Recap / Steven Universe S4E14 "That Will Be All"

Original airdate: February 2nd, 2017

Production code: 1040-120

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Steven and Greg have been captured by the giant Amethysts who guard Blue Diamond's human zoo! As they prepare for the worst, a door opens—revealing the Amethyst they and the viewers know and love. She's laughing hysterically, and telling all the other Amethysts that she knew they'd fall for the prank.

Once that moment of relief passes, the rest of the Famethyst, as our Amethyst has come to call her sister/cousin Amethysts (plus Skinny Jasper and Carnelian), allows them all to leave so they can get back to the Roaming Eye and make their escape.

In the meantime, Ruby and Sapphire are touring with Holly Blue Agate until they come face to face with Blue Diamond herself. Sapphire thinks quickly and insists their purpose for being here is to bring Blue Diamond more specimens for the Zoo. As Steven and Greg try to make their escape, they run into a chamber where Blue and Yellow Diamond are talking. Steven begins to weep Blue's tears again as the former tells the latter she wants to hold on to as much of Pink Diamond as she can. Yellow Diamond's position is that they're all terrible reminders which should be destroyed to stop them having to see them and be reminded. There's an entire room of bubbled Rose Quartz gems above them. As the pair break into a heartwrenching musical number, Steven and Greg make their way to the doors.

Yellow Diamond: ♫ What's the use of feeling, Blue? ♫

Finally the Gems, Steven and Greg are all united again. Holly Blue Agate sees this and at first does not accept this is an escape/rescue. The Famethyst is there, waving an enthusiastic goodbye. Ruby and Sapphire merge back into Garnet, at which point Agate finally speaks up, threatening to tell Yellow Diamond.

