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I’ve finally seen Lars of the Stars and Jungle Moon and here are my thoughts:

Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Lars of the Stars is a good self contained story about Lars coming to terms with being separated from Sadie and the Cool Kids. 

 It’s a nice concept that grapples with Lars’s separation and how fragile his Earth relationships are.  Him seeing Sadie Killer start up without him is an interesting window into the idea of death and how people move on from it; Sadie was miserable, but she couldn’t stay miserable, much like death in real life.

This moment with the phone was great pause for the sake of building his emotions but I think this deserved an episode in itself.

I think my one big gripe with the episode is that we’re told that Lars outsmarted Emerald. We’re told that Lars managed to escape Homeworld in a stolen ship, and we’re told that he became a space pirate.  Show don’t tell is a simple and effective rule and honestly, the Creniverse pulled the trigger on Lars becoming a space pirate too early.  I’d like to see Lars have an episode where he develops into a confident space pirate in the way he did while he was sitting in the pilot’s chair scrolling through photos.  Have Lars tackle abandonment, being seen as dead and championing a cause in a natural tempo.  If that moment of the phone was handled FIRST before we got what was essentially the SDCC trailer, it would be much more interesting of a mini arc. 

Honestly, I could forgive these to an extent, because clearly this episode was just a vehicle to get to the meaty story bits in the episode after; the Pink Diamond Reveal.

Jungle Moon does a lot of interesting storytelling.

While Lars of the Stars was moreso a character reveal plus an underwhelming arc with some great action sprinkled in, it’s clear that Jungle Moon was the episode that had more thought put into it.

As soon as Stevonnie crashlands, they’re put in a fish-out-of-water scenario where they have to survive on their own.  

The first half of the episode was more about developing Stevonnie’s combat and personality (at least with how they interact with wild creatures)  and not much else.  But everything gets interesting with Stevonnie entering an abandoned building, escaping some hostile life-forms.

The dream sequence was a great way of explaining and revealing Pink Diamond:

Because it not only played into Pink Diamond’s characters but it introduces some interesting aspects between the surrogate characters in the reveal; Yellow Diamond as Priyanka and Pink Diamond as Stevonnie.

The final reveal was done in a way that didn’t spoil too much but brought up her subtly enough so that her immature character could show through.  Stevonnie being the surrogate for Pink Diamond has surely sparked some theories by fans and honestly, I couldn’t agree more.

Honestly, the new episodes play with story elements in slightly more inventive ways than conventional exposition and spice up the narrative in ways that keeps you on your toes.  Now let’s just hope we’re not in for another long hiatus until we get some more life into this current stop-start tempo Steven Universe is plagued with constantly.