“So what, I’m not strong enough?”
After Rose’s Scabbard, episodes zeroing in on the Gems as individuals took a
backseat to the buildup and aftermath of Peridot’n’Pals crashing the party. But
now that the dust has settled, it’s the perfect time to check in with how our leads are doing in the brief status quo between Jailbreak and the meat of Season 2: the
Week of Sardonyx and the Cluster Arc (a.k.a. Peridot’n’New Pals).
Reformed, Sworn to the Sword,
and Keeping It Together provide an emotional baseline for
Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet that informs their character arcs through the end
of Season 3: Amethyst struggles with her self-image in Reformed, Pearl struggles with her low self-worth and lingering grief over
Rose in Sworn to the Sword, and
Garnet struggles with a misunderstanding and under-appreciation of fusion in Keeping It Together, and yeah, that’s
pretty much what they’re up to for the next forty episodes or so.
What’s cool is that all three
arcs use the same general structure to tell different stories. Each Gem establishes
what their arc is going to be about in the episodes listed above, then examines
this subject in greater detail during the Week of Sardonyx, gets a Peridot
episode that examines the subject even further while characterizing our newest
Crystal Gem (Back to the Barn for
Pearl, Too Far for Amethyst, Log Date 7 15 2 for Garnet), and
resolves the arc with Steven (The Answer
for Garnet, Mr. Greg for Pearl, Crack the Whip through Earthlings for Amethyst). Garnet does it
in a different order than the others, but she still hits all the beats.
(Technically, Love
Letters also features Garnet facing someone who doesn’t understanding
fusion, and can easily be read as the kickoff to her arc. However, I consider it a Jamie episode featuring Garnet more than
a true Garnet episode, especially next to Keeping It Together.)
Amethyst got a great one-two punch in On the Run and Maximum Capacity
late in Season 1, but invokes more of the former far more than the latter this
season as she works through her self-identity issues; it’s no coincidence that we see a No Home Boys book among her clutter.
With that in mind, Reformed is a brilliant look into Amethyst’s psyche; it honestly tells us everything we need to know about her, which is remarkable given the absence of her series-wide foil Pearl. She’s messy, impulsive, and veers between taking things too lightly and taking things too personally. Our resident shapeshifter’s rapid-fire reformations display three different personal issues—two of which are tellingly related to Pearl and Garnet—that ultimately highlight her discomfort with being in her own skin.
Amethyst’s first new form looks normal at first, and her
initial dismay at having feet for hands is dismissed with a joke. She makes a
show of doing it on purpose to save face in front of Steven, but as she grows
more annoyed with his probing questions (the personality quiz is a great running gag that gives Steven
something to do while keeping the focus on Amethyst, by the way), she uses
those feet to speed up: even before Garnet spells out that she was too impulsive,
her form reflects her self-destructive distaste for slowing down and thinking
things through. And just before she’s poofed again, she reveals a gigantic
ear concealed by her hair, which acts as nifty visual shorthand for how she can’t hide that she’s always listening to criticism.
The flaws exhibited here—impulsiveness and sensitivity
to judgment—are two of Amethyst’s most basic attributes. They’re just part of her personality, tied with
her positive traits (like her ability to improvise) and negative traits (her
penchant for self-loathing), and, as we’ll see in her next two forms, they
define how she interacts with her team. It makes all the sense of the world for
such an Amethyst-centric form to be her first, because when anxiety makes you
hate thinking about yourself, thinking about yourself is pretty much all you
do.
Amethyst’s second form is parody of Pearl that also begins as a joke, and plays out that way for most of the sequence. However, the silliness from her gigantic hair and bow is marred by her sickly, floppy feet: like before, something’s clearly wrong.
Michaela Dietz does a mean Deedee Magno Hall, and I mean that in a “it’s great” sense as well as an “Amethyst’s being snotty” sense; the jangling piano theme is a perfect accompaniment to the imitation. But while Amethyst nails Pearl’s need for tidiness and order, she starts slipping into her own problems when diagnosing their shared desperation for approval. Sure enough, the moment Garnet says that her form is ridiculous, Amethyst—who just admitted it was a joke, mind you—loses her cool.
It’s been a long time coming, but Amethyst finally gets her chance to say “Strong” in a meaningful way: in this case, she misconstrues Garnet’s need for team cohesion as a slight on her power, and I love that this happens while she still looks like Pearl, whose own issues with physical might kicks off the show’s thesis on true strength. More than any other Gem (Pearl included) Amethyst is defined by her relationship with physical strength, and we’ll see plenty of this as her arc progresses.
But for now, it leads to her third form, a twisted mess of mass that’s as absurd as her other two tries but without the humor. Steven’s immediate reaction is how painful it looks, and his observation is backed up by awesome sound design as she stretches into shape.
After giving Pearl a try, this new body is a sick reflection of Garnet in the most basic sense: tough and huge. But Amethyst misses what makes her leader so special, and we Garnet’s disappointment destroy her bravado before she takes out her frustration on the Slinker. There’s a brief pause in the action as Garnet saves Steven from rubble and continues to protect him, because spoiler alert teamwork is more important than walloping monsters.