Pearl hops down from the ship, gets right into Agate's face, and points out while running and telling the Diamonds was never a good idea, now that the jig is up, telling them will only make Agate herself look foolish: losing one of the zoo specimens to three gems. Pearl also points out to Holly Blue Agate that she will lose face because those rogue gems also bested her. Steven and Pearl complete the "that will be all" dismissal and take off for Earth again.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Truth: Sapphire lies that she saw a vision of Blue Diamond wanting more humans from Earth, to make her story plausible. Blue Diamond then admits that she does have a fondness for the humans, which makes Yellow Diamond think of a solution for Blue's grief.
• Ahem: Yellow Pearl does this twice before singing, as a cue for Blue Pearl to join in.
• Association Fallacy:
  • The other Rose Quartz Gems are currently poofed and bubbled in a room at Pink Diamond's zoo, and Yellow Diamond desires to wipe them out, with only Blue's attachment to everything Pink Diamond made keeping them from being shattered. The only given reason for this is that they're the same variety of Gem as Rose Quartz and might turn rebellious like the Rose Quartz that shattered her Diamond. It's not an entirely unjustified view, given that Gems of the same type are shown to share certain personality traits (the Famethyst share Crystal Gem Amethyst's boisterousness, playfulness, and love of pranks, even including the defective Jaspers and Carnelian), and there's no guarantee Rose's rebellious instincts aren't baked in, so to speak.
  • Given some of Yellow Diamond's lyrics, it appears that she may extend these feelings to a lesser degree to all the Gems that served under Pink Diamond, and that she's the reason the Zoo Quartzes were only kept "in service" because Blue wanted everything associated with Pink.
    Yellow Diamond: ♪ Why would you want to employ her / Subjects that destroyed her? ♪
• Bait-and-Switch: It looks like Greg, Steven, and Amethyst are in big trouble because Amethyst was found out... and it turns out the other Quartzes were made in the Prime and Beta Kindergartens on Earth and are just as rowdy, boisterous, rebellious, and friendly as Amethyst. They even play a prank on Steven, knowing he'd assume that they wouldn't be friendly.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: When Greg and Steven first meet the Famethyst:
  Amethyst: You won't believe what I've been through. These Amethysts, they're really, really... great!
• Batman Gambit: To placate the Diamonds after Agate reveals that Sapphire brought another human, Sapphire tells Blue Diamond that she saw in her future vision that Blue Diamond would request more humans for the zoo. This is a lie, but she's assuming she'll be believed based on Blue kidnapping Greg and why she did so. She's correct, and Blue Diamond buys it.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Sapphire lies that she saw a vision of Blue Diamond wanting more humans for the zoo. Blue Diamond agrees with this after hearing Sapphire's story.
• Beneath Suspicion: Holly Blue is not at all suspicious of Sapphire and her "consorts" even as she sees them clearly helping two humans board their ship, assuming the humans just escaped on their own due to the incompetence of the Earth Amethysts. This leaves her completely blindsided when the Crystal Gems attack her.
• Big "WHAT?!": When Steven and Greg are first dumped in front of a bunch of Quartzes, Amethyst appears to be in trouble and then gleefully calls the other Amethysts "great", prompting a disbelieving "What?" from Steven.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Leaving aside the destructive ramifications, both Yellow and Blue Diamond have valid views on grieving. Blue believes in holding onto and preserving things that belonged to a loved one, while Yellow counsels against being obsessed with the past and burial in grief, believing in the necessity of letting things go. Naturally, each of them carries their belief to extremes: Blue has been in mourning for thousands of years, while Yellow wants to destroy everything related to Pink Diamond in order to forget her grief, from the entire Rose Quartz line to Earth itself.
• Bowel-Breaking Bricks: A variant of this happens; when Blue Diamond says that she never asked any Sapphire to go to Earth, the latter begins to ice up the part of the floor that she was standing on.
• Boyish Short Hair: Unlike every other Quartz at the Zoo, "Skinny" Jasper has short hair, though it's still unkempt and spiky like her sisters'.
• Call-Back: Saying "that will be all" and clapping twice to dismiss a subordinate was first heard from Peridot back in "Back to the Barn."
• Cherry Tapping: Garnet forms a gauntlet and acts like she's going to deliver a big final blow to Holly Blue Agate, only to lightly punch her in the stomach with her other hand to knock her over.
• Continuity Nod: In "Beta", Peridot points to a hole in the Beta Kindergarten where a "Carnelian came out sideways" and Amethyst points out a "skinny" hole. In this episode, Amethyst meets the gems who came out of those holes.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Holly Blue Agate is beaten in no time flat by the combined efforts of Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst, then blackmailed into keeping her mouth shut with the threat of what the Diamonds would do to her if they learned of her failure.
