STEVEN UNIVERSE: FUTURE Episode 15 "Mr. Universe" Full Length Reaction
Added 2024-12-02 21:51:22 +0000 UTCHere is my full length unedited reaction for Steven Universe: Future episode 15!
Streamer: Hulu
Comments
This is my favorite episode of Future, and it had to be..... the title of the episode is "Mr. Universe" which is a direct callback and parallel to the episode of Season 3 called "Mr. Greg", which is my favorite episode of the entire original show alongside "Bismuth". Not gonna write too much about the episode itself since Novatinuum and Duck already gave extensive analysis..... tho i do wanna mention that i applaud the writters of this episode for daring to defy the perceptions that viewers had on a very beloved character, in this case Greg........ how they made it clear to us that he's not a Saint... like much of the fandom believed up until this episode aired. The only other thing i wanna mention is that i really encourage you (Mikey) to rewatch the episode and pay attention to the background, there is a lot of Diamond Symbolism here and it does tell a second hidden story alongside the one the characters themselves are telling (a second story that gives a new perspective on something we already knew). This is a big reason why this is my favorite episode of Future...... it takes a certain level of Mastery in writing and visual storytelling to be able to convey 2 separate stories at the same time.... one that the characters tell and a second one that the Background tells us, and on top of that... that those 2 separate stories still correlate to each other with their shared themes. That my good friend..... is a Masterclass in Storytelling.
Julio Castillo
2024-12-04 18:53:32 +0000 UTCIt's hard to tell how accurate Greg's take on his childhood was. Reading between the lines of what he's saying (and isn't saying) to Steven, it certainly sounds way too strict, possibly even emotionally abusive. On the other hand, he was a pretty unreliable narrator when it came to Uncle Andy -- Uncle Andy warmed up to Steven instantly and was actually incredibly open-minded about the Gems, despite Greg keeping Steven's existence from him and telling Steven that Andy had trouble with change. The one thing that does give me pause though is those letters. The fact that they're unopened is, IMO, a pretty damning sign of his parents' true character. Steven claims in this episode that Greg's parents can't be worse than the Diamonds, and in terms of large-scale galactic damage, that's hard to refute. But the Diamonds would've opened those letters. And they did, ultimately, change their ways, which is something that unfortunately a lot of terrible parents never do. I have to confess I felt so immensely vindicated watching this episode for the first time after years of people telling me Greg was the Best Dad Ever when I was seeing the same flaws in him that come to a head in this episode. Much like Rose, Greg is highly conflict-avoidant, and as a consequence hates having discussions about difficult subjects. (We learn in S4 that Rose tried to talk about Pink Diamond with him and he was like "I don't care about your past :)" which is sweet, in a sense, but also, dude, make space for your partner to talk about hard things with you maybe???) He takes things in stride, but he also assumes that everyone else will too, and so he often fails to support Steven when he needs it. ("The Question" comes to mind -- Steven asks Greg how he feels about Rose being Pink Diamond and Greg brushes it off, which makes sense because there's no reason he'd care, but then he completely neglects to ask Steven how HE feels about it or if HE is doing okay. Because, hey, it's no big deal, right? Contrast that with Amethyst, who spent a whole episode trying to get Steven to open up.) He doesn't like to talk about his past or family, even when Steven explicitly expresses an interest. (Again, the Uncle Andy incident comes to mind.) All this boils over in the car. Firstly you have the song, which I actually don't fault Greg for at all, though he should've maybe picked up sooner that Steven was Not Feeling It. It makes sense, though, that Steven was Not Feeling It; Steven grew up knowing nothing about his mother or father's family and clearly wants to know more. For all his annoyance at the Diamonds' smothering in the movie, he still added "Diamond" to his name, along with "DeMayo." He wants all the family he can get. He wants to know about his grandparents. And instead...Greg just plays a random song for him. Then Steven expresses that he wishes he had a structured childhood like Greg did, and instead of considering why he might say that (he just got diagnosed with PTSD in front of you, Greg!) or finally opening up and being vulnerable about the true extent of the badness of his childhood (if indeed it really was so bad) instead of cracking jokes about meatloaf, he tells Steven that Steven is "better off" than he was and insists that Steven couldn't do normal things because he was a Gem (which...I don't buy, actually; the world of SU seems pretty chill about the existence of Gems). But I think all of this could've been okay if Greg had responded differently to the car crash. Unfortunately, yet again, we see Greg's aversion to conflict and difficult conversations rear its head. It's admirable that Greg doesn't yell at Steven and tries to respond with compassion, but for all his insistence that Steven can "tell [him] anything," it's never been clearer that Greg isn't listening. Steven just expressed that he wanted structure and was upset about how Greg raised him, and instead of either apologizing and acknowledging how he hurt Steven, or putting his foot down and implementing consequences for Steven ripping out the steering wheel (and putting Greg's life in mortal danger!), Greg's just like Wow! :) It's so cool how you can talk to me like that! :) We have such a good relationship! :) And in doing so, he closes the door on Steven being willing to listen to a single word he says. I see SU as being partially a show about parenthood from a child's perspective. We saw this maybe most clearly in "The Test" way back in S1, when Steven first came to understand that his parental figures had no clue what they were doing and needed reassurance just as much as he did. And we see this here. There's a reason, I think, that we don't find out here how bad Greg's childhood truly was, or if he's hyperbolizing. Just as there's a reason we haven't met Rose or heard her perspective on why she did what she did. There's a limit to how much children can ever really know their parents. As we get older, we come to realize that they are flawed people, human beings (or space rocks) just like us, and we may even glimpse hints of why they are the way they are, but in the end, all we really know is how they raised us. And right now, Steven's pretty mad about that.
Duck
2024-12-03 01:20:28 +0000 UTCYour commentary was SO on point here, what with the conflict and poor communication going on between Steven and Greg. This episode did such a nice job once again exploring that thread of generational trauma... and like, parental over-adjustment... that has shown up in other ways in this show before. We never really get a reason for why Greg's parents never opened the letters he sent (I can only imagine one of those was him trying to reach out after Steven was born), and it leaves a LOT of ambiguity on the table for whether they were unfit parents that Greg had good reason to never really tell Steven much about/let him see, or if they were simply strict and he just had very deep difference of opinion from them with what he wanted to do in his life... and really, I think that ambiguity is the point. Juicy stuff. I like when shows leave some ambiguity like that. Because no matter what the full picture was for Greg growing up, he DID feel alienated and suffocated enough to want to leave for good. And in trying to adjust for the way HE was raised when he became a father himself, he just... tragically went too far the other direction. Gave his son so much freedom and lack of structure that now he feels entirely unmoored and lost in life. Very interesting insight on Greg. I enjoy when he gets focus episodes, IMO he always tried his best as a father- but of course, people are complicated, and eventually everyone's gonna make mistakes in that somewhere.
Novantinuum
2024-12-02 23:15:21 +0000 UTC
