Steven Universe "Nightmare Hospital" & "Sadie's Song" Review

Something I noticed was that these two episodes of Steven Universe had a lot in common, they were both written by the same people and were based around the female characters dealing with controlling mother issues. 'Nightmare Hospital' is based around Connie's mother finding Rose's sword and confiscating it, then at the hospital where she works, her, Connie and Steven are attacked by failed fusion gems and Connie reveals the truth about her training and she and Steven fight off the gems and save the day. While 'Sadie's Song' has Steven convince Sadie to enter a festival due to her great singing, until Sadie's mother finds out and decides to help, accidentally taking over the whole project, in the end Sadie doesn't perform in front of the crowd and instead Steven does it.

So let's start with Nightmare Hospital, something that I love is whenever I watch a cartoon and i think to myself "this is gonna be one of those episodes that scares the shit out of kids" and i always love that because i remember being a kid and getting scared at Goosebumps or Courage the Cowardly Dog and that nostalgic fear is always something fun to look back on and in a decade from now, kids will be doing the same thing with this. An empty hospital that is over run with these monsters who are trying to attack them, and above it all they have no faces meaning the audience can't get any form of emotion of empathy from the creatures and making them even more inhuman. I also really enjoyed how they handled Connie & her mother's relationship, yes the mother is incredibly controlling and doesn't even listen to her daughter. But after saving the day, the conversation that they have is what's really important. Usually whenever a big reveal like this happens, they go to one of two extremes, the parent either becomes even more controlling and would forbid Connie from ever seeing Steven again, or they become instantaneously liberal and give them complete freedom. In reality, a parent should probably go for something in the middle. She sees how strong this has made Connie, and it is a necessary life skill considering the attacks are becoming more frequent so she allows her to continue training, but also tells her to keep her informed about everything that goes on in her life, they make a compromise to please each other. The first step to protecting your child is to have their trust, and i think this is one of the best ways a show has handled the "parent finds out the truth about their kid" cartoon tropes.

Then there's Sadie's Song, which handled it...less well, but still handled it decently. Sadie is also sick of how controlling her mother is, but in this case she waits until the end and reaches her boiling point and freaks out at her mother. And while the two do still sit down and have a conversation, we don't hear what they say and we don't see the results of it. Unlike Connie's situation where she was constantly trying but her mother was being very stubborn, here Sadie doesn't try to even talk to her mother, who seems nice enough and clearly supports her daughter in new adventures, even if she does become far too involved, it's better than not caring at all and i'm sure if Sadie had talked to her before then she would have listened. Instead it's played out that Sadie is the misunderstood one and her mother is to blame when really, Sadie never even gave her a chance. And even then, Steven was just as involved and pushy as the mother, so why didn't he get shouted at? Though yet again this show subtly shows it's progressive and liberal attitude towards gender stereotypes by having Steven wear a dress and make-up, sing a pop song and everyone has almost no reaction to this, they mostly are focusing on Steven's performance and not his aesthetic. It's in my opinion the based way to challenge social conventions like this, don't even bring attention to it, don't even bring up the idea that it's weird for Steven to dress this way, it's much more effective to get your message across. But even though this is a nice bit of supporting your overall message, narrative speaking it's very formulaic and simple.

I'm giving Nightmare Hospital an 8/10 and Sadie's Song a 7/10.

So why did we get two Steven Universe episodes in a row about characters with mother issues? Well my guess is that it's building up to something involving Rose Quartz, Steven's Mother. Rose was the leader of the Crystal Gems and Steven has a lot to live up to, the same way how Connie and Sadie were pushed to live up to their parents expectations. Steven and his mother never had the chance to develop a relationship yet still feels pressured to live up to the expectations set by being the son of an incredibly powerful gem. Or maybe it's just the writers coping with their own personal issues, who knows. Guess we'll find out eventually.

-Danny