• Depth Deception: During one shot in "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)", the Pearls seem badly out of scale with Yellow Diamond, until it's shown that Yellow Diamond's hand is holding them much closer to the camera.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: Yellow Diamond is shown that underneath all the stoicism and despise that she feels for Earth and for the Gems responsible for shattering Pink Diamond that she went out of her way to Un-person the smallest Diamond from their records to project their Empires' perfection, she is both tired and sad at everything just like Blue is but is unable to show it.
  Yellow Diamond: ♪Yes, of course we still love her / And we're always thinking of her.♫
  ♪Don't you know I miss her too?♫
• The Dog Bites Back: Holly Blue Agate spent the last three episodes berating her Quartz soldiers and hitting them at the drop of a hat, and has apparently been doing so for millennia. They don't bother to listen to Holly Blue ordering them to prevent the Crystal Gems' escape.
• The Dreaded:
  • Subverted; Holly Blue only knows that she fought traitors, not the remaining Crystal Gems that saved the Earth from the Diamonds thousands of years ago.
  • Agates in general are apparently made to terrify their subordinate Gems in the Homeworld caste system.
• Dual-Meaning Chorus: The title line of "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)". It can either be interpreted as 'What's the use of feeling blue?' or 'What's the use of feeling, Blue?' due to Yellow Diamond referring to Blue Diamond by her first name exclusively. Given the situation, both meanings resonate: the first as Yellow asking Blue what's the point in still being sad, the second asking Blue what's the point of feeling in general, fitting Yellow's desire to forget Pink Diamond so she'll stop hurting.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond both loved Pink Diamond, and both cope in their own ways. Blue is in a perpetual state of depressed mourning, having preserved everything she could of Pink Diamond's legacy. Yellow, on the other hand, wants to eliminate any trace of Pink ever existing so she won't be reminded of the loss.
  • They also care for each other, with Yellow Diamond commanding their Pearls to sing to make Blue feel better, and when Yellow's emotions start getting the better of her own stoic facade, Blue puts a comforting hand on Yellow's back.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Steven and Greg sneak by Blue Diamond in the exact time frame for Yellow Diamond to show up and deliver her Villain Song right before the door opens.
• Failed a Spot Check: When talking to Blue Diamond, Holly Blue Agate refers to Sapphire as "Your Sapphire", despite the fact Sapphire doesn't have a blue diamond anywhere on her outfit to mark her as working for Blue Diamond. Even if Sapphires work for Blue Diamond by default, you'd think one of them would have noticed the omission.
• Fantastic Racism: Holly Blue Agate's statements imply her personal view on Earth-born Gems isn't unique, and it was only Blue Diamond's desire to keep everything Pink Diamond made that has kept them 'in service'.
• Final Solution: Yellow Diamond strongly desires to perform genocide on the entire Rose Quartz Gem type for what the Crystal Gem Rose did to Pink Diamond, feeling they all deserve to suffer for Rose's actions. Blue Diamond preserves them because they remind her of Pink Diamond, although as bubbled prisoners.
• First-Name Basis: Blue and Yellow Diamond exclusively call each other Blue and Yellow, respectively.
• Five Stages of Grief: Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond exhibit all except the final stages when it comes to how they cope with the loss of Pink Diamond. Yellow Diamond represses her emotions (Denial) and wants to eradicate any reminders of Pink Diamond (Anger) while Blue Diamond maintains all things that remind her of Pink Diamond (Bargaining) and is seen openly weeping over her loss (Depression). Neither are anywhere near Acceptance yet.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • Steven's eyes tear up right before Blue Diamond appears in the Rose Quartz room, which gives him and Greg enough of a warning to hide.
  • Right before Holly Blue catches the Crystal Gems smuggling out Greg and Steven, at one point they pass in front of her while she's looking away.
• Foil:
  • It shows in the Diamonds' color schemes. Blue Diamond is very emotional and in a perpetual, deep state of mourning and depression over Pink Diamond's death, and wants to preserve anything related to her. Yellow Diamond is The Stoic who suppresses her feelings by destroying everything related to Pink Diamond so she can forget the pain of remembering her, and she wants Blue Diamond to do the same.
  • The Earth-born Quartzes commanded by Holly Blue Agate are opposites to "our" Jasper in several ways: they're fun-loving and have physical deformities, and quickly welcome Amethyst and the Crystal Gems.
• Heel–Face Turn: All the Earth Amethysts and poorly-formed Gems from the Beta Kindergarten choose to help their fellow Amethyst from Earth.
• Hell Is That Noise: The harmony that Yellow and Blue Pearl start to sing is quite eerie, and not unlike the Corruption Song.
