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Recap / Steven Universe S1E8 "Serious Steven"

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While navigating out of an ancient maze, Steven tries to prove himself worthy to Garnet.


  • Big "WHAT?!": Steven yells "Whaaat?" when he and Garnet travel down three room in a straight line and end up in the same room.
  • Bizarrchitecture: For starters, the building above the maze is an upside-down pyramid. The rooms all lead back to the entrance hub, which confuses the Gems. Steven figures out that the rooms rotate because they give him the same dizzy feeling as in the teacup ride.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: The first room Steven and Garnet go through has fire. The second has spikes. The third has fire and spikes, plus swinging blades.
  • Brick Joke: When Steven first gets to the field, he gets covered in strawberries, which cause butterflies to swarm around his face. At the episode's end, he gets covered in them again and starts singing, but the butterflies come back and interrupt him.
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  • Build Like an Egyptian: The episode takes place in a Futuristic Pyramid that, like much ancient gem technology, is very ancient in appearance.
  • Chekhov's Gun: When Steven and Garnet enter the second hallway, there's a rumbling sound even though nothing visible is moving. It turns out that was the entire room rotating ninety degrees.
  • Collapsing Lair: Removing the gem powering the maze causes the moving parts to dissolve and the upper part of the structure to explode.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Pearl brought a teapot to the Teacups ride.
    Pearl: I misunderstood the point of this ride.
  • Convection Schmonvection: Garnet and Steven are suspended above a whole floor of flames, but face no injury except a small part of Steven's hair catching fire. Garnet can swim through magma. Steven, not so much.
  • Cutting the Knot: Steven figures out why every door leads them back to the main chamber they started in: each room rotates and connects them with another room which leads them out a different door back into the main chamber. Garnet simply smashes through the main chamber's floor, which leads them to the rooms' gem-powered turning mechanism.
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  • Diving Save: Garnet saves Steven from falling into a fire pit by jumping horizontal to catch him and landing on the wall so hard her feet are planted into it.
  • Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Steven flips a switch in the entrance room, causing it to flip over and dump the group in a maze below.
    Steven: Hey, what’s this thing? It’s like a cool floaty triangle thing.
    Pearl: Well whatever it is, you probably shouldn’t touch it.
    (Steven touches the pyramid, it flips around, and the room starts to shake)
    Pearl: Steven! What have we told you about touching magical things?
    Steven: Definitely… always… never do it!
  • Early Installment Weirdness: Garnet is spontaneously able to summon the key to the temple into her hand, rather than pulling it out of either or her gems (which even then is usually something only Pearl does).
  • Eureka Moment: Steven having to depend on Garnet and getting sick even though he'd be serious makes him say it's "just like the teacups". This makes him realize that the rooms are moving beneath them so they'll always be brought back to the same chamber, giving him motion sickness. Pearl makes the same conclusion seconds later, and is embarrassed when Garnet points out that's what Steven just said.
  • Failed Attempt at Drama: Steven attempts to emphasis that he's being "Serious Steven", but waits until Pearl stops holding him like a football to continue.
  • Fainting: Steven passes out when he enters the last room of the maze he and Garnet are in after he remembers a traumatic ride on the Teacups with her that endangered everyone due to his own upset stomach.
  • Field of Blades: The maze is surrounded by what was once a Gem battlefield. It's since been overrun by wild strawberries, but swords are still stuck in the ground everywhere.
  • Harmless Freezing: Amethyst runs into one door, then comes back into the central chamber seconds later, in a block of ice. As soon as it breaks, she's fine.
  • Iris Out: Over Steven's dropped ukulele.
  • Meaningful Background Event: After the group enters the pyramid, a mural in the background depicts Rose Quartz standing up to another Gem, hinting at the Gems' past on Earth.
  • Not the Fall That Kills You: The disaster with the teacup rides resulted in the cups falling something like twenty or thirty feet (some in water others on the wharf). Everyone seem unharmed; the humans actually seem less affected by the crash than the Gems, despite being less durable and falling further.
  • Persona Non Grata: Steven got sick on the teacups ride, jumped out of it while it was in motion, and landed on Mr. Smiley, causing him to break the switch and send the teacups flying all over. Mr. Smiley, while still smiling and laughing angrily, tells him "You are banned from all the rides. Forever!"
  • Pretty Butterflies: They're pink and fluttery and love strawberries. They swarm up to Steven when he keeps getting covered in squished berries.
  • Rapidfire No: Pearl refuses to let Steven go off to explore the pyramid with Amethyst.
    Pearl: Nooo-no no no, you two are a disaster waiting to happen.
  • Shell-Shock Silence: The episode opens with Steven regaining consciousness from a crash while his ears are ringing.
  • Skewed Priorities: As Garnet is deflecting spike traps falling from above her and Steven, he pauses to re-tune his ukelele.
  • Spikes of Doom: The second room Garnet and Steven go into has spike-covered pillars descend from the ceiling. Steven accidentally activates them trying to read the symbols on the walls.
    Steven: (looking at a pattern on the wall before the trap is triggered) It looks like there’s lots of triangles hidden in this room.
  • Stealth Pun: When in the area around the maze, Pearl notes that "it's wild strawberries as far as the eye can see!" In other words, there are strawberry fields, forever.
  • Symbolic Blood: Gems don't bleed, but strawberries grew over a Gem battlefield around the pyramid. So everywhere you look, there are weapons covered in red.
  • Unnaturally Looping Location: The chamber above the entrance of the Pyramid Temple contains a multitude of hallways, each leading to three boobytrapped rooms, which simply loop back around to the main chamber. Underneath the floor there's another room with loads of little spinning pyramids that make the hallways rotate, powered by a Corrupted Gem stuck inside the obelisk in the center.

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