“Singin’ a song don’t cost nothin’.”

Mr. Greg is a collection of terrific scenes, but this does not necessarily make it a terrific episode.

I’m going to be giving a lot of praise here, because in more ways than not it is a terrific episode. It’s a cathartic story about coming to terms with the death of a loved one, which is obviously powerful as a culmination of a massive Pearl arc but somehow manages to work in a bubble as well. So to be clear, just because I think the scenes within the episode are better than the episode itself does not mean the episode is by any metric bad. Especially because its major flaw (the inability to pace its emotional punches effectively) is something that I see no way to fix within the confines of the medium. But more on that later.

This isn’t going to be a typical review format, because it’s not a typical episode format. I’ll be dividing the review itself song by song (including the scenes preceding and/or following the songs) to talk about them as individuals and within context. Which is essentially the goal of this blog: to talk about the episodes as individuals and within the context of the series.

The difference being that Steven Universe, unlike Mr. Greg, is greater than the sum of its parts.

“From the moment the meat hits the flame…”

We begin with Pepe’s Burgers, technically the first song of this musical. It sets the stage for the absurd premise of Greg’s sudden wealth and a bunch of in-universe singing by showing Marty chomping on a burger mid-commercial. Because seriously, what is Marty doing there? Why would the guy who sold the rights to the music (not even the lyrics) act in the commercial? And in what universe would the writer of the music (not even the lyrics) earn 40 million dollars? Yes, Greg only got 10 mil, but Marty establishes in Story for Steven that he earns 75%. And yet Marty apparently spent his 30 and is reduced to shilling guacamole soda. This is a lot to digest from a commercial about a $6 burger joint.

But this is honestly the best way to start, because in Mr. Greg, the ridiculous circumstances don’t matter. A major accomplishment of the episode (that’s often overlooked thanks to the Rose of it all) is that it swerves around the jump-the-shark moment of a main character suddenly and permanently becoming wealthy, and it does so by shifting focus away from the money as soon as it’s mentioned. Our first reaction to the commercial is Steven flipping out that his dad’s song is on TV, then we very briefly explain that Greg’s rich now, but then whup never mind now we’re talking about Rose.

The pacing of an eleven minute episode with six songs (I’m counting Pepe’s Burgers but also combining Don’t Cost Nothin’ and Empire City) must have been a logistical nightmare. And it’s ultimately where the episode loses its steam. But for now, we’ve efficiently set up the stakes and themes of the episode. We get the crucial knowledge that Greg’s rich now, but we also learn all about our four principle characters in a way that even newcomers can understand. Steven’s an excitable kid, Greg’s a bashful musician, Pearl is confused by human customs, and Rose is dead. But also, Steven and Greg are both sensitive to Pearl’s simultaneously bewildered and resigned reaction to the song that won Rose’s heart, because Pearl loved Rose. She’s accepted Greg’s “victory” for a while now, admitting with a sigh that Rose would’ve loved his song even if it was about burgers (hitting us hard and early with those sweet Steven Universe sadjokes), and the ensuing awkwardness feels so real. Someone who’s never watched a second of this show would get the gist of this dynamic within less than a minute of screentime.

And only then do we talk about money.

“And let’s bring Pearl.”

When I first watched Mr. Greg, the news of a Steven Universe musical episode had faded in my memory from a long hiatus, and it took me until Don’t Cost Nothin’/Empire City to realize that this was that musical. The Pepe’s Burger jingle is technically our first song, but it doesn’t by itself feel like part of something bigger. This show has done plenty of goofy songs like that, but the one-two punch that follows is unmistakably a musical number.

After briefly hinting that money is a secondary concern, we get a song explicitly saying that money is a secondary concern. It might just be shock at the sudden change of fortune, but Greg can’t imagine what to do with his newfound riches that would make his life better than just being with his son. I love so much that when presented with enough money to live comfortably forever, Greg shrugs and sings about how grateful he is for what he already has. Living in a van has been a constant reminder of his poverty, but even with all the money he’ll ever need, he just plain enjoys the simple life.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t have fun, so he jumps at the opportunity to use the money to do what he already said he loves doing: hanging out with Steven. His wealth now allows Greg to take his son to a fancy apartment in the big city, but it’s the same principal that drove him to take Steven to a cheap room on a business trip in Keystone Motel.

