Take me out to the brawl game
(This review contains
spoilers!)
With Steven Universe throwing its hat
into the baseball-themed episode ring, I wondered exactly how that this would
play out. Would it be the Gems versus Beach City? Or maybe the Gems versus each
other?
It turns out it was neither of these,
as the gems faced off against 5 Ruby guards from Homeworld, who are looking for
the leader of “the failed Earth mission”. Peridot immediately assumes that they’re
looking for her, and Garnet unfuses in an attempt to get Ruby to dissuade them.
She doesn’t do a good job, and Steven convinces them that they have to win a
baseball game in order to search the barn.
My biggest problem here is the fact
that Charlene Yi has been enlisted to play not 1, not 2, not 3, but 6 different
Rubies in one episode. In order to differentiate themselves from each other,
aside from different hues of red, gem placements, and personalities, each one
has a different voice inflection. No offense to Yi, but I’ve never found her to
be among the best in the cast, and it often sounds like she’s straining her voice
to talk as the other Rubies. It kind of breaks the immersion a little. Perhaps
it would be better to have a different voice actress for each individual gem,
instead of one for each type.
Still, it’s not a very big part of the
episodes, as the Rubies (aside from the main one) don’t do too much talking.
The baseball game itself is fun to watch, albeit paced a little strangely.
Steven, Pearl, Amethyst, Lapis, and Sapphire Earl, Amy, Bob, and Sophie
are put up against the Rubies. Unfortunately, the game is kind of hard to
follow. It’s never made clear who is winning, as most of the game goes by in
montage. It’s enjoyable enough, but I wish we’d gotten just a little bit more
of it.
Essentially all the action in the
episode happens in the last few moments. Sapphire hits a home run, accidentally
refuses with Ruby, the other Rubies fuse into a giant, then it’s made clear
that this was all a huge misunderstanding and they were looking for Jasper
instead of Peridot.
Steven finally gets rid of them in a hilarious
way (again, I won’t spoil it if for some reason you’re reading this
spoiler-filled review before watching the episode), and the episode ends. I
feel like it’s sort of up in the air whether we’ll see this Ruby quintet again,
so it really comes down to whether the showrunners want them back or not. I
personally really enjoyed them (despite my problems with the voices), and I’d
like to have them pop up once more.
I enjoyed Hit the Diamond, albeit not
as much as the other episodes we’ve had in this 4 week event. It was fast, fun,
and had lots of good gem action. I just wish we’d seen more of the actual
baseball game itself, instead of the preparation and payoff.
FINAL SCORE
7/10
Good
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