No one can resist Mr. Universe
(This review contains
spoilers!)
Continuing directly after last
episode, Steven has arrived in the human zoo itself, meeting up with Greg
again. It turns out that the human zoo is filled with childlike humans who’ve
never even seen the Earth and are told exactly what to do through an earpiece.
The zoo is rightfully creepy in both
animation and dialogue. Throughout the entire episode you never truly feel that
Steven and Greg are safe, despite them being quarantined with a bunch of humans
who look like they’d never hurt a fly. The way the other humans speak slowly
further adds to the creep factor, making them seem almost zombie-like,
especially in comparison to the other human characters in the show.
One thing I really like about this
episode is that it doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to go. We’ve all
seen stories like this before: Steven arrives to the utopian society to rescue
Greg, but surprise! Greg actually likes it
here! So now Steven needs to convince his dad that life is better on Earth.
Fortunately, this is not the case, but rather the complete opposite. Greg
doesn’t need any convincing that he needs to go home, he’s happy to go along
with his son. Rather, a lot of the episode is spent telling the society how
Earth is better and how they don’t need a voice in their ears telling them what
to do.
The episode ends on an…unnerving note,
to say the least. All the humans gather together for something called “The
Choosening”. At first glance I figured it was some sort of ritualistic
sacrifice, but then I remembered I was watching Steven Universe. It’s actually much tamer and fits in well with the
themes of the show. The voice in the earpieces pairs up the humans in a sort of
matchmaking session, leading Greg and Steven to tell them about how on Earth
you can choose whoever you want. Of course, everyone immediately decides they
choose Greg. I mean, I can’t say I blame them. Just look at this guy.
Anyways, all the humans get upset when
Greg refuses, leading a platoon of Amethyst guards to come in and try to
control the situation. Steven and Greg are captured by one, and the episode
ends there.
The
Zoo is a very interesting episode in how it breaks the conventions of the
tired “rescuing someone from a place they don’t want to leave” storyline.
Having Greg immediately go along with Steven’s plan allows us to see the zoo as
it really is. The best part of the episode is easily the ending, as it takes
all the messages about love we’ve learned from these characters and puts it
into practice. I feel that we’ll be returning to the zoo again sometime before
the end of the series, so I look forward to that.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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