Steven Universe Season 4 / Awesome

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Kindergarten Kid

Peridot gets crushed by a mound of rocks, a drill machine, then both at once, then a giant boulder after falling a large distance onto solid ground, and of course getting savagely mauled by the Corrupted Gem. Finally, she falls an even further distance and even creates a large crater in the ground. Does it phase her? Hardly. Impressive, considering similar injuries have easily poofed other Gems.
Steven: You don't poof easily, huh?
Peridot: [whilst under a boulder] Us Peridots are tougher than we look!
- This also results in a retroactive one for Garnet, who successfully poofed Peridot back in "Catch and Release" just by squeezing her. Just how strong are those gauntlets?
- This actually makes sense, if you know that Peridot stones can rank up to 7 on the Mohs hardness scale. That's the hardness of a quartz!
Peridot shows a lot better control of her metal powers, even if it doesn't work out as she planned. Also, being able to convert a thousands of years old injector into a functioning cannon in at most a couple hours without any tools is pretty impressive.
When Peridot follows Steven's plan, she manages to get close enough to grab the monster, and proceeds to manage to keep her grip for the most part despite its speed.
The Gem Monster here is quite a bit more wily than the ones the Gems usually face, evading every trap Peridot sets for it, and even seeming to have some fun turning one against her. If they ever manage to cure this one, she'll probably be a very useful ally.
- Heck, Jasper deserves some props for catching it in the first place!
Steven pelting Peridot with marshmallows to get her to empathize with the Gem Monster.

Know Your Fusion

Smoky Quartz rescuing Pearl and Garnet from the collapsing Sardonyx room with their yo-yo tricks when both of them were hanging on for dear life. Even if both of their components are large goofballs, they show that they are not to be trifled with when their teammates are in danger.

Buddy's Book

While he wasn't the first to discover them, the mere fact Buddy, a normal human managed to reach all those dangerous gem locations is pretty dang impressive.
Buddy's artwork is legitimately fantastic. No wonder Rose was impressed.
While all of the rest of the Gems are re-imagined to be in period clothing, Rose is wearing the same dress she wore since the Rebellion up to falling in love with Greg. Assuming this is not a case of Steven just imagining her that way, the implication is that she is either so at one with herself and who she is that she doesn't need to follow fashion, or she has simply never been poofed.
A subtle one, but Connie was able to carry three heavy looking books with little to no problem. She's stronger than she looks.

Mindful Education

Even if it made her guilty, Connie flipping another kid is still pretty impressive.
Stevonnie showing off some serious skills against the Holo-Pearls.
Steven and Connie re-fusing in time to save themselves from going splat on the ground.
The implications about Ruby and Sapphire, Ruby gets caught up in the moment and fixates on the most immediate problem (A single butterfly) while Sapphire gets overwhelmed by the possibilities (entire swarms of butterflies). Ruby helps Sapphire let go of her worries over the possibilities while Sapphire helps Ruby move on from the heat of the moment problems.

Last One Out of Beach City

Pearl guns it from the cops in the Dondai, pulling off some great evasive maneuvers, all to a grunge rock soundtrack. She even manages to make the line "And that's why we buckle up" sound legitimately badass.
Pearl not only talking to Mystery Girl, but getting her phone number!
In general, Pearl shows some amazing Character Development by finally deciding to try and move on from the past and her obsession with Rose. As anyone who has experienced her same issues with depression and low self-esteem can attest to, moving on is a hard but brave decision to take.
- Helped by the fact that Steven and Amethyst play their part as supportive friends, encouraging Pearl to take risks to be happy.
The fact that the show depicted an unambiguous romantic-comedy scenario between two female characters (even if one of them is technically genderless), and have it be depicted as absolutely normal.
- Better still, while Pearl is still indeed a Gem and hence not a woman in the strict sense, there is nothing to suggest that Mystery Girl believes her to be anything other than a human woman who happens to be into women. Which means, at least on one side of the relationship, the show now has a main female character romantically involved with an unambiguously gay woman, free of any allegory to get past censors!

Onion Gang

A bunch of elementary school kids building a functioning car.

Gem Harvest

Peridot and Lapis may not have understood the point of farming, but they're actually pretty good at it for Eating Optional beings.
Steven hanging on to a friggin biplane in flight.
Andy catches Steven with his biplane (which are notoriously difficult to control) as Steven is falling out of the sky.
Lapis flying to Homeworld in what appeared to be a relatively short time already implied that she must be capable of some amazingly high speeds, but seeing her effortlessly keep pace with a plane lets it sink in.
Peridot managed to create functional attack drones to defend the barn.

Three Gems And A Baby

Greg manages to catch up with the Gems, who have stolen his van, on foot in the middle of a blizzard to get baby Steven back.

