Down to three. Three spots left to fill in the Top 12 Countdown of 2020 as we’re now less than a few days away from saying goodbye to 2020. And the series and episode taking the bronze medal of the countdown of the year goes to an episode from a series that is now wrapped up after a six-to-seven-year span during its airtime and in the beginning stages of the pandemic, during the lockdowns, and an episode that planted the seeds for its series finale but I have to put it high because much like with Infinity Train in the past two spots, final minutes, we know where this is going. Coming in at number three of the Top 12 Countdown of 2020 is Steven Universe Future with “Fragments”.
Now you’re probably wondering, how the hell does this episode made it to number three in the countdown despite the previous two posts have, as you said, shocking moments that have a character killed off in gruesome fashion? You could say the most obvious reason is that the episode came it first...actually no because Season 2 was in January while this episode of SUF aired in March, this was one of those episodes that felt simple with an ending that pretty much have you shook. But Steven Universe Future is different, mostly because this was the episode to set up the series finale if you already know the premise by now if you saw it. If not, why the fuck are you here?
Starting off the episode with where we left off after the events of “Mr. Universe” after Steven crashed the van, in pure pink anger, after leaving Greg’s childhood home, with Bismuth fixing the van and Steven feeling bad over all of this and Pearl not happy over all of it and thinks that what Steven had done was considered reckless and tries to lecture him over his latent powers. Thus, causing Steven to lose his chill and becomes pink again enough to create a barrier around him from Pearl and later Garnet and Amethyst, who are massively worried about Steven’s well-being. Oh yeah, and how and why Steven has been acting that way throughout the entire epilogue series? Trauma...lots and lots of trauma and the cracked skull from his x-ray during his visit to the doctor and finding out that the entire events of the original series, from “Gem Glow” to “Change Your Mind” and also the movie and portions of the epilogue series is nothing more than Steven going through wave after wave of development and growth in both of powers and personality but also cleaning up his mother’s mess that she caused after faking her shattering like hotel workers cleaning every room after spring break and a whole week of partying. Steven shouts “LEAVE ME ALONE”, in all caps, which causes time to slow down and make his way to escape to go somewhere to possibly get some help.
Thus, deep in the woods by the fireside with Jasper to keep him company...you thought he would’ve gone to Connie for help? While that would be the most obvious way possible for Steven when it comes to needing some aid with his problems, then yeah, Connie would’ve been the way to go. That’s not the case this time around and have Jasper to come in as the support for him when it comes to controlling his newfound powers. Though Jasper thinks that Steven here means that they would have a rematch of their match. Steven doesn’t come here for that and instead, asking her to help him control his powers, and thus, we have ourselves a training session. Oh don’t worry, the rematch is coming. It’s coming alright and the results...hang on to your butt holes.
The rest of the episode is pretty much your basic training montage though unlike with some shonen anime series where the training is just there for a few seconds before going back to whatever plot we’re going in the arc to get ready for the next. Here, it’s his first day for some training by carrying rocks up a hill and you think that with Steven, he could carry something heavy something...I don’t know, a stereo or something like that. I mean, he almost tried to lift the injector that Spinel planted back in the movie, though unable even though that was when he got hit by the rejuvenator that made his gem powers ineffective. I mean we all know how the whole training regiment goes like with other TV series, being live-action or animated, and movies, the main character goes into training mode and enter day one, the training scene isn’t easy for him or her to work through but come later on as days, weeks, even months to pass on by to get the results.
Luckily, a few days have passed, probably have the gems and Greg worrying about Steven’s whereabouts off-screen, with Steven now finally improving and maintaining his pink powers and even grew a few inches...and also becoming a chad when finishing up one of his training session with Jasper. But yeah, Steven not only controlled his powers and gained a few inches in height along with some pectorals, keynote on that, and with the improvements that Steven had made throughout the whole training regiment, it’s time for the rematch to begin between both Steven and Jasper.
