLY FUCK has just been released. And you know what? The content of the trailer (it's VERY spoilery so I won't go into it here) actually mitigates my only real criticism for this episode. See, by... recent patterns... I kinda just figured that we were gonna go straight back to townie fluff for another five episodes. Episode 141 would be Steven faffing around with Ronaldo. Episode 142 would be Steven faffing around with the Frymans. Episode 143 would be Steven faffing around with Sadie Killer etc. Let's just say that it LOOKS like we may be getting IMMEDIATE follow-up this time. FINALLY. ABOUT TIME. "Dewey Wins" was an okay episode on its own, but NOT as the episode to follow Wanted. It's fine to have townie episodes but NOT immediately after a HUGE ACTION-PACKED ROMP in place of the much-needed fall-out episode(s).

This episode was bloody amazing. Better than ANYTHING the entirety of 2017 had to offer.

Stray Observations
-The fire burned blue at the start of the episode, but burned normal orange colour later on. Huh.
-They reallllly wanted to make it clear the spider alien wasn't dead. Lol.
-So I take it the atmosphere of this moon is... oxygen-rich? The same as Earth's? It's never explained.
-The destroyed planet the moon was orbiting didn't look like the colonised Earth displayed in "It Could've Been Great". But it was still a very chilling image nonetheless.
-I thought this was gonna be an Avatar parody before it aired.
-It also rains on this planet, which is weird.
-It's INCREDIBLY lucky that Stevonnie crash-landed HERE of all places. Literally anywhere else they would've died very fast. Especially as they were in a gem-controlled sector of space.
-I'm surprised Stevonnie didn't take any aliens back to Earth to be examined. I guess this is a universe where aliens ALREADY invaded Earth though.
Comments7
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TicklishFairy's avatar
I still have mixed feelings about this episode.  I did like the first part but the reveal that Pink diamond is just a little bigger than Stevonie...and her gem is upside down and her design in general and demeaner...  the crew is going to have some major explaining to do to make this believable.  Like why does the flashback in gemcation, show Pink Diamond looking exactly like her mural, gem being right side up and everything, towering over the crystal gems fighting her?  Garnet was actually there seeing her, so unless Garnet is lying for whatever reason, her appearance just doesn’t add up.

Also her spoiled brat tantrum throwing was a bit off putting.  How in the world did she appear so sinister to the other gems and be a leader that Jasper would fight for, respect and cry for and want to avenge so much?  I really can’t see Jasper having any respect for a small brat of a Diamond even if it was her creator.  I’m hoping they explain these things.  Maybe she learned to be ruthless from yellow, and used limb enhancers?  People are saying shape shifting but she couldn’t shape shift her gem.  From an upside down diamond to a regular one like on her mural.  Even when Amethyst posed as Jasper her chest gem didn’t move or change at all.