Steven finds himself soon on Homeworld, now filled with natural life and aesthetically pleasing buildings. Heading inside the royal palace, he sees the throne room for the Diamonds, now filled with all sorts of Gems, but no Diamonds insight. As the crowd walks away, Spinel is shown from behind them. Once seeing Steven, she immediately goes to greet him out of joy, setting him off in his pink state from being startled. Once calming down and knowing how she's been, Steven asks her to take him to the Diamonds.
They first meet Yellow Diamond, who is attempting to repair her old Gem Experiments. After spending thousands of years destabilizing Gems, Yellow decided to use her powers to restabilize Gems, even if their gems are cracked or shattered. Yellow and Steven converse, with Yellow attempting to change Steven's size (which is a procedure of her Gem Repairment). This sets him off a bit as well, considering this isn't helping what he wants. Yellow decides that maybe Steven's problem might not be physical, but rather emotional, advising Steven to talk to Blue.
Steven and Spinel visit Blue Diamond, who explains that she vaporized her original tears of sorrow into clouds that cause you to feel joy and excitement when you touch them. After Blue Diamond sings "My Little Reason Why", Steven indulges with these clouds, but he turns pink in the response that this isn't what he wants either. He explains that he doesn't want to feel better, but he wants to be better. Blue explains that Steven's problem might not be emotional but rather something with his self-worth and that he should visit White Diamond.
When visiting White Diamond, she tells him that instead of taking control of Gems and make them see things from her perspective, she is doing the opposite by letting Gems take control over her and seeing their point of view. White demonstrates by letting Spinel take over her body, her color changing into Spinel's palette and copying her every move. As Steven explains to White Diamond of the problem over his powers, White excuses Spinel so she and Steven can talk alone. She tells Steven that if he tried her new way of understanding new points of view, she could help him. Steven accepts the offer and White allows him to take control over her body, turning it pink. Steven is amused at first but realizes that he's seeing himself how he doesn't want to be seen: as a Diamond. He begins to lash out over his problems, as White makes the same movements he does, causing her to destroy part of her room, which scares Steven. As Steven questions why he's afraid, he remembers what happened in "Change Your Mind", when White ripped out his gemstone in an attempt to bring back Pink Diamond. With vengeance, Steven remembers that he is in control and that she should be afraid of him. The background turns dark with Steven being bigger than White. He then controls her in a way similar to a marionette, though both of them have the same voice. White becomes scared and confused, whereas Steven is cold and vengeful toward her, and he attempts to force her to bang herself on a pillar, presumably trying to shatter her, just before he hits his own head and loses control over her. White is confused and scared of this and she asks him what that was, to which Steven stammers that he doesn't know.
Steven shifts in and out of his pink state and begins to swell up uncontrollably while running away from White. Spinel chases him and asks where he is going. Steven remembers that Spinel once had vengeful thoughts, and asks for advice on how she got rid of hers. Nonchalantly at first, Spinel suddenly becomes excited and answers that she got rid of them when she met Steven and, in a singing voice, begins to recite lyrics from his own song "Change". This angers Steven, not wanting to hear the advice he gave her, and his face swells up again before the Diamonds appear. Concerned for Steven, the Diamonds asks him to let them help. He anxiously declines and runs away. Spinel runs after Steven while his appearance changes similarly to how he looked in "Fragments". Steven leaves the palace, and Spinel and the Diamonds try once again to get him to accept their help. Steven, in anguish, asks them not to follow, and the episode ends with him warping away from his family, who are trying to help him, once again.
Tropes:
- Abuse Mistake: Steven walks in on Yellow tinkering with a shattered gem. Steven is briefly alarmed, thinking she'd resumed her Gem Cluster experiments, but she's actually working to reconstruct shattered gems.
- Back from the Dead: Yellow Diamond is first seen reassembling the fragments turned into Gem clusters to bring them back as whole Gems. Some are still missing some pieces and therefore have damage that deforms their projected bodies when they reform, but Yellow's power to alter physical forms negates this drawback.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: All the Diamonds are using their powers for things directly opposed to what they used them for before; Yellow healing Gems and restoring the Cluster Gems, Blue making Gems happy and peaceful with her clouds, and White letting other Gems control her.
- Book Ends: The episode starts with Steven leaving the Crystal Gems via warp pad while Garnet calls out saying that they'll always be his family. The episode ends with Steven leaving Homeworld while Blue says that they're his family.
- The Bus Came Back: Spinel and the Diamonds are featured again after having last been seen in the movie. Other Gems who have a cameo include the Zircons, Cherry Quartz and Lemon Jade.
- Creative Sterility: The Diamonds have all found vastly different ways to use their powers that they were apparently just too set in their ways to discover before.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Blue Diamond offers to make Steven happy by sending him happiness clouds, Steven reacts like she's just offered him antidepressants.
- Downer Ending: The Diamonds are unable to help Steven as his ever-worsening instability continues to get the better of him. Steven leaves again through the warp pad, as his powers are manifesting and altering his physical appearance.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: In hallucination form! Shortly after taking over White's body, Steven seems to try and shatter her. What makes it top Jasper's shattering is Steven/White's panic pleading to not face a Psychic-Assisted Suicide and how it was revealed that it was instead Steven self harming himself.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Steven arrives in the Diamonds' throne room, Lemon Jade can be seen in the distance on the steps of Yellow Diamond's throne.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Steven doesn't want Blue's clouds since they'll just force him to be happy rather then helping him feel happy.
- Good Feels Good: The Diamonds are genuinely enjoying using their new powers to help other Gems.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: Steven turns out to have subconsciously resented White Diamond for pulling his gemstone out, possibly blaming her for his powers acting up as of late.
- Hourglass Plot: This episode is the inverse of "Familiar". In the earlier episode, Steven wants to hang out with the Diamonds, but they aren't interested in his games. In this episode, the Diamonds try to get closer to Steven, but he just ends up pushing them away.
- Immediate Sequel: The episode picks off right off from where "Fragments" ended.
- Ironic Echo: When Steven asks Spinel what helped her overcome her vengeful thoughts, she starts singing "Change" from Steven Universe: The Movie. The song just makes Steven even more upset.
- Irony: The entire reason Steven went to Homeworld in the first place was because he felt that the Diamonds were the only ones he felt could help him through his problems. At the end, he doesn't even want their help anymore.
- It Gets Easier: When Steven shattered Jasper, it was by accident after getting carried away with a power rush. Here he jumps to the idea voluntarily by fantasizing about shattering White Diamond, though he's still horrified afterwards.
- Literal Genie: Yellow's and Blue's attempts to help Steven do not go so well due to them interpreting his statements too literally, with the former physically enlarging/shrinking his body against his will and the latter telling him that making him happy is her new power.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Whether it actually happened or was just a vivid, intrusive fantasy, Steven is horrified at himself about trying to crack White Diamond's gem.
- Must Make Amends: Each of the Diamonds have decided to use their powers to help their Gem subjects and atone for their millennia of tyranny, as they've had time to indulge in their own self-exploration and develop new powers that contrast their original abilities.
- Yellow has been undoing her various Gem experiments by reconstructing each Gem and using her electric powers to recreate their physical forms.
- Blue now uses her Emotion Bomb powers to create peaceful clouds that can make anyone happy and stress-free simply by touching them.
- White allows any troubled Gems to temporarily take over her body so they can analyze their self-worth.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- This is the first time since The Movie that Garnet asks a question. It isn't long, only Steven's name (when he's storming up the stairs after resurrecting Jasper), but the tone and captions confirm it. You know it's bad when even Garnet is confused.
- When Jasper looks worried for Steven, you know that she has truly changed for the better.
- By contrast, Steven willfully trying to hurt someone (specifically White Diamond) shows that his mental state has degraded further.
- Personality Powers: Back when they were the rulers of Homeworld and absolute dictators, the Diamonds' powers were tailor-made to inflict suffering and enforce their rule on the Gems beneath them, many reading them as a metaphor for abuse. Now that they've made their respective Heel-Face Turns and have had time to indulge in self-exploration, their powers have developed to benefit their kind.
- Yellow Diamond had the power to destroy a Gem's form with a single strike, reflecting her temper and violent nature. Now she can alter their forms however way they want them, even able to heal Gems that were shattered and used for her experiments.
- Blue Diamond tended to force her feelings of depression and frustration on the Gems around her as an Emotion Bomb, reflecting her tendency to overlook other people's feelings and wallow in her own misery. Now she can manifest relaxing clouds, and any Gem who touches them is overcome with feelings of happiness and fulfillment.
- White Diamond could assimilate other Gems to act as an extension of herself, reflecting her narcissism and controlling nature. Now that she has learned humility and self-discovery, she is able to do this in reverse, allowing her body to be used as an extension of others.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Attempted, with Steven trying to get White Diamond to bash her gem in on the pillar.
- Pun-Based Title: On the phrase "homeward bound".
- Revenge: In a moment of weakness, realizing that White was the source for all his problems and trauma, Steven takes the opportunity to terrorize and force her to smash her gem on a pillar in the hopes of shattering her.
- Ridiculously Successful Future Self: The Zircons have gone from a prosecutor and a defense attorney to leading candidates for what seems to be leader of all Homeworld.
- Red Herring: Among the antagonists shown in the Steven Universe: Future intro, we saw what appears to be White Diamond tinted pink and raising her arms furiously. A pink-tinted White Diamond does appear in this episode... except she's pink and angry because Steven is possessing her.
- The Runaway: Steven uses the warp pad in his conservatory to run away to Homeworld. At the end of the episode, he flees from Homeworld using another warp pad.
- Self-Harm: Steven puppeting White into smashing her head into a pillar, beside being a means to attack White Diamond, could also be seen as an attempt to physically attack his own Diamond half for the trouble his powers are causing him.
- Shout-Out:
- Spinel proves to be a walking, talking
Sonic the Hedgehog and Looney Tunes reference throughout this episode. - When running out of the palace, Steven loses a sandal on the stairway à la Cinderella.
- Spinel proves to be a walking, talking
- Shown Their Work: Steven's little revenge fantasy towards White appears to be at least meant to invoke an intrusive thought, right down to Steven himself being horrified at the fact that he thought of it.
- Stop Worshipping Me: Steven doesn't mince any words in telling Jasper that he doesn't want to be her Diamond when he stops her from following him to Homeworld. Her reaction is heartbreaking.Steven: Find something better to do with your life.
- "Take That!" Kiss: When Spinel spots Steven on Homeworld, she runs up and gives him a big cartoony smooch, seemingly just to mess with him.
- Terraforming: The once anti-organic Homeworld is now thriving with exotic and beautiful plantlife; from the cityscape to within the Diamond palace.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Steven’s expression at the start of the episode. He’s so shocked at the fact he shattered Jasper, (she got better), that he barely reacts to the Crystal Gems, while the latter questioned him about what happened.
- Top-Heavy Guy: To demonstrate her form-altering ability, Yellow Diamond gives Spinel huge, muscular arms and tiny little legs. This makes it impossible for Spinel to stand properly, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
- Transformation of the Possessed: White Diamond using her powers in reverse temporarily makes her share the color scheme and voice of whoever she's being controlled by.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: When White Diamond lets Steven possess her, Steven and the audience see the giant figure as Steven and the small one as the pink-tinted White Diamond.
- Visual Pun: These days, Blue spends a lot of her time on cloud nine, being surrounded with actual happiness-inducing clouds and the like.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Crystal Gems, especially Amethyst, are livid about Steven running off for three days without telling them where he was.
- Wheel o' Feet: Spinel does this to catch up to Steven when he's about to leave Homeworld.
- Willing Channeler: White Diamond has started using her People Puppets abilities in reverse, letting smaller Gems take over her body to feel powerful and be listened to.
- Wingding Eyes: Spinel gets hearts in her eyes when she sees that Steven has returned to Homeworld.