Steven's Dream

It's simultaneously heartbreaking, but Steven finally yelling at the Crystal Gems for keeping secrets from him is long overdue. After everything with Bismuth, the Rubies, and Pink Diamond, he DOES deserve to know the truth, and it's good to see him standing up for himself.
Andy's able to fly all the way to Korea from Delmarva in just a biplane.
The simple fact that Blue Diamond would travel across space in order to mourn Pink Diamond.
- Just the simple revealing of Blue Diamond's own ship is awe-inspiring in itself. With barely a thought and a single hand gesture, a ship the size of a mountain parts the clouds above, putting to shame the ship that Peridot once visited Earth on. It just serves as another indicator of how wide a gap there remains between human and gem technology.
Greg telling Steven to remain hidden and using himself as a distraction for Blue Diamond when Blue Pearl discovers them. It takes some serious guts to put yourself in the radar of a fifty foot alien who tried to destroy your planet in the past. Building on that, he actually does his best to comfort her.
As some fans have noted, this is the second time that Greg has seduced a high-ranking gem in such a short time, as well as eventually seducing pretty much everyone at the human zoo. Never mind the fact that he's aged 15+ years since first seducing Rose and is now balding, Greg's ability with alien/not-born-on-Earth women is still Kirk-level awesomeness.

Adventures in Light Distortion

After a rather tense trip through light speed without protection against it, Steven manages to fight the speed pressure and deactivate the ship systems by himself, no powers or anything. It’s sure to induce immense sighs of relief.

Gem Heist

Even though Sapphire is secretly freaking out at the heavy chance of her and the others possibly getting caught by Homeworld/Blue Diamond, she keeps her cool in order for the others to do the same.

The Zoo

As Nightmare Fuel and offensive it is towards humans, the fact that Homeworld was able to construct a place for humans to live, breathe, and eat is scientific genius on their part. They even figured out how to keep them perpetually happy and unaware of any kind of real pain (until Greg and Steven come in).
Steven once again showing his impressive strength at two different times: First, when he punches his father in the gut in an attempt to lure the guards out for a chance to escape, Greg is literally sent flying backwards. Two, when the Zoomans start to become distressed over Greg’s rejection and feeling “hurt” for the first time, Steven casually picks up his father and runs with said father held up above his head. When they bump into a low-hanging branch, Steven drags Greg away quickly enough that the Zoomans all keep running without noticing them.

That Will Be All

Amethyst managing to befriend the other Quartzes stationed at the Zoo, getting them to aid in finding Greg and Steven.
Yellow Diamond's song "What's The Use of Feeling Blue", the rare Villain Song mourning the death of a villain while encouraging another villain to be villainous again. Fans have been waiting for Patti LuPone to finally sing on the show and she knocked it out of the park.
When Holly Blue Agate launches her whip at Steven and Greg, Ruby and Sapphire quickly Fuse, leaving Garnet to snatch the thing out of the air!
- Garnet then fakes her out and punches her in the gut with her non-gauntlet fist.
- Pearl and Amethyst are equally badass, with Pearl slicing the whip loose from the piece Garnet is holding, and Amethyst using her spin-attack to tie Holly Blue up with it.
Pearl’s speech to Holly Blue Agate is as badass as it is satisfying. After two solid episodes of being forced back into the hated servant role, it is cathartic to hear Pearl verbally slam Holly Agate. The subtle piano in the background really sells it.
Holly Blue Agate: I’ll report you to the Diamonds! All of you! You’ll all be SHATTERED!
Pearl: (Crouches in front of her) You’re really gonna tell the Diamonds that you allowed a band of traitorous rebels to infiltrate a highly secured facility and escape from right under your careful watch? (Inhales sharply through her teeth) Doesn’t sound like a wise thing to do, Holly Blue!
- And after she finishes telling Holly to keep her mouth shut, she says "that will be all", with Steven clapping his hands, leaving Holly groaning and humiliated as her subordinates laugh and wave at the departing Crystal Gems.
- Even better? This moment is a heroic example of the Sadistic Choice trope. Usually it’s the villain who gives it, not the other way around. It makes Pearl’s speech even more satisfying.
The Crystal Gems managed to break into a high security Homeworld facility, get what they came for despite not one but two Diamonds being present, and made it out, all without the Diamonds realizing they were there. That in and of itself is epic.

