Change Your Mind (Steven Universe)
Steven confronts the Diamonds and heals corrupted Gems.
"Change Your Mind" is the 44-minute series finale of the American animated television series Steven Universe, serving as the culmination of the original storyline conceived by series creator Rebecca Sugar. It premiered on Cartoon Network on January 21, 2019, and was acclaimed by critics for its themes, animation, writing, and voice performances.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Steven Universe
- Season
- 5
- Episode
- 29–32
- Director
- Joe Johnston; Kat Morris
- Air date
- 21 January 2019
- Length
- 44 minutes
Facts from the source article.
Plot
Steven is trapped in a tower on the Gem Homeworld, where he has a dream about a memory from long ago: his mother, Pink Diamond, being yelled at by Blue Diamond. When he wakes up, Blue Diamond shows up to scold him again, thinking he is Pink. Steven talks her through the idea that Pink left because the Diamond family was broken, and Blue agrees to help the Crystal Gems get away. Yellow Diamond tries to block them, but Steven gets her to see that following White Diamond’s obsession with perfection has made her unhappy. Steven and Connie get ready to escape, carrying the inactive gems of Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, but White Diamond’s ship cuts them off. Then Bismuth, Lapis Lazuli, and Peridot show up from Earth in the repaired ships of Yellow and Blue, and they attack White’s vessel. After a short fight, Yellow and Blue finally tell White how they feel, but she turns them into blank, colorless drones that act as part of her. Steven drops the three gems by accident, jumps after them, and helps them reform their bodies by briefly fusing with each one. The four of them then combine into Obsidian to get to White’s room. White turns Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl into drones too, and tries to convince Steven that he is actually Pink Diamond, wrongly believing she herself is someone else. She pulls Steven’s gem out of his body, and it regenerates a copy of Steven’s form that yells “She’s GONE!” and blocks White’s control. Connie carries Steven’s weak human body over to the gem version, and they fuse back together. White still won’t accept that Pink is gone, saying Pink is just acting like a child. Steven replies, “I am a child—what’s your excuse?” White blushes, embarrassed, and lets everyone go. As she has an existential crisis from realizing she can be wrong, Steven suggests she let everyone, including herself, just be whoever they are.
Production
The episode was helmed by supervising directors Joe Johnston and Kat Morris, with art direction from Liz Artinian. The writing and storyboarding team included Johnston, Morris, Lamar Abrams, Miki Brewster, Danny Kilgore, Hilary Florido, Ian Jones-Quartey, Christine Liu, Jeff Liu, Katie Mitroff, Paul Villeco, and series creator Rebecca Sugar. Jones-Quartey, who had left the show to develop OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, came back to work on a short part of the episode. This installment holds the record for the most credited writers and storyboard artists on a single episode, listed alphabetically by last name. The scene where Steven’s gem and human halves rejoin was animated by guest James Baxter, a veteran of Disney films. Three new fusions appear for the first time: Steven merges with Pearl to become Rainbow Quartz 2.0, voiced by Alastair James, and with Garnet to become Sunstone, voiced by Shoniqua Shandai. Later, all four main Crystal Gems combine into Obsidian. In October 2020, Sugar expressed hope that the episode resonates with LGBTQIA+ youth, especially those told something false by authority figures who blame themselves rather than recognizing a larger issue. Three songs are featured. Sadie and her band perform a ska version of “Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart,” originally from the show’s second episode. During a montage of corrupted Gems being healed, Steven sings a new verse of “We Are the Crystal Gems.” The final song, “Change Your Mind,” was written by Sugar and performed by Steven on ukulele for Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, with the four characters mimicking their pose from the end credits. Sugar originally wrote it to express her feelings while negotiating with Cartoon Network over including a same-sex wedding in the earlier episode “Reunited.”
Release and reception
"Change Your Mind" first aired on Cartoon Network on January 21, 2019, when it was seen by 0.989 million viewers and gained a 0.30 in the 18-49 demographic. The episode was acclaimed by critics. The handling of its themes was largely praised, particularly during the final face-off between Steven and White Diamond. The scale, animation, writing, and voice performances, especially Christine Ebersole as White Diamond, were also highly praised. Some minor criticism was made towards the pacing of its first half and resolution. In a positive review at Polygon, Eric Thurm called the episode "an impressive feat of compassion, and the narrative endpoint of 156 episodes of television", praising how it illustrated Steven's evolution. Writing for The A.V. Club, Thurm called it "a pretty damn good and impressive episode, and a really wonderful, hectic capper to Era Two of Steven Universe." He praised White Diamond's character and Ebersole's performance, calling White "the perfect villain" for the series' themes, and called the moment White removes Steven's gem "the best, most gut-wrenching moment of the episode, and probably of the series." He also noted that the Diamonds' epiphanies may happen too quickly, with some moments veering into "outright corniness."
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