Steven, however, has plans. It’s unclear whether these plans were in place even when he first suggested a vacation, but he makes clear later on that he wants to use the opportunity to get Greg and Pearl to finally deal with their baggage. Neither adult is thrilled with the idea, and Steven pushes it a little far by cheerily reminding them that Rose now “lives” in his navel, but between his remark and the quick cut to Rose’s portrait we get an even greater sense of the shadow cast by the missing fourth member of this ensemble. 

And thus we end set-up mode, meaning we need a new song to bring us into the main plot. Perhaps a titular one?

“More or less.”

A musical without choreography is a soundtrack. Mr. Greg (the song) has the highest ratio of choreography to song in its storytelling: even before the words begin, we get Greg’s silent booking to a snooty-looking clerk as the boisterous Empire City theme swells, only for the clerk to start belting out our song in a goofy New York accent. This is the cartooniest of our numbers, and it delivers in spades.

And we need this exaggerated fun. We were promised an exciting vacation, and spending the entire trip dwelling on the relationship between Greg and Pearl and Rose would not only break that promise, but rob us of the tonal shift that helps give our next song its oomph. So we see Greg be carefree, but not too jerky, with his money, and Steven jumping right into the festivities while a choir of bellhops sings along with the clerk. And lest we forget, all of this is actually happening; Greg thanks the staff for singing along, this is just part of the world Steven lives in.

(Also this sequence has my favorite fun fact of the episode: the tap dancing sound was recorded by Shelby Rabara, and while there’s no footage of this, there is grainy footage of her tapping like a demon when she was eleven years old because sometimes we’re allowed to have nice things. Still waiting on Peridot to break out the tap shoes.)

But if you would, take a moment to watch the song on mute and only pay attention to Pearl. Steven and Greg are having a blast, and like every other song in the episode are behaving in sync with the music. But Pearl is not happy to be here, and while it’s hardly hidden, it’s not something the song alone could tell us. Choreography matters, because musicals are an audiovisual medium that only excel when using both halves of the equation. 

Pearl does finally relent when Steven and Greg actually notice she’s unhappy, but her happiness is doomed to be temporary, and the song finally and abruptly catches up to her attitude when Greg suggests a dance (which, while I’m sure was meant platonically, was an activity that pointedly divided her from Rose in the past). Greg repeats the sense of hopelessness he showed when Steven first suggested that Pearl join them, but they clearly kept partying afterwards judging by the pizza in the bedroom. Pearl’s sadness is unfortunate, but it’s not exactly new to either of them, and it makes sense that they’d give her some space.

And she apparently uses that space to think about some things.

“She chose you, and she loved you, and she’s gone.”

I said long ago that Deedee Magno Hall is for my money the show’s best voice actor, and It’s Over, Isn’t It? is yet another example of why. It makes sense to give a veteran stage performer a showstopper in the musical episode, but even knowing the wonder of Magno Hall’s singing can’t prepare us for just how good she is here. This is the only solo of the evening (jingles aside), and Pearl’s first solo ever, and DDMH carries it with ease.

An incredible thing about the song is that almost none of the information is new at this point, but it’s still compelling. We already know that Pearl loved Rose, that Rose picked Greg, and that the combination of rejection and loss is still tearing Pearl apart. But Pearl herself has only revealed snippets of this information under extreme stress, and has never been so honest about how she feels at length. And beyond the mourning and despair, we do get a new wrinkle to her mindset: the problem isn’t that she’s in denial or determined to grieve, it’s that she knows she has to move on and can’t find out how to do it.

And I love so much that in this song about Rose, Pearl isn’t singing to Rose, or to Steven, or even to herself. She’s singing to Greg. She doesn’t expect a response, because she thinks that he’s asleep, but her seemingly rhetorical question is being asked of the one person who might have an answer. Because while Greg is still shown to be sad about Rose’s passing, he’s clearly moved on better than she has, and she could really use some help. We know Steven is watching, and this only further fuels his upcoming performance.

