Steven Universe Recap - S03E03 - "Same Old World"


Following last week’s explosive season premiere, this time around we’re getting a quiet episode, focused on the poor Lapis.


Lapis is probably the most underserved of the Gems we've met thus far. She’s been introduced in the middle of the first season, but since then we’ve only seen her in a total of four episodes in 2015, most of which aired as the part of the very first Stevenbomb. Comparatively, Peridot first appeared much later and since then managed to undergo a complete development arc. With this week's episode the show took its first step towards fixing that.


Finally free from the Malachite fusion, Lapis at first wants to make another attempt to leave Earth, but ends up deciding against it. Even before she was sent on a mission with Peridot and Jasper, she felt uncomfortable with how the Homeworld changed over the millennia of her absence. Now, after their failure to apprehend the Crystal Gems, she’d be even less welcome there—and considering what we know of Homeworld society from the prejudices Peridot exhibited, this could be a bad idea for Lapis.

Unable to return to a home she no longer recognizes anyway, Lapis is stuck on a planet about which she has no positive memories. As we learn in the second half of the episode, she arrived on Earth young, inexperienced and unaware of the warzone it had become as the Crystal Gem rebellion spread. Almost immediately following her arrival, her body was poofed by one of the warring Gems and she was stuck in a mirror, mistaken for a rebel and constantly interrogated for information she didn’t have. For millennia after the war’s end she was stuck in an inanimate object, alone until Pearl found her and Steven freed her.


Thankfully, she has a friend now—someone to help her make the first step away from her past. Steven gives her something she didn’t have for thousands of years—a choice. Together they embark on a quick tour of the Earth, over the course of which Lapis sees how little she has actually seen of Earth during her imprisonment. There’s a whole diverse world out there she can discover and find a home in. In the end, Lapis decides to stay on Earth of her free will; for the first time in forever, she is filled with joy, playfulness and optimism.


And that’s when Peridot enters the picture. At the start of the episode, she opted to stay in the barn they made the drill in, deciding she likes it more than the Crystal Gem bathroom (plus, there’s that big hole in the wall she made that she needs to fix). And Lapis is not happy with it, which suggests that during their travel to Earth ol’ Peri decided to abuse her power over the poor Gem with lesser position than her. And now Steven has to reconcile two of his new friends, one of whom despises the oblivious other.

"Oh boy." 

Will Lapis end up beating the crap out of Peridot—or will she grudgingly accept her new wacky roommate? We’ll see next week in "Barn Mates."

Dominik Zine is a nerdy lad from northeastern Poland and is generally found in a comfy chair with a book in hand.