• Hive Caste System: In "What's The Use of Feeling (Blue)", we learn that Agate Gems like Holly Blue are apparently made to be the Bad Boss type and terrify the Gems they command, and Lapis Gems are made to terraform colony worlds.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Amethyst defeats Holly Blue Agate by tying her up with her own whip.
• Humiliation Conga: Holly Blue goes through one: she's defeated by a Fusion, a Pearl, and a defective Earth-made Amethyst in seconds, and then Pearl coerces her into staying silent by telling her that she wouldn't want to admit to the Diamonds that she let the Gems and two humans escape. All of this happens in front of the Quartzes that she mistreated, who take great glee and don't bother obeying her orders.
• Ironic Echo: Pearl takes great glee in throwing Holly Blue's condescending words ("That will be all!") back in her face.
• Laser-Guided Karma : After spending all of her screentime abusing and yelling at her inferiors and being an obnoxious sycophant to her superiors, Holly Blue's karma catches up with her when the Crystal Gems mop the floor with her as the quartzes under her charge do nothing to help, powerless to do anything as they leave with the threat of being shattered by the Diamonds keeping Holly Blue from doing anything about it.
• Lightning Lash: Holly Blue Agate's weapon is an electrified whip. Fortunately, Garnet's own electrical abilities render it useless against her as she grabs the end.
• Made Myself Sad: Towards the end of "What's The Use of Feeling (Blue)", as Yellow is singing about how she loved Pink and misses her too she ends up struggling to hold her own feelings together and is Trying Not to Cry as she forces out the last few lyrics while buckling over and contorting her face.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Crystal Gems (plus Greg and Steven) all have this when Holly Blue Agate catches them trying to board their ship in the midst of her monologuing.
• Minion with an F in Evil: The Amethysts, Jaspers and Carnelian are all happy-go-lucky and somewhat goofy, instantly getting along with their long-lost "sister" and playing a prank on Steven and Greg with her. Several of them are from the Beta Kindergarten and thus have defects, leading them to be frequently chastised by Holly Blue Agate. When the Crystal Gems are boarding the ship to escape, they don't try to stop them and instead wave them off while laughing at Holly Blue for being thoroughly trounced by their "defective" sister.
• Mirror Character: Both Yellow and Blue Diamond turn out to be this to Amethyst and Pearl respectively in regards to dealing with the death of their loved ones. Both Yellow and Amethyst simply try not to think about it, allowing it to bottle up until they can't hide it anymore and it slips through their facade (though the nature of those facades are opposite). Both Blue and Pearl refuse to forget and move on, allowing their grief to continue to grow and continue to cause them emotional problems. The biggest difference is the Diamonds don't have a Steven to help them through it, and thus have been dealing with it for thousands of years.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: The Amethysts don't lift a finger to help Holly Blue Agate when she commands them to fight the Crystal Gems, and laugh at her instead.
• NEET: This episode reveals that Blue Diamond, due to her Excessive Mourning, has lost all interest in doing her actual leadership role in Gem society. She gets called out on it by Yellow Diamond.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sapphire's quick excuse for why she grabbed a human without orders does placate Blue Diamond, but it gives Yellow Diamond an idea about what they can do with all the other humans on Earth.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Holly Blue Agate's worldview is so narrow that not once does she consider that Sapphire might be working against the Diamonds. A more perceptive boss would've noticed warning signs of insurgency and realize that Sapphire is a connecting factor between incidents, but instead she blames all the incidents on her subordinates. As for those subordinates, whom she treated like utter crap throughout the whole episode? They decide to turn against her by assisting the Crystal Gems.
  • Likewise, the Diamonds' general reaction to their subjects displeasing them blows up in their faces when Holly Blue Agate is too afraid of their wrath to report the Crystal Gems' actions.
• Noodle Incident: Greg remarks that being abducted by aliens "has to be the third-craziest weekend I've had."
• Not So Above It All:
  • Yellow Diamond invokes this when she admits that she misses Pink Diamond as well, but she asserts that it's better not to feel at all than to wallow in grief.
  • Garnet and Pearl humiliate Holly Blue with glee when she goes after Steven and Greg.
• Not So Stoic: Yellow Diamond is shown to be completely suppressing her own grief over Pink Diamond's death. At the end of her Villain Song, she starts faltering as she remembers what happened and has to hold onto a stair railing to keep herself from breaking down.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • After what transpired between them in "The Answer", meeting Blue Diamond for the first time in thousands of years understandably makes Sapphire really nervous.
