Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4224349-20150319205546/@comment-26013337-20150320064625

Ah yes, looks like the show did some Meta Commentary on its own relationships, gotta say, never seen that before and found it rather clever. On one level, the ending was as simple as the room reacting to Steven's true desires by forcing him to express his feelings on the ending of the book. But of course, at the exact same time, the show itself was commenting on the status of Steven and Connie's relationship.

This became all but completely apparent as Connie added "I guess you could read it that way." which clearly commented on how one could construe the final moments before Steven's confession as to what Steven was actually confessing to. Without thinking of the book, the viewer could speculate he was going to admit to having romantic feelings for Connie, however, after the confession is revealed to be about the ending, a viewer could also conclude that there was no subtext at all (but that would, of course, be shortsighted). No doubt though, the episode steered itself in that direction by having Cloud Connie appear in the wedding dress (poor poor Steven, that must've been hellishly embarrassing) but not to allude to his feelings for Connie but to allude to the ending of the book.

Overall it was to say: Depending on your outlook, this relationship could be romantic or entirely platonic. Basically a much-ado-about-nothing move if I'd say so as the viewer could already come to this conclusion.

Still a nice episode however, my only complaint is how they put Steven as being easily bested by the clone just to move the plot along. Honestly, he's in a room controlled with his mind, if he was able to think up of the stand as an obstacle he could've easily bound her with chains and built a whole cell around her. He could've summoned an army to protect himself or well...pretty much anything he could imagine. But of course, they couldn't pass up the whole "let's have the clone fight the real one" situation. Bleh.

I'd like for Steven's growth as a fighter to be realized by now. He's already been proven to have grown as a person yet we've yet to really see any definitive combat skills. All we've got on that end is some obvious Deus Ex Machina stuff where, of course, he must obtain the power he needs to save himself and others (see: every time they ever REALLY needed his shield to work) It's time to move on to some training stuff and have some scenes of him actually besting a few lowly gem creatures. Because, I mean, how many times can they pull the "Gems in desperate situation get shielded last second" card? Oh well, hopefully it happens this season.