An Indirect Kiss

"Why, do you care about me or something?"

"An Indirect Kiss" is the 24th episode of the first season of Steven Universe, and the 24th episode overall.

Official Synopsis
When Amethyst cracks her gemstone, Steven and the Crystal Gems go on a mission to heal her.

Plot
Steven is being carried by Lion to go to the top of the temple and meet Connie for a picnic. Steven is depressed and since Connie wants to know why, Steven tells a story. Amethyst was goofing around the cliff and Steven kept telling Amethyst not to fall off. Amethyst kept messing with Steven, who kept getting scared for her safety every time she did that. She falls off and lands on a rock. Steven runs down the cliff as fast as he can and Amethyst showed him her eye hidden behind her bangs that was big and googly. Garnet and Pearl ran to them and tried to get Amethyst to show her gem. Garnet reveals Amethyst's gem to be cracked, causing the fence to be built.

Steven ends the story but Connie wanted to know what happened to Amethyst. Steven didn't want to tell her, then finally agreed to continue, but only if she let him try on her glasses and Connie replied only if he gave her his juice. Steven then continued the story, and it cuts to the gems talking about Amethyst, and according to Pearl and Garnet, Rose Quartz had healing tears. Steven tries to heal Amethyst's gem with tears, but fails. Garnet insisted that they go to Rose Quartz's healing spring to heal Amethyst. Amethyst makes a weird shriveled face and begins talking backwards.

They go to the Fountain, but almost everything was covered with brambles of thorns and spikes. Steven tries again, but it still wouldn't work. Amethyst manages to communicate with Steven.

After realizing Amethyst is suggesting that pain can cause tears Steven attempts to poke himself on nearby thorns. However, the thorns come to life and try to attack him. Amethyst tackled him out of the way, but this results in her cracking her gem more, causing her head to be swapped with her right foot. Garnet and Pearl, being oblivious to the thorns being alive, make a path through the wall of thorns. Finding the spring, they see it, too, has become overgrown, and is no longer flowing healing water. Garnet and Pearl leave to find out what stopped the spring, with Amethyst growing worse, being that all her limbs have grown long and thin strings. He and Amethyst are then attacked by the thorns again, so Steven takes Amethyst into the dry spring.After growing sad that he can't save Amethyst, Steven cries, with a tear hitting the broken gem. However, nothing happens immediately, so Steven grows extremely upset.

Then, the spring (which is a statue of Rose Quartz) begins to work, causing a massive overflow of healing water, causing the thorns to bloom into roses, while Amethyst returns to normal. Steven exclaims to Pearl how his tears caused the spring to be fixed, to which Pearl says Garnet and she did it, and that he will never have any real magic powers, and that they no longer want anything to do with him.

Cutting back to present day, Connie is shocked, and asked if she really said that. Steven says she didn't, but that's how it felt. Connie, telling him he can always come to her, magic or not, leans in for a kiss, only to stop right before, exclaiming she has a headache. After taking her glasses off, she realizes she can see without them. Both being shocked, they realize Steven's juice (which earlier he stated was mostly his spit) healed her. The episode ends with Steven rushing off to the gems to tell them about his new healing saliva ability, while Connie pops the lenses out of her glasses.

Characters

 * Steven
 * Amethyst (flashback)
 * Pearl (flashback)
 * Garnet (flashback)
 * Lion
 * Connie
 * Rose Quartz (Pictured, mentioned)

Objects

 * Durian Juice

Locations

 * Beach City
 * Rose's Fountain (debut, flashback)

Soundtracks

 * Overgrown Brambles


 * Rose's Fountain

Trivia

 * The title refers to the indirect kiss Steven gives to Connie by sharing his durian juice box with her that had his backwash.


 * It is shown that a Crystal Gems' gem can become cracked if their gem receives too much damage.
 * If the gem is cracked for too long, the Crystal Gem starts to "glitch".
 * This is the first episode in which none of the Gems besides Steven physically appear, rather, they are merely part of Steven's flashback sequence and seen through Steven's perspective.
 * It is revealed that Rose Quartz has a fountain that can repair damaged gems due to it flowing with her tears.
 * Steven is revealed to have troubled feelings for his mother due to the fact that the other Gems know about her and he doesn't.
 * Steven is shown to have healing powers contained in his saliva, unlike his mother, Rose Quartz, who had healing tears.
 * Ironically, healing spit is more useful than healing tears.
 * Connie appears more affectionate towards Steven than in previous episodes.
 * In many other language versions, Amethyst's backward speeches were normal.
 * The story was told from Steven's perspective so most of what happened could be how he saw it, such as Pearl being very clingy to Garnet could have been far-fetched.
 * While submerged in water of the fountain, it appeared to Steven that his mother's statue was reaching toward him trying to bring him to the surface. It is possible that this symbolized a feeling of closeness to his mother that he did not feel beforehand until the fountain seemed to respond to his emotional distress.
 * This is sixth episode not to end with a single star-shaped iris and, instead, there is a cut to the credits. The last episode without the usual ending was "Monster Buddies."

Amethyst's Backwards Messages Decoded:

 * "Hey guys, what are you doing on the beach?"
 * "Ugh, I'm going home."
 * "Hey, if your body can't cry on its own, you gotta make it cry."
 * "The vines are coming to life and are gonna kill Steven just so you know."
 * "Don't worry or anything, I'm good."
 * "Uh, a little help?"
 * "Cheer up, will ya?"

Cultural References

 * Amethyst's googly eye is a possible reference to Wilt from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and his googly eye in the special "Good Wilt Hunting".
 * The facial expressions Amethyst pulls appear to be a reference to internet memes of similar strained expressions used as reactions to certain situations.
 * When Amethyst loses the shape of her body, it may be a reference to Jiggler, a character in "The Jiggler" from Adventure Time.
 * Steven saying "I'm really feeling it!" at Rose's Fountain may be a reference to Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles, as he said the same phrase in his reveal trailer for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U, which coincidentally was first shown only 20 days before the airing of this episode.

Continuity

 * When Connie was about to kiss Steven, there was a little piece of "Connie (Piano Demo)" played in background.

Errors

 * In some scenes, Rose's statue has longer arms than in previous scenes.
 * When Amethyst loses control of her body when her gem becomes more broken, her head is replaced by her left foot. However, in a following scene, the head is now on the right instead.
 * When the statue starts flowing once more, you can see the star in Garnet's uniform is pale red, when it's supposed to be dark pink.
 * Near the end of the episode, Lion disappears in some scenes.
 * When Steven tells Amethyst to show her gem to him, Amethyst's star shaped cut outs on her tights are missing.

Transcript
Click here for the transcript.

Videos
An Indirect Kiss  pt-br:An Indirect Kiss