Steven Universe Future Episode 7 Review: Snow Day

This Steven Universe Future review contains spoilers.

Steven Universe Future Episode 7 Review

Steven Universe Future is actively looking back at its past. It may seem counterintuitive, after all the name of the show is Steven Universe Future. Why aren’t we focusing on the now? When are we going to get to all those scary Gems in the opening theme? What about all the other characters? We need more Peridot!

I understand all those desires but ‘Snow Day’ is concerned with perhaps the most important part of anyone’s future. How you’ve changed and grown. Steven is directly confronted with this thanks to Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all wanting to hang out. They try to lure Steven in with his old favorite things but Steven’s grown up. He doesn’t want a breakfast filled with sugar. He doesn’t want to watch anything associated with Dogcopter. He doesn’t want to eat pizza with meat. 

Steven’s obviously grown in size but this is the first time we’ve really seen him grow up in normal ways. All his work with Little Homeschool takes a more mature outlook but it’s not totally different from the Steven of old. A Steven that doesn’t want Together Breakfast and is too busy for pizza? That’s a changed Steven. He’s not totally different but as we grow up we drift away from things we were attached to as kids.

Crucially this episode isn’t about Steven embracing his younger self. The Gems realize they were in the wrong for forcing Steven to play tag and shifting into different versions of him. It’s more about the Gems and the audience accepting Steven for who he is now. That time has moved on and that this boy isn’t trapped in amber, as much as they (and some of the audience) might want it. The world moves on and Steven is moving with it.

read more: Steven Universe: Should Steven Forgive Rose?

Some may want bigger plot moves in Steven Universe Future (we do see Steven get more tired this episode, as he had in previous outings) but I’m enjoying these smaller character beats. Just giving the show the air to address something as simple as Steven becoming a slightly “too cool for school” for teenager is exactly what it needed. Steven Universe Future isn’t about these gigantic universe-shattering plots. It’s only nominally about the fall out of those plots. It’s about what happens after a normal story ends. After a normal series has wrapped up its main “arc”. Steven Universe Future is telling the kinds of stories very few long running series do and I applaud them for it.

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Shamus Kelley is a pop culture/television writer and official Power Rangers expert. Follow him on Twitter! He also co-hosts a Robotech podcast, which covers the original series and the new comics. Give it a listen! Read more articles by him here!