Steven Universe: Seasons 2 & 3

Steve Universe is a show that has slowly and unexpectedly crept into my heart. What I first perceived to be a light-hearted and instantly forgettable kid's cartoon has quickly become a heart-warming epic that sits as one of my favorite shows on TV right now. And I never expected that to happen.

When season 3 of Steven Universe made it to the #2 slot in the Subject To Change podcast, Keith's overwhelming cynicism that we were just fucking with him was kind of understandable. I mean, what's next? My Little Pony? (No offense to any Bronies out there, but I'm not sure what the appeal of that show is.) Point is, Steven Universe doesn't seem like the show that deserve the acclaim that it receives. I mean, on its surface it looks like a show who's pitch would be:

A goofy kid in a sunny, beachside town strives each and every day to make his friends and community feel happy and loved with his wacky antics. 

But what the show's pitch really is:

After the conclusion of a long, galactic civil war, a superhuman warrior sacrifices her life to give birth to a human boy. Now under the protection of his mother's warrior companions, the boy must learn how to harness his inherited powers so that he can help protect Earth from the dangers that his mother once fought against... dangers that still lurk in the distant cosmos.  

The show is in fact an amalgamation of both of these log lines. It's utterly adorable while at the same time massively epic. And it's art and sound styles continuously draw you in (I touched upon the art direction in my season 1 post, but it's worth quickly mentioning again). 

I wrapped my seasons 2 and 3 posts together because 1) I'm lazy and didn't get around to posting them in time, and 2) the show runners first intended to have these two seasons together. While season 1 was 50-something episodes, each season since has been half as long. And the trend now looks to be the tradition. 

These seasons delve deeper into Steven harnessing his powers, the long history the Gems have with Earth, and tension that continues to build between our heroes and their Gem home-world. Sometimes the show is lively and fun focusing on a story about baseball or a jovial rivalry between a pizza place and burger joint. The next, it's metaphorical story about domestically-abusive relationships or forcing to kill someone you desperately wish to save. The show freely explores both story elements that are light and are dark, and I think that's a big reason why I keep coming back for more.

At the end of the day, these are stories that puts this wacky kid -- a kid who wants nothing more than to play video games and goof around with his friends -- at odd's ends with dangerous villains threatening well-being of Earth and all of its inhabitants.