Steven Universe Podcast: Steven Selects Episode 4 Recap

The Steven Universe Podcast: Steven Selects episode 4, hosted by McKenzie Atwood, covers the episode “Monster Reunion.”

It’s the fourth of an eight-part series of spotlights on fan favorite episodes. The guests are Matt Burnett, Ben Levin, and Hilary Florido. The official description:

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“Monster Reunion” is the topic of discussion with Steven Universe writers Ben Levin and Matt Burnett! Discover how the episode was originally supposed to start and why that idea was scrapped in favor of “MC Bear Bear,” why they decided to bring both Centipeetle and Steven’s healing powers back in this episode, and what inspired their clever use of flashback to tell Centipeetle’s Gem story. Plus, Storyboard Supervisor Hilary Florido s to answer fan questions including how she approaches training new storyboard artists, what part of her job she enjoys most, and which artist doodles have (and have not) found their way into episodes.

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Outline:

McKenzie first of all asks about how the episode changed from conception to completion. Our writers Matt and Ben discuss how the original intention was for the episode to start with a comic Steven was drawing. (It was supposed to be non-fantastical slice-of-life but included fighting monsters because, you know, that’s a slice of his life.) He was supposed to heal his own papercut, but that got changed to healing MC Bear Bear.

They also had intended to have the Gems doing more exposition about Centipeetle’s corruption originally, but then they’d have to have Centipeetle telling the story a second time through drawings, so they left in the second iteration since it’s more emotional and a little more mysterious. There was also an idea that Centipeetle’s panic to return to the ship was caused by her sense of time being distorted, and she thinks she’s just been ordered to evacuate–that this had happened just now instead of thousands of years ago. They ended up simplifying it so Centipeetle just wanted to get back to her friends.

The ideas behind how the bubbling and being in stasis works differently for corrupted Gems were more complex than they really have space for, exacerbated by how they don’t allow Centipeetle to speak at all in the episode. It’s all just emotion. The more corrupted a monster is, the less you know who you were and what you were doing when you got poofed.

After Centipeetle got partially healed, she was more aware of what was going on and the Gems kind of felt more reluctant to attack her even just to put her back in the bubble. Steven’s been a good example showing the other Gems they should think of the corrupted Gems as Gems.

McKenzie asks why they decided to bring Centipeetle back, and they said they just don’t want to drop the monster arcs in favor of some of the bigger plot stuff and character arcs. This was a chance to give another perspective on the war from someone who wasn’t a Crystal Gem. Centipeetle was there for a job and got caught up, like Lapis, not necessarily ideologically opposed to our heroes. Bringing Centipeetle back for this episode also laid the groundwork for us really understanding what corruption is when it happens to Jasper.

McKenzie asks about the crayon drawings Centipeetle drew. They said they’d already snapshotted Lapis’s perspective and now they wanted to convey another perspective to show what it had been like to be on the ground. (At this point they compared this storyline to Flowers for Algernon.)

They aren’t allowed to show anything Steven can’t picture in his mind, so this storytelling-through-drawings option worked very well for the purpose without breaking that perspective rule. All the flashback episodes, like The Answer, have differences to indicate Steven’s imagining them or is inspired by visual images someone else is showing him. This is why the image of Blue Diamond wasn’t accurate. The Greg flashbacks were made possible partially because they let him see Rose on a videotape before doing any straight-up flashbacks about her, so Steven would be able to her from that.

McKenzie brings up how corrupted Gems appear to not be able to use warp pads. They just thought it would be a disaster if corrupted Gems could find a warp pad and appear inside the temple whenever that happened by chance. Warp pads require you to use your mind to visualize where they’re going, and so Centipeetle couldn’t do that with her corrupted mind.

Fan Questions:

These are answered by storyboard supervisor Hilary Florido.

Question: How do you stay motivated to keep creating?

Answer: “It’s my job. It’s an episode machine.” Hilary says having a job helps her stay balanced and inspires her to work on her personal work too.

Question: What is your favorite part of your job?

Answer: She likes that there are many parts to it. With that many components, there’s always something novel or challenging. She doesn’t necessarily have fun with all these challenges, but it keeps it interesting.

Question: When someone s the team, how do you get the new person up to speed?

Answer: Hilary often got the newer boarders as a partner when she was storyboarding. You just let them jump in and drown a little, and then you help them. You want to be there for them, but you can’t hold their hand too much.

Question: Did any doodles or offhand ideas end up in the show in some form?

Answer: It definitely happens. Hilary does a series using Lapis as a skateboard that never got in there. She couldn’t think of a specific example of something that made it in from a doodle.

Question: How do you avoid overediting an outline instead of finishing it?

Answer: Deadlines help. You HAVE to finish. Also, you get a lot of from many people, so that helps.

The recording I heard had the same closing lines as the previous week’s and again said “Monster Reunion” would be discussed next time, but actually "Last One Out of Beach City" was next.