The New Crystal Gems

When the New Crystal Gems copy the same running montage that Steven and the Crystal Gems did in the extended opening, Connie was able to sprint fast enough to get in front of the rest. And, unlike Steven, she didn't have a moment of falling more and more behind before eventually catching up. Plus, she's also carrying a sword that's bigger than her body.
Connie telling Lapis and Peridot to knock it off with the Manchild behavior and act their ages. Keep in mind that Connie, for all her skill, is human, and she's fully aware of what the two Gems can do.
- What makes this moment even more impressive on Connie's part is that she manages to lead the two Gems who earlier made dismissive and rude remarks regarding her benefit to protecting Beach City.
  - Even more impressive? This moment showed the brunt of Connie's Character Development. In the beginning, she was a shy girl who once decided to become suicidally sacrificing to Steven who she deemed as "more important". Now? She's yelling at two powerful Gems, one of which tried to drown her in the past and then states that she doesn't care if she's like Steven and is going to do things her own way, not his way. This young lady is growing more and more mature, strong-willed, and tough by each appearance.
Peridot's apparently been practicing with her ferrokinetic powers because, while it takes some effort, she's now able to lift an entire car into the air. A pretty big improvement for someone who once strained to knock over a can.
- In the car tug-o-war with Lapis's water-arm and Peridot's hold on the car, she manages to rival Lapis's hydrokinesis in terms of power.
The ending team shot of the Crystal Temps, as seen here.
The new "It's A Wash" sign that the Crystal Temps gave to Greg to replace his broken one. Just look.

Storm in the Room

Steven's ultimate confrontation with Rose, in-universe and out. He finally gets the closest thing he can have to a proper confrontation with his mother, scoring several direct hits she has no response to, but at the same time she stops him from going too far and deciding that just because she's not the saint he'd believed she was until recently doesn't mean that nothing she did was good. All while they're surrounded by stunning Visual Effects of Awesome as Steven's emotions send the room into a hurricane.

Rocknaldo

Instead of just putting up with Ronaldo until his feelings bottle up and he can't take them anymore, Steven tells Ronaldo how he feels about his selfish and Hypocritical behavior. Not only is it a big moment for Steven, it also actually gets it through Ronaldo's head how selfish he was being, and he seems to be working on his behavior at the end of the episode.

Tiger Philanthropist

Steven is able to curbstomp several strong, athletic adults singlehandedly.

Room for Ruby

Navy managing to trick Steven and steal back the Roaming Eye.
- Better still, every episode with the Ruby Squad had Steven and the Gems treating them like idiot children. So Navy decided to play that role so perfectly, and used that to deliver a perfect slap to the face.
Steven: All you wanted was your ship? You could have stolen it from the beginning!
Navy: (grinning happily) I could have done that, but then I wouldn't have gotten to see the look on your face when you were tricked by your favorite little Ruby!.
- Navy must have come up with the whole plan in the couple seconds it took for everyone to react to her landing. She wasn't just clever, she thought fast!
While ultimately also fooled by Navy's facade, Lapis also gets one for being immediately suspicious of Navy's behaviors by basing her own experience of hardship and eventual tolerance of the Earth against Navy's seemingly "loved Earth immediately" experience.
Remember all that stuff Peridot went through in "Kindergarten Kid" without poofing? Navy does her one better by making it through atmospheric reentry.

Doug Out

Steven using his floating powers to get himself and Connie over a boardwalk covered in gumballs.

The Good Lars

Lars turns out to be a Supreme Chef, or at least one in training. This is both an awesome moment for him, since while he still blusters about it, he's not being shy about having what could be considered girly/wimpy/uncool skills, and the show, who has subverted yet another duo of stereotypes, namely having the obsessed-with-appearing-cool Lars be the one with baking skills instead of having it be the female and full-figured Sadie (since it would have been easy to have her figure be attributed to her going overboard baking and sampling her own wares).
One for Sadie and a small piece of Character Development: In the past, she would try and force Lars to be happy, but this time? She finally realizes that she can't do that and decides that she has to focus on her problems before trying to help others.

I Am My Mom

The Crystal Gems forming Alexandrite to stop Aquamarine's ship from taking off.
Connie has gone from freezing up in her first fight with a Gem Monster in "Gem Hunt", to easily holding her own while going toe-to-toe with a Gem Fusion several times her size. She even manages to keep her wits about her during the fight better than the much more experienced Steven.
- Made more impressive by Topaz, according to Word of God, is a very high ranking Yellow Gem. Also makes it a retroactive one for Jasper, who by all appearances seems to exceed a Gem much higher in rank due to her being perfect.
- Connie also, somehow, manages to send a picture message to Steven's phone, telling the Gems exactly where to look for them. Then, either by happy accident or straight-up Batman Gambit, she drops her phone outside Aquamarine's hideout; allowing the Crystal Gems to follow the ringtone right to her.
While it's saddening for the audience and disappointing for Sadie when Lars runs away instead of helping her, it becomes awesome fairly quick when Sadie frees herself by biting Topaz's hand.
A villainous one occurs when Aquamarine easily immobilizes the escaping humans and even Alexandrite with her wand.
Even though it is absolutely heartbreaking, Steven letting Aquamarine capture him and send him to Homeworld proves that he's willing to commit the ultimate sacrifice to protect the Earth and everyone he loves.
Steven pretending to be "My Dad" so he can free the others by expanding his bubble while inside Topaz. It takes a while, but it works.

Awesome / Steven Universe Season 4

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