With Jasper starting the fight first with Steven now pulling out a shield, though not your normal shield you see from Steven because it’s more of a hexagonal shape than the round one with the rose in the center, though I think that was like before finding out that Rose was actually Pink Diamond and stuff like that. Steven pulled out a shield and uses it the one time against Jasper, only for him to lose his ground. Almost feels like we’re back to square one like with their fight back in “Little Homeschool”. Well, that was then. And this is...I guess then because the episode aired back in March, but regarding Steven’s power, yeah, looks like he may now have the upper hand against Jasper and it looks like he could finally win this one. And I guess other than maintaining his power but also getting Jasper’s respect and whatnot.
But then things turned to shit, and not in a bad way episode-wise but more of where this fight is going now that Steven has the advantage against Jasper in their sparring match that is now turned into an actual fight. That is now turning into a murder seeing in our own eyes with Steven decided to take the fight way too far to anyone’s liking against Jasper now that he has the upper hand. Pinning Jasper down with his shields and forming one when going above the air and pull out the spikes and throws the damn spiked barrier onto Jasper. And...uh...holy fuck. Like no, seriously, when that happened when it first aired back in March, that was shocking. It was shocking on what Steven did to Jasper during the fight with the bloodlust taking over. Launching the attack onto Jasper and...ending her life. And in the hands of the guy who...possibly his main mission was to have Jasper to have a purpose and help her out despite in the original, didn’t work out too well. So for Steven, now blood-hungry after maintaining his newfound pink powers, doing like that to the gem that he only wanted to help out since the original...goddamn. Though the death was short-lived but...fuck. Steven enters back to the house, ignoring Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst, and run towards the bathroom, getting the blue, white, and yellow bottles onto the tub along with mixing his healing spit into the water and…
Yeah. Gem...shattered. That’s the result of the bloodlust during the fight, The murderous rampage that Steven went through during the whole freaking fracking fight against Jasper, after countless days of training with her to control his powers, resulting in Jasper to be shattered and for Steven to clean the mess up by putting the cracked pieces of the gemstone into the water, putting the pieces back together, and thus, Jasper returns but not in the way Steven would have expected with Jasper bowing to him as a sign of respect and calling him the one title that he doesn’t want to hear. Calling Steven as “My Diamond”, shocking Steven to disarray to end the episode.
And that was number three in the Top 12 Countdown and yeah...holy shit. You could say that this me doing my attempt of giving Steven Universe, not just Future, but the entire franchise as a whole a proper sendoff? And you may be right about that. But the reason I give this episode the number three spot, the bronze medal, why this episode made it this far high and beat out the likes of the two Infinity Train episodes that had some very gruesome deaths, is that this episode pretty much shook me to the core when first watching the episode. I mean, you never expect someone like Steven to do something like shattering Jasper, the gem that Steven made it his mission to help out and find her purpose after the events of “Change Your Mind” but not in the way you would expect following the fight and the shattering and resurrection. And you already know where this is going after the episode aired if you saw the series finale, so I’ll spare the details. But besides all that, this was a very good episode. Do love the shock factor at the end of the episode with Steven shattering Jasper with the result after bringing her back in a way that he wasn’t expecting and the same goes for the audience. And I feel like that was the highlight of the episode following the training session for Steven to control his powers. By the way, did I mention that this episode was nominated for an Emmy? Yeah, that happened and it didn’t win. This episode didn’t win the Emmy. That title goes to some a-hole named Forky. I dunno, I haven’t seen Toy Story 4. But yeah, “Fragments”, the sixteenth episode of Steven Universe Future, and the setup for the series finale making it to the number three spot in the Top 12 Countdown of 2020.
Steven Universe Future with “Fragments” takes the bronze medal of the year. Only two spots remain to be filled up before we say sayonara to 2020. What show and episode take home the silver for the year? Find out tomorrow as the penultimate spot of the Top 12 Countdown of 2020 takes place tomorrow. And...I may throw in some honorable mentions...mostly because someone I chatted over at Discord recommends it. So a list and not going into details might be the way to go. So there’s that before going into number one on New Year’s Eve. Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, you know what to do. And of course…
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