The visuals, of course, are astounding. It’s one thing to reference Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria as a neat nod to musicals, but it’s another to turn that homage into one of the most beautifully animated sequences in the series. After the frenetic choreography of Mr. Greg, it’s bold as hell to spend the entire first refrain on a single slow shot, but obviously it worked.

There’s really not much else to say here, the power of the scene is self-evident. So maybe just watch it again? Especially because I’m about to get to what’s actually wrong with Mr. Greg.

Like I said earlier, I can’t imagine how hard it was to pace this episode with so much story and music to cover. But the transition between It’s Over, Isn’t It? and Both of You is where that pacing falls apart.

We get virtually no time to process It’s Over, Isn’t It? before jumping right into Both of You, and it detracts quite a bit from the latter song. The transition that we get is a valiant attempt, with Greg’s immediate reaction, Pearl’s reaction to that reaction, and Steven’s reveal that he planned for a reconciliation this whole time. But It’s Over, Isn’t It is a showstopper in an episode that doesn’t have time to stop, so instead we get exactly fifty seconds of time to process it before we’re expected to be able to fully appreciate another highly emotional song. And yeah, the goofy piano out of nowhere doesn’t help with the sensation.

It took me so long to appreciate Both of You, because it isn’t allowed to shine on its own. In some ways this is a good problem to have: I’d rather the problem be too many amazing songs crammed together than not enough amazing songs. But it’s not fair to the climax to be this close to the conflict when both scenes are songs and both songs are spectacles. Both of You, as we’ll see, gets an excellent wind down, and I wish It’s Over, Isn’t It? was afforded the same spacing for us to take it all in and prepare ourselves for the ending.

I blame nobody for this issue, because what’s the solution? Cutting other content in an episode that’s already tight for time? Expanding to a full 22 minutes, and losing the purity of the story with unnecessary filler just to make room for some necessary spacing? The only fix I can think of would be a strange 15-minute episode that just wouldn’t work within the confines of network television, so I’m stumped. It’s a lousy situation, made lousier by how much better this already terrific episode could have been with just a little more time.

“I know you both need it.”

Again, it took me a while to warm up to this song. I’ve always known it was good, but I needed to watch it on its own a few times to fully appreciate it away from the shadow cast by the preceding song.

I’ll say first that Zach Callison was 18 years old max when he recorded this song and I can’t believe how talented he is. It’s one thing to sing this well, but to do it in a voice that’s similar but different to your actual voice and to hit those highs without breaking a sweat is incredible. How someone this young is this good is baffling to me.

The cut to Greg and Pearl talking is a mixed bag. I’m in general against using spoken words within songs to convey emotions because come on, the medium is right there, just sing it. But for storytelling purposes, which is more important to me than how the song flows, it’s a boon to strip away the heightened reality and have the pair to speak frankly and awkwardly about feelings that they’ve never openly confronted with each other. And their shared “She always did what she wanted” is a killer: they’re not bonding over a happy memory, but an aspect of Rose that was both positive and negative. These two, more than anyone, know best that Rose was not perfect, and even when mourning her they don’t forget it.

But in the end, this is Steven’s song. This is a milestone episode for Pearl, but it’s quietly just as much of a milestone for Steven, because he’s coming into his own as a leader of the Crystal Gems. Take a look back to On the Run, where he doesn’t quite realize what’s going on with Amethyst but recognizes that Pearl is the one that needs to talk with her. That was already a big moment for his emotional development, but now he’s grown into a mediator who’s giving the same advice to talk things out, but as a strategy instead of a last resort. Steven Universe has taught a lot of lessons about how to deal with conflicts in a healthy way, and Steven Universe has been paying attention to them.

As soon as his mission is accomplished, we rush to the ending, but that’s okay, because the rush has the best song in the episode.   

“Singin’ a song don’t cost nothin’.”

