Greg The Babysitter is the last episode of the 2nd Week of the Summer of Steven event and gives another look into the life of young Greg Universe.
In this flashback episode, after Greg parts ways with his former manager Marty, he spends most of his time hanging out with Rose, in spite of the fact that he neither has a home, let alone money. When it becomes an issue for him, Greg becomes a Freeloader in Vidalia's home, much to her chagrin.
A situation forces Vidalia to reluctantly ask Greg to babysit Sour Cream while she goes to work. (Worth noting that as Vidalia threatens to kill Greg if anything happens to Sour Cream, she cannot say the word 'kill' and instead used the word 'destroy'. Again because of the policies Cartoon Network and other networks has made with regards to programming for kids.
As Greg takes Sour Cream to the beach, Rose drops by and is surprised at seeing a human baby. After spending some time together with Greg and Sour Cream, Rose then gives remarks on how humans grow and age and forge their own paths, whereas the Gems are merely created and lived out their entire lives based on the roles assigned to them - or to put it more bluntly, their 'programming'.
Seeing Rose's remarks as inspiration to write a new song, Greg shortly leaves to get his guitar, only to find Rose and Sour Cream missing when he returns. After searching desperately around Beach City, he ends up at Funland where Sour Cream is sitting on top of the Ferris Wheel. Greg climbs up and grabs Sour Cream, but is unable to climb back down and asks Rose for help. Rose however makes this worse by destroying the controls and causing the Ferris Wheel to go haywire. We then see Rose's superhuman strength by stopping the Ferris Wheel with her hands, and throwing the carriage to the air to catch a falling Greg - all while Sour Cream remains completely calm the whole time.
Realizing he has as much growing up to do as Sour Cream, Greg returns Sour Cream to Vidalia and stops freeloading her stuff. He then stumbles across the Car Wash and applies to work and live there. When Steven asks what became of baby Sour Cream, Greg replies that no one knows while Sour Cream walks by them, ending the episode.
Greg The Babysitter is one of those 'Moral of The Story' episodes. In this case, the moral here is you have to make up your mind on what you want to do with your life at some point. You don't get any younger and things can't stay the same forever. It remains to be seen how this lesson will apply to Steven, as he is a half-gem and not only is his aging process slightly altered, but his behavior as well. It's why even though he's 14, he looks and behaves like a 10 year old.
I said before that I do want Steven to show some maturity as the show progresses, in part due to his age. And the episode suggests the show is just as aware that Steven can't stay 'a kid' forever. Technically, he can thanks to his Gem powers. What I mean is as I said before, Stevens need to mature one way or another. Also in part due to his voice actor Zach Callison also getting older. He can't sound like a young Steven forever, and you can only do so much with autotune.
It does make me curious as to how an older Steven will see the world around him, and how he will see the Gems in this manner. Rose says it herself - "You're SUPPOSED to change! You're never the same from moment to moment. You're allowed and expected to invent who you are.". It reflects another lesson I learned from my college professor that what you are and how you see the world changes from time to time. Think yourself back a decade or more and you will notice with near certainty that, how you view the world and the kind of person you were back then, is totally different from today. And your persona and your view of the world will once again change many years from now. Change is inevitable no matter how much you want things to be the same. In a way it adds some variety to your life. Nevertheless, we all need to come to terms with these changes the moment they arrive.
Rose further remarks how the Gems are simply created, already aware of both their existence and role, and played out their role for the rest of their lives. Seeing how humans live their lives, Rose wants to show that Gems can as much live out their lives the way the want to, rather than what they are assigned, or 'programmed' to do.
I'm saying 'programmed' because the way Rose, and the show, discusses about the Gems goes back to the theory I mentioned earlier that the Gems are somehow a form of Artificial Intelligence - all of their data is stored within the Gem and they form physical manifestations of themselves based on the role they are given. I would bet that part of the reason the Gem War happened is because of a rising number of these Gems behaving outside of their programming, as is the case between Ruby and Sapphire.
Now I REALLY want to know more of the history of the Gem Homeworld and its origins. I do hope Sugar and the crew somehow make a compendium that provides the detailed history of the Gems.
Going back to Rose, it is suprising that despite being on Earth for 5000 years, she and the other Crystal Gems know very little about humans in general. The fact that she asks Greg if he created Sour Cream shows Rose having little to no knowledge about reproduction, which is likely why she allowed herself to become pregnant with Steven, in spite of the risks, for the human experience. And like the moral lesson of change I said earlier, in Rose's message to Steven, she has a more motherly and compassionate persona than when she was with a younger Greg.
So Greg The Babysitter is a good episode. Has a great moral lesson in it, and gets us even deeper into the show's lore. Other than the Kiki episode I didn't like, the 2nd week of Summer of Steven turned out a little better.
A number of screenshot and info leaks have come out recently and what we can expect from the third week is more of Jasper encountering Steven and the gang. We don't know if this is going to give Jasper her redemption path, or we'll be seeing more of her as the show's version of Team Rocket.
In this flashback episode, after Greg parts ways with his former manager Marty, he spends most of his time hanging out with Rose, in spite of the fact that he neither has a home, let alone money. When it becomes an issue for him, Greg becomes a Freeloader in Vidalia's home, much to her chagrin.
A situation forces Vidalia to reluctantly ask Greg to babysit Sour Cream while she goes to work. (Worth noting that as Vidalia threatens to kill Greg if anything happens to Sour Cream, she cannot say the word 'kill' and instead used the word 'destroy'. Again because of the policies Cartoon Network and other networks has made with regards to programming for kids.
As Greg takes Sour Cream to the beach, Rose drops by and is surprised at seeing a human baby. After spending some time together with Greg and Sour Cream, Rose then gives remarks on how humans grow and age and forge their own paths, whereas the Gems are merely created and lived out their entire lives based on the roles assigned to them - or to put it more bluntly, their 'programming'.
Seeing Rose's remarks as inspiration to write a new song, Greg shortly leaves to get his guitar, only to find Rose and Sour Cream missing when he returns. After searching desperately around Beach City, he ends up at Funland where Sour Cream is sitting on top of the Ferris Wheel. Greg climbs up and grabs Sour Cream, but is unable to climb back down and asks Rose for help. Rose however makes this worse by destroying the controls and causing the Ferris Wheel to go haywire. We then see Rose's superhuman strength by stopping the Ferris Wheel with her hands, and throwing the carriage to the air to catch a falling Greg - all while Sour Cream remains completely calm the whole time.
Realizing he has as much growing up to do as Sour Cream, Greg returns Sour Cream to Vidalia and stops freeloading her stuff. He then stumbles across the Car Wash and applies to work and live there. When Steven asks what became of baby Sour Cream, Greg replies that no one knows while Sour Cream walks by them, ending the episode.
Greg The Babysitter is one of those 'Moral of The Story' episodes. In this case, the moral here is you have to make up your mind on what you want to do with your life at some point. You don't get any younger and things can't stay the same forever. It remains to be seen how this lesson will apply to Steven, as he is a half-gem and not only is his aging process slightly altered, but his behavior as well. It's why even though he's 14, he looks and behaves like a 10 year old.
I said before that I do want Steven to show some maturity as the show progresses, in part due to his age. And the episode suggests the show is just as aware that Steven can't stay 'a kid' forever. Technically, he can thanks to his Gem powers. What I mean is as I said before, Stevens need to mature one way or another. Also in part due to his voice actor Zach Callison also getting older. He can't sound like a young Steven forever, and you can only do so much with autotune.
It does make me curious as to how an older Steven will see the world around him, and how he will see the Gems in this manner. Rose says it herself - "You're SUPPOSED to change! You're never the same from moment to moment. You're allowed and expected to invent who you are.". It reflects another lesson I learned from my college