Gem Drill (Steven Universe)

Plot

Picking up immediately after the events of "Super Watermelon Island", Steven (Zach Callison) wakes up from astral projecting into a Watermelon Steven and finds the ground shaking from an earthquake. He then tells Peridot (Shelby Rabara), who orders him to get into their drill, that the Gems are stuck on Mask Island after their fight with Malachite broke the warp pad, so they have to go underground alone. Steven climbs into the drill and, after an uneasy exchange of false confidence, the two friends drill into Earth. In the drill, Peridot tells Steven that it'll take two hours to dig down to the Cluster. Steven expresses discomfort since everything is dark and cramped. He asks Peridot how the Gems are supposed to fit, but she is not sure herself, only having relied upon the Gems' shapeshifting abilities. Her plan is not too detailed, as she says: "We have a drill. We're going to drill".

After they penetrate the asthenosphere, Steven takes note of the fact that there is a lava-like substance all around them. Peridot explains that it is superheated liquid peridotite, a material similar to peridots. He asks her how it was like to be made on Homeworld, but Peridot cannot remember, having only feelings of what happened. She says that even though she consciously rebelled against Homeworld, she still has difficulty getting over her feelings from growing up on her home planet, but she now has something different that wasn't offered on Homeworld, that being the company of Steven and the other Crystal Gems.

Several Cluster Gems suddenly attack the drill, frightening Steven. Peridot infers that Homeworld buried some of the prototypes with the Cluster itself, and allows Steven to man the turret they built for the drill. As he fights off the forced fusions, he feels uneasy about leaving their gemstones without bubbling them, but Peridot coldly explains that there is no way to help them truly; they are broken beyond repair and are now severely cognitively impaired to the point where they have lost their identity and have only one objective, to find other pieces of themselves. The Cluster is exactly that, formed by millions of shards rather than just two or three.

The drill eventually arrives at where the Cluster is buried. It is revealed to be an immense spherical formation of many different Gem shards. It appears to begin taking its form, severely distressing Peridot. Steven offers his last words to Peridot as they face a giant ray of light. However, the Cluster calms down, and Peridot notes that it is having trouble taking form. She prepares the drill as Steven tries to offer a peaceful approach. He thinks that the Cluster does not know what it is doing, and it needs help. Peridot is still determined to destroy it, saying that its consciousness is irrelevant so long as it is capable of destroying the world.

Peridot descends onto the Cluster and begins to drill, facing huge difficulty in even trying to pierce the surface. Steven feels a massive pain as she drills, which progresses further as the drilling continues. Eventually, they lose two of their three drill heads as they fail to get through the surface of the Cluster, while Steven begins to see what looks to be the faces of the Gems merged into the Cluster, horrifying him. Ultimately he falls unconscious, soon waking up to see himself floating in darkness, hearing many incoherent voices in unison. Steven finds out that he is talking to the Cluster itself and learns that the Cluster is obsessed with trying to form. He tries to convince the Cluster not to form and instead try to find other pieces of itself, which are floating around him. Seeing as how the Cluster wants to be whole again, it will end up destroying the world along with all the other pieces of itself buried within the Earth. He shows them that perhaps all they need is company and the Cluster finally realize that it does not need to be whole to achieve that purpose, as there are billions of Gems within itself. It ends up panicking, however, as it begins to take form uncontrollably, Steven tries to bubble it and wakes up.

He reports to Peridot that the Cluster does not want to form and that it must be bubbled. Peridot is astonished at the idea of bubbling something as massive as the Cluster, but slowly the Gems within the being begin to bubble each other. Steven helps and eventually merges all the small bubbles into one huge bubble encasing the Cluster whole. Steven and Peridot arrive back on the surface and celebrate their victory. Pearl (Deedee Magno), Garnet (Estelle), and Amethyst (Michaela Dietz) finally warp back with an unconscious Lapis Lazuli, and Pearl, visibly concerned, asks Steven and Peridot if they destroyed the Cluster, seeing as how they look happy. Steven tells her that they did not destroy the Cluster, but rather he talked to it and convinced it not to take form. It now has its own company and has no reason to form again, mentioning that they'll have much time for bonding now that they are in a bubble. Pearl expresses her incredulity over the fact that they managed to bubble something as big as the Cluster, and Steven simply replies that they had a little help, as the Cluster is seen peacefully laying deep in the Earth inside of Steven's bubble.

Production

The episode was written and storyboarded by Raven Molisee and Paul Vileco and directed by Ki-Yong Bae & Jin-Hee Park (animation), Jasmin Lai (art), Kat Morris (supervising) and Ian Jones-Quartey (co-executive producer).

Broadcast and reception

"Gem Drill" premiered on May 12, 2016 on Cartoon Network. Its initial American broadcast was viewed by approximately 1.693 million viewers. It received a Nielsen household rating of 0.46, meaning that it was seen by 0.46% of all households. The episode was the second of a two-part episode which was the first episode of the "In Too Deep" special event in which five new episodes aired across four weeks.

This episode was met with mixed reception. The episode was praised for the drilling scenes, the creepy atmosphere, and Peridot's characterization. However, the conclusion to the Cluster arc, which involved the component shards of the Cluster bubbling each other, was heavily criticized. Many people believed it to be an unsatisfying conclusion to the story arc, and that this conclusion was rushed and anticlimactic.

Eric Thurm of The A.V. Club praised the episode, giving the episode an A.