Medleys are my everything. One Day More is the best song in Les Misérables and Non-Stop is the best song in Hamilton and the end credits of Final Fantasy VI have the best video game credits music of all time, and if you disagree then by all means meet me outside.

The best medleys do more than repeat song snippets, but recontextualize them to account for new events. Don’t Cost Nothin’ is given a brief moment of negativity to contrast with the sweetness of the initial version, as Greg surveys the expenses of a wild night in the city. But then Pearl hops in to make this version even sweeter: she picks Greg up when he’s feeling down, and then when she starts getting the words wrong and her nerves start to bubble, he picks her up with a simple moment of grace, and it’s perfect.

Just not as perfect as Steven, sitting in the back and watching Greg and Pearl talk as friends, transforming “It’s over, isn’t it?” from a line about mourning to a line about finding peace. Ugh, this is how you end an episode.

Like I said, the pacing near the end mutes the impact of a vital section of Mr. Greg. And as small as it might seem, that really matters to me: this isn’t a nitpick from someone looking for things to dislike, it’s an issue that bugged me from the first time I watched the episode and was all in on how great it was going. And I’m still all in, which is why I’ve been able to move past it with time. Because as Greg and Pearl know, and Steven will find out, it’s okay to love something that’s imperfect.

Future Vision!

• I’m not the first person to notice the visual mirroring of Greg and Pearl with Yellow and Blue Diamond. Frankly I doubt there’s as much intent as certain people think, because the analogy is pretty uneven: Pearl is far more similar to Blue than Greg is to Yellow. However, I at least think it’s interesting that Greg and Yellow both outwardly seem more okay with Rose’s death than the openly grieving Pearl/Blue, but in reality are still torn up about it. It’s still a stretch, because Greg’s reaction is to try and move on despite the pain, while Yellow’s is to bottle up her sadness and convert it into toxic rage. But still, food for thought.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

I love this episode. But I love a lot of episodes. If this is your favorite, I completely understand, and I do get that it’s not fair to hold “it’s not perfect” against an episode when Steven and the Stevens and Hit the Diamond are the only two perfect episodes we’ve got. But Mr. Greg is so good that it hurts me even more that it just misses the mark.

Bear this in mind: my favorite scene of the series remains to be the end of Winter Forecast, but that doesn’t make it my favorite episode. Mr. Greg is some truly spectacular scenes. But it just doesn’t come together quite well enough for me to love it as much as two handfuls of other episodes.

Top Fifteen

1. Steven and the Stevens
2. Hit the Diamond
3. Mirror Gem
4. Lion 3: Straight to Video
5. Alone Together
6. The Return
7. Jailbreak
8. The Answer
9. Sworn to the Sword
10. Rose’s Scabbard
11. Mr. Greg
12. Coach Steven
13. Giant Woman
14. Winter Forecast
15. When It Rains

Love ‘em

• Laser Light Cannon
• Bubble Buddies
• Tiger Millionaire
• Lion 2 The Movie
• Rose’s Room
• An Indirect Kiss
• Ocean Gem
• Space Race
• Garnet’s Universe
• Warp Tour
• The Test
• Future Vision
• On the Run
• Maximum Capacity
• Marble Madness
• The Message
• Political Power
• Full Disclosure
• Joy Ride
• Keeping It Together
• We Need to Talk
• Chille Tid
• Cry for Help
• Keystone Motel
• Catch and Release

• Back to the Barn
• Steven’s Birthday
• It Could’ve Been Great
• Message Received
• Log Date 7 15 2
• Same Old World

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
• Rising Tides, Crashing Skies
• Onion Friend
• Historical Friction
• Friend Ship
• Nightmare Hospital
• Too Far
• Barn Mates
• Steven Floats
• Drop Beat Dad

Enh

• Cheeseburger Backpack
• Together Breakfast
• Cat Fingers
• Serious Steven
• Steven’s Lion
• Joking Victim
• Secret Team
• Say Uncle
• Super Watermelon Island
• Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club
4. Fusion Cuisine
3. House Guest
2. Sadie’s Song
1. Island Adventure