{"id":6942,"date":"2018-07-30T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6942"},"modified":"2018-07-26T08:38:09","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T15:38:09","slug":"mark-watches-steven-universe-s05e19-now-were-only-falling-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2018\/07\/mark-watches-steven-universe-s05e19-now-were-only-falling-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Steven Universe’: S05E19 – Now We’re Only Falling Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the nineteenth episode of the fifth season of Steven Universe<\/i>, Garnet reacts to the news about Rose Quartz, and Pearl finally tells the truth. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Steven Universe<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For extensive discussion of consent, trauma, and imperialism<\/b><\/p>\n

Well… shit.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is still a complicated landscape, and while \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Now We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Only Falling Apart\u00e2\u20ac\u009d does provide some much-needed context, I remain curious about the implications of this reveal. I appreciated that this episode picked up in the aftermath of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Single Pale Rose,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also glad that everyone is not immediately forgiving and understanding. Amethyst is mostly in shock, but Garnet fractures in response to the truth. Understandably so! This lie is so far-reaching, so disturbing, that I get anyone<\/i> having an intense reaction to it. In particular, Sapphire feels completely betrayed. And why wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she??? Her power is seeing potential futures, and she so deeply trusted Rose Quartz and what Rose Quartz told her that she never once questioned her. Even if Rose Quartz was well-intentioned, there had<\/i> to be a manipulative element to this so that Rose wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever discovered. She had to present herself as inherently trustworthy and valuable, as someone who had every reason to be on their side, as someone they could look up to.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So what happens when you find out that they used to be the enemy?<\/p>\n

Obviously, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more layered than that, but Pearl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story provides us the earliest look at Pink Diamond\/Rose Quartz and\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmost important of all\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhow she came to turn on the other Diamonds. As I said earlier, there is some<\/i> context that allays some<\/i> of my concerns, and I did get a better sense of what turned Pink Diamond to the other side. And for most of us in the world, we have to have the ramifications of our complicity thrust into our face for us to finally realized that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been doing something harmful and unethical. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s especially the case when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about systemic shit: racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism… and in this specific case, imperialism. Until Pink Diamond went to Earth, she had no idea that she was responsible for the potential ruin of an entire world. There was no concept<\/i> of that in her mind. You can see that in the jokey way she refers to the Amethysts, in how she just wants to be on Earth to bond with them, completely ignorant to the fact that the Homeworld Gems are mining a planet for resources.<\/p>\n

Pearl facilitates the travel, and Pink Diamond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entire worldview\u00e2\u20ac\u201dliteral world view, I should note\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis changed forever. She is face-to-face with the reality of what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing and<\/i> what she will be destroying. (And did I catch the first instance of indigenous characters on the show? I know this is an alternate \u00e2\u20ac\u0153America,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but I felt those unnamed characters were meant to place that visit in a specific point in time.) That, combined with her interaction with Garnet, the first fusion she ever met, pushes her to reject the colonization of Earth. She tries<\/i> to undo what has been done… sort of? See, that part rushed by so quickly that all I could glean from it is that Pink Diamond just tried to convince the other Diamonds not to colonize Earth. And when she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do that, she started a war. So… what about colonizing any of the other planets? I get that she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bring down ALL of it at once, but I am not sure that I got that Pink Diamond understood that colonizing Earth wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the problem; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s colonizing period<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need the show to give me a political treatise, though, and I did appreciate that the emotional angle still mattered so much. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a distinction made here about who is the leader, about who was following who. It is<\/i> important that Sapphire realized that Rose Quartz wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always taking the lead, that she followed the other gems for cues and for guidance. That really does matter! But what ultimately still makes me uncomfortable about Rose Quartz is that there is still a huge power difference between her and the other gems, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure this show is actually addressing it. Maybe Rose was<\/i> following the lead of the others, but she was still seen as the de-facto leader. At least that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how it has been described and portrayed to us, right? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never questioned the fact that she was the leader.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And in considering that, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore how tangled and messed up her relationship is with Pearl. As I said in the last review: Pearl has romantic feelings for her owner<\/i>. As we see in this episode, Pearl is very literal in her attempts to please Rose Quartz, and most of this takes place before<\/i> Rose Quartz frees Pearl. Thus, anything Rose Quartz dictates, Pearl has<\/i> to obey. So… how can this be a consensual relationship? At the very least, the power dynamic makes it a mess, and thus, that brief fusion that the two achieve is… I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know! Massively uncomfortable??? Ah, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to give the benefit of the doubt, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible that upcoming episodes might address this in greater detail. I can admit that. But as it stands, I feel<\/i> like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still not at a point where Pearl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship\/affection is divorced from the violent reality of Pink Diamond. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doubt that Pearl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feelings are real; and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doubt that Pink Diamond tried to change herself and change the world. In many ways, she did. Her presence had lasting good on the world and on Earth, and she set this whole revolution in motion… but at what cost? And what does Pearl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s love for Rose Quartz really<\/i> mean if there were parts of it she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t choose?<\/p>\n

WHERE DID SAPPHIRE GO????<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Now We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Only Falling Apart\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"