  • Holly Blue Agate has one when Pearl points out the Diamonds likely wouldn't take it well if she informs them of her failure to stop the Crystal Gems.
• Pep-Talk Song: Yellow Diamond sings to Blue Diamond to get her to stop grieving over Pink Diamond... and get back to running their brutal empire.
• Pet the Dog:
  • We find out that Yellow Diamond desired to shatter Rose Quartz's entire Gem type for her rebellion, but Blue Diamond spared them, albeit as bubbled prisoners. Blue Diamond also puts a comforting hand on Yellow Diamond's back when Yellow's own emotions begin overcoming her stoic facade. Holly Blue implies that the Earth-born Quartzs' presence is also due to this, as she says Blue Diamond is the only reason they're still 'in service'.
  • One for Yellow Diamond herself. As ruthless as she is, she really seems to want Blue Diamond to move on, and her desire to destroy all Rose Quartzes seems to stem from her obvious grief and anger for Pink Diamond.
  • The Amethysts and Jaspers assist in smuggling out Steven and Greg to the ship, and they refuse to help Blue Holly when she orders them to attack the "traitors".
• Planet of Copyhats: Turns out other Amethysts, at least ones from Earth, have a similar sense of humor as the Crystal Gem Amethyst, which leads to them all making quick friends.
• Punny Name: The title of the Villain Song "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)" works both ways, as mentioned above. Yellow Diamond is trying to get Blue Diamond to move on and stop her endless mourning, by using her own coping method of suppressing her feelings and destroying all reminders of Pink Diamond.
• The Reveal: Pink Diamond was the creator of all Rose Quartzes, who are bubbled in the zoo and in danger of being shattered.
• Revenge by Proxy: Yellow Diamond's desire to shatter the bubbled Rose Quartzes seems partially based in not being able to capture and shatter the Rose Quartz that we know in retribution for Pink Diamond's death, and thus desiring to take it out on the rest of the Gem type instead.
• Sadistic Choice: Pearl gives Holly Blue Agate one: She can either report the Crystal Gems beating her and rescuing Greg and Steven from the Zoo to the Diamonds and risk their wrath for her incompetence, or she can let them escape and keep her mouth shut to maintain her position and not be punished for her failure.
• Scooby Stack: The Quartzes all stick their head through the side of the door when Holly Blue catches onto the Crystal Gems' presence.
• Self-Made Orphan: It's revealed that all the Rose Quartz Gems were made by Pink Diamond... including our Rose. Meaning Rose, in shattering Pink Diamond to save the Earth, killed the closest thing she had to a mother.
• Sequel Hook: Yellow Diamond tells Blue Diamond that, since the Cluster still hasn't hatched, they can go to Earth to find more humans for the Zoo.
• Shock and Awe: Blue Holly wields an electrified whip. Unfortunately for her, it's useless against Garnet, whose own electrical abilities allow her to safely grab the lash.
• Surprisingly Gentle Song: When Yellow Diamond orders the Pearls to sing to cheer up Blue, they start off in a soft, dissonant harmony in a minor chord. Yellow then starts singing in A minor, a semi-sweet song about how there's no point to grieving.
• Title Drop: The phrase "That will be all" is said three times, by Holly Blue to Pearl, by Yellow Diamond to Holly Blue, and by Pearl (mockingly) back to Agate.
• The Unreveal: Yellow Diamond has a plan for the humans on Earth, but the door closes before Steven hears any of it.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Amethyst gets to meet her 'sisters' from the Prime and Beta Kindergartens, and they love her. After Amethyst's sense of inadequacy in season three, she's able to take joy in finding others like her. The "Famethyst" also helps her smuggle Steven and Greg out of Blue Holly's sight.
• Villainous Advice Song: Yellow Diamond's "What's the Use of Feeling (Blue)", with accompaniment from Yellow and Blue Pearls, as she tries to convince Blue Diamond to just forget Pink Diamond and how she wants the Earth gone so she could forget.
• Visual Pun: When Blue Diamond interrogates Sapphire, the latter begins to FREEZE UP on the part of the floor that she was standing on.
• Wham Shot: Yellow Diamond showing up, unannounced, in the bubble room.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Holly Blue is elated that her day has been going so well and announces that nothing could ruin it... and then she notices Greg and Steven boarding the ship.
• Would Hurt a Child: Holly Blue Agate would have used her electric whip on Steven after finding him and Greg escaping, not knowing that he has Gem powers and higher durability than a normal human being.
• You Are Number 6: Amethyst's 'sisters' are addressed by number like Peridot showed earlier. Amethyst also finds out her number is Facet 5, Cut 8XM. She's excited about learning her numerical designation, since it means that the others remembered her and looked forward to her birth.
• You Have Failed Me: The threat of suffering this at the Diamonds' hands keeps Holly Blue Agate from telling the Diamonds the Crystal Gems managed to break into the Zoo, rescue Greg, defeat her, and escape when Pearl reminds her how the Diamonds typically react to such failures.

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