Amethyst’s battle is scored with a variation of Garnet’s bass, but the fight itself is signature Amethyst: she’s a berserker who doesn’t think about her own well-being, which combines with her failure to reform properly to underscore Steven’s realization that she doesn’t want to think about herself. Despite her rapidly depleting muscle mass, it’s only after hearing Steven’s discovery that Amethyst is poofed for the last time and can come back as a same-and-improved variant of herself. And even then, she feels the need to hide her true feelings about being hugged.
The inherent sadness of the episode is eased along by some of the best slapstick this side of Kindergarten Kid. When Pearl and Garnet get poofed in Steven the Sword Fighter and The Return, they’re traumatic experiences for Steven and the audience. But Amethyst goes out like a dark punchline, and even gets a literal punchline in Steven’s hilarious “Is it weird I’m getting numb to this?” to sate the rule of three. Like Tiger Millionaire, the physicality of Amethyst allows for a greater degree of physical humor than the her fellow Crystal Gems, at least until Peridot comes along.
The plot is immeasurably improved by having Garnet, not Pearl, act as the secondary Gem on an Amethyst episode (Pearl is spending the episode with Greg, and is oddly getting along with him pretty well). It’s been well established since the dawn of the series that Amethyst and Pearl butt heads, but Amethyst’s reverence for Garnet is rivaled only by Steven’s. In Garnet she sees a bigger, better version of herself, and one that’s made of two Gems from the Shorty Squad. So when Garnet’s the one disciplining her, she can’t just brush it aside. (Again, see Tiger Millionaire, where it’s Garnet’s words that set Amethyst off.)
Garnet isn’t a total wet blanket here, and provides some of the episode’s best laughs (her bit on the Slinker’s name is topnotch use of Estelle’s deadpan), but her role here is the mom to both Steven and Amethyst. It’s fascinating to watch her get frustrated in a way she rarely does with Steven, and “frustration” is the key here: Reformed smartly doesn’t let her impatience boil over into true anger and force a fight between Garnet and Amethyst, because Garnet isn’t the problem. Moreover, the fight with Pearl in On the Run culminated many episodes of conflict, and a week-long feud between Garnet and Pearl is coming soon, so another big brawl here would definitely dilute the oomph of Crystal Gem infighting.
Steven’s in full-on observation mode, aided by the quiz gimmick, but his role as an audience is crucial: Amethyst loves having someone to show off to, and if it’s just her and Garnet the conflict would have resolved with minimal introspection. It’s a clever trick for making him matter without making him the main character, something the show hasn’t always balanced well in the past.
It’ll be a while before Amethyst’s arc really revs up, but that makes an episode like Reformed extra important. A deep look like this leaves a long impression, and by the time Season 3′s endgame rolls around and all sorts of new adventures have come and gone, the issues reinforced here will still be easy to remember.
(Oh, and I hope you enjoyed the original theme song, because it’s the last time we’re hearing that version now that all three Gems have new forms.)
Future Vision!
- Considering this is the start of Amethyst’s arc through the next season, expect plenty of episodes to continue the conflict of Reformed.
We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!
Okay, so this is a pretty rave review, I don’t rewatch this one too often; it’s a great overview of Amethyst with some good jokes, but our look into her deep-seated issues is uncomfortable by design, and we don’t get any major relief from it in the way Connie provides in Sworn to the Sword and Peridot brings in Keeping It Together. It’s a wonderful and important episode, but purely in terms of what I like to watch, it doesn’t quite cross the “Love ‘em” threshold.
Top Fifteen
- Steven and the Stevens
- Mirror Gem
- Lion 3: Straight to Video
- Alone Together
- The Return
- Jailbreak
- Rose’s Scabbard
- Coach Steven
- Giant Woman
- Winter Forecast
- On the Run
- Warp Tour
- Maximum Capacity
- The Test
- Ocean Gem
Love ‘em
- Laser Light Cannon
- Bubble Buddies
- Tiger Millionaire
- Lion 2 The Movie
- Rose’s Room
- An Indirect Kiss
- Space Race
- Garnet’s Universe
- Future Vision
- Marble Madness
- The Message
- Political Power
- Full Disclosure
- Joy Ride
Like ‘em
- Gem Glow
- Frybo
- Arcade Mania
- So Many Birthdays
- Lars and the Cool Kids
- Onion Trade
- Steven the Sword Fighter
- Beach Party
- Monster Buddies
- Keep Beach City Weird
- Watermelon Steven
- Open Book
- Story for Steven
- Shirt Club
- Love Letters
- Reformed
Enh
- Cheeseburger Backpack
- Together Breakfast
- Cat Fingers
- Serious Steven
- Steven’s Lion
- Joking Victim
- Secret Team
- Say Uncle
No Thanks!
4. Horror Club
3. Fusion Cuisine
2. House Guest
1. Island Adventure
Steven, Universally 