Little Graduation
Air Date: December 28th, 2019
Official synopsis: Steven and the Gems celebrate Little Homeschool's first graduating class.
Steven begins the episode in the Dondai, singing to an early Sadie Killer and the Suspects tape on the way to Lar's pastry shop to pick up a cake for Little Homeschool graduation. While he's there, Sadie walks in the door and Steven realizes that it's the first time in a long time that he's been together with Sadie and Lars in a pastry establishment. However, so much has changed since those days at the Big Donut. Lars asks Sadie how things are going with Shep, Sadie's new partner. She responds that "everything feels so easy" with Shep. Although Lars looks uncomfortable, he tells Sadie to say hi to Shep for him and Sadie leaves.
While Lars goes back to his deadpan demeanor, Steven freaks out about Shep. He's surprised to learn that Lars and Sadie aren't together and that Sadie has found someone new. Lars says it's no big deal, and doesn't matter much anyway since he's going back into space with the Off Colors soon. When Steven objects, Lars asks, "You're finished setting up Little Homeschool. Don't you want to try something new?" Steven doesn't really have an answer to that question.
That evening, Steven emcees Little Homeschool's first graduation ceremony, which is for the Off Colors. Afterwards, we start finding out how things have been going for the other characters: Buck got into medical school, Sour Cream is finding success as a DJ, and Jenny is starting her own business making tiny jackets for phones. And yet Steven is surprised when he finds out that the Suspects are breaking up. When it's time for the musical entertainment to go on, it's not Sadie Killer and the Suspects, but Sadie and Shep. Steven introduces them in the most awkward way imaginable ("Who here loves Sadie Killer and the Suspects? Well, this band only has one of them.")
The song that Shep and Sadie perform is "Looking Forward." Accompanied by Shep on an Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI), Sadie sings about her new life in contrast to how things were before: how she used to live in fear and self-doubt, but now she's looking forward to the future. In the midst of this performance, Lars walks away and Steven follows him. It does seem like Lars is uncomfortable listening to a song about how Sadie is much happier than she used to be, but he tells Steven that he just doesn't like big parties. He's going to be taking off the next morning with the Off Colors, but doesn't really see a need to say goodbye to Steven, since Steven can visit him any time through Lion's mane.
Steven starts glowing pink and a pink diamond panel appears in front of Lars, blocking his path. Then a whole wall of pink diamonds form an impenetrable geodesic dome that captures not only Lars, but most of the attendees of the party. It's obvious to everyone that Steven (still glowing pink) created the dome, but Steven tries to blame it on Lars' repressed feelings. It comes out that there's nothing anyone has been repressing: Lars and Sadie did try to reconnect after Lars returned to Earth, but they had grown apart. Steven asks why he didn't know any of this and Sadie replies that it's because the conversations were private.
Now Steven finally realizes that he's the one who's been repressing his emotions and has caused the giant pink dome to emerge. The dome begins to shrink in a classic trash compactor dilemma and Shep tries to talk Steven down. "Maybe you're trying to figure yourself out right now," they say, "and you want your friends around to help you through it." Steven is reluctant to listen to this, but finally admits that he doesn't want his friends to leave. They reassure him that they will always be his friends, and that's enough for Steven to stop glowing and the dome to disappear.
Despite almost having been crushed, everyone leaves amicably. Steven tells Lars that he doesn't like the way these graduations make him feel and he's going to quit running Little Homeschool. The episode ends with a montage of Steven driving away alone, listening to "Looking Forward." While the song is a hopeful one, Steven looks at the stars with worry.
★
This is a sweet and gentle episode, with only the shrinking geodesic dome to cause any crisis or tension. It's an ingenious way to follow up on the lives of the human characters who didn't get a lot of air time near the end of the original series.
I am so, so glad that Sadie and Lars never ended up together. This episode definitively states why. In the original series, Sadie allowed herself to be taken advantage of, negged, and treated as a second-class partner by Lars. Although Lars was emotionally dependent on her, he could never admit it to himself or anyone else. His too-cool demeanor was just a cover for deep, crushing insecurity. Treating Sadie like crap helped him feel better about himself. In "Lars of the Stars", Lars was dismayed to find that Sadie had become a rock star while he was out having space adventures. He could not imagine her having a life of her own, so much so that he initially assumed that she became a rock star just to make him feel bad.
In "Little Graduation," we see that Lars has grown a lot--and he's experienced the consequences of his actions. Sadie and Shep's relationship clearly makes him uncomfortable, but he goes out of his way to be supportive of it. He is OK that Sadie is with someone who is better for her even if it makes him regret how shitty he was to her. Steven, on the other hand, is acting like you might expect the old Lars to react: he's inclined to dismiss Sadie and Shep's relationship out of hand and assumes that Lars must be the best person for Sadie simply because of their history together.
I'm glad that this episode brings up the dynamic between Sadie, Lars, and Steven, because it doesn't get addressed in a serious way in the original series. As a kid, Steven wants to bring everyone together without necessarily understanding the consequences. When he hangs out with Sadie and Lars, he sees that Sadie desperately wants to be with Lars, while Lars always puts Sadie down and pretends not to have the time of day for her. Steven was not able to understand the unhealthiness of their relationship dynamic and seemed to feel that, because one of them wanted to be together, they should be together. In "Island Adventure," he went out of his way to serenade the two of them and encourage them to be a couple. "Little Graduation" shows that he's willing to continue meddling in their relationship.
The different ways the Lars and Steven react to Sadie and Shep's relationship reminds me a lot of modern non-monogamy. When someone you love falls in love with someone else, it can be really destabilizing. Lars does his best to stay with it--not cutting Sadie off, but giving her space, finding happiness for her where he can, and looking elsewhere for fulfillment in his life. Steven, on the other hand, goes on the defensive immediately, questions whether this new relationship can possibly be legitimate, and doesn't take responsibility for his feelings about it.
Of course, it might be a little easier to side with Steven if Shep weren't so perfect and obviously perfect for Sadie. I am so glad that they wrote this cute, queer romance into the series. "Looking Forward" is one of my favorite songs in Steven Universe Future. It shows that Sadie has overcome a lot of her insecurities and found that good things can happen when you take risks for the sake of growth. Her relationship with Shep feels so easy because it's not like with Lars, where getting him to admit that he cared about her was like squeezing blood from a stone. Shep is emotionally intelligent and compassionate. They are the one who immediately understands what Steven is feeling, despite having only met him a short while earlier. Shep is also responsive to people's needs in a way that Lars never was. Even at the end of this episode, Lars doesn't quite understand why Steven will miss him so much. I am happy for Lars that he is going back out to space to continue his explorations, which is a more fulfilling role for him than being on Earth.
But while the episode comes to a nice resolution for everyone else, Steven is still left behind. At the end of the episode, "Looking Forward" plays as a testament to Sadie's new hopeful life, only made possible by the breakup of the Suspects and parting ways with Lars. But Steven steps back from Little Homeschool, only further isolating himself. Steven loved Little Homeschool because it brought everyone together, but didn't anticipate how he would feel when Gems graduate and leave.
Shep was right: Steven wants to keep his friends around him because he's trying to figure himself out and needs their support. He's distressed that people are leaving him, but doesn't know how to ask for help, or even that he needs to ask for help. One of the big undercurrents of the series is that Steven keeps losing pieces of his support network. Eventually, this will lead him to believe that nobody else can understand what he's going through and force him into a mental health crisis.