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Steven Universe: Season 2, Episode 26 – “Steven’s Birthday”

Low on action, "Steven's Birthday" still manages to infuse a darker, more elegiac thread into the episode.

Appropriately for a New Year’s episode, “Steven’s Birthday” deals with changes.

The episode begins with Steven’s (Zach Callison) birthday, appropriately enough, and everyone’s invited: Greg (Tom Scharpling), Connie (Grace Rolek), the Crystal Gems, and even Peridot (Shelby Rabara) — although Peridot doesn’t stick around; I have thoughts on that subject that I’ll address at the end of this review. The birthday party goes well until Greg reveals to Connie that Steven’s 14 years old. Connie’s shocked that Steven’s older than she is, possibly because she’s a lovable know-it-all, and the relationship between her and Steven has always been that of senpai to his kohai, which led her to believe she was older. However, Connie may have also thought that Steven was younger because of the way he looks. Greg shows Connie a photo book, with pictures of Steven at every birthday for the last 13 years, but both Connie and Greg are disturbed by the fact that Steven hasn’t visibly aged in the last seven years. Steven overhears their concern, and decides to try transforming his body for the first time since the episode “So Many Birthdays”.

Steven transforms his body into an identifiably “teenage” one. The Gems seem unsure of how to react to his physical changes, which is in line with the fact that they still don’t understand human nature, but it’s the humans, Greg and Connie, who are genuinely unsettled by Steven growing half a foot in ten minutes. Eventually, Steven’s artificial growth goes haywire, and instead of looking like a teenager, his emotions cause him to revert to infancy. By this point, the episode is almost over — there’s only a few minutes left, and a brief panic by the humans (and a quiet admission of ignorance from the Gems) precedes Steven reverting on his own to his normal age. Episode over.

“Steven’s Birthday” doesn’t have any real action, and no real threat. We don’t get to see into the lives of Ocean City’s other characters, and even the plot of the episode is a Benjamin Button-inspired rehash of “Too Many Birthdays” from the first season. What we get instead is an episode that’s a master of small details. All of the characters have changed, and those changes subtly play across the stage of this episode. Most of the changes are positive: Amethyst (Michaela Dietz) is being kind and welcoming to Peridot; Amethyst and Pearl (Deedee Magno) are learning to dance together; Dr. Priyanka (Mary Elizabeth McGlynn) has realized that her behavior is smothering Connie, and lets her stay at the Universes’ for the weekend.

But like the rest of Steven Universe, there’s a darker, more elegiac thread underneath the sweetness and light. When Greg lets Connie know that the Gems are functionally immortal, you can see in that clever girl’s eyes that she realizes that even if she spends the rest of her life with Steven, he might very well outlive her by tens of thousands of years — and suddenly, a 12-year old girl’s confronting her own mortality. But nevertheless, Greg does his best to comfort Connie. Of all the relationships on the show, the one between Greg and Connie continues to be one of the most understated and heartwarming things on the show, possibly because there’s a sense that the two of them aren’t just friends, but something of a support group, too. They are, after all, the only two humans in all of history who have ever been intimate with the Gems. Greg fathered a hybrid child with one, and Connie became a gestalt being with another. They can’t go back to a mundane life without “Gem stuff”, as Greg puts it, but unlike Steven, they can’t fully enter the world of the Gems either.

At first blush, the ending of the episode feels too tidy, too coincidental, even. Greg and Connie get “confirmation” that Steven will be able to age in a human way (and Amethyst makes a pubic hair joke), and that they won’t lose their connection with Steven as the years pass. But we don’t ever see Steven transforming back into his “normal” state at the end of the episode. He wakes up before everyone else and spends time alone before Connie finds him. It’s very possible that Steven’s using his powers to add to his body the signs of aging, all in order to comfort Connie and his father. The possibility adds a dark sense of uncertainty to what’s otherwise a light and comedic episode.

What really disappointed me about “Steven’s Birthday” was that Peridot was a complete non-factor in the episode. She showed up for a few seconds, disappeared, and then poof, it was as if she’d never existed. I know that the brevity of each episode means that the writers have to tightly focus on specific ideas, individuals, and events, but the theme of the episode was “change”. Peridot, more than any of the other humans or earth-bound Gems, is going through changes that are completely upending her world. She is, in very general terms, going from slavery to absolute freedom. I think that the upcoming episode, “It Could’ve Been Great” will be Peridot-centric, but it felt like a missed opportunity not to include Peridot in Earthling culture or in the question of what Steven is. As fond as Peridot is of Steven, the angry little slice of pie’s innately horrified by his hybrid nature. In other words, Peridot fans are going to be disappointed by this episode.

Still, Peridot’s absence was only a minor point of contention, and while “Steven’s Birthday” isn’t likely to make it onto any “best of” lists, the episode as a whole was an enlightening look into the dichotomy between the Gems and humanity, as well as offering an interesting bit of sci-fi to be tossed around.

Kat Smalley is a graduate of Florida State University. Most of her nonfiction work is dedicated to cultural and philosophical analyses of sci-fi programs and video games. Her fiction has been published in Lambda Award-nominated Gay City Anthology vol. 5: Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam.

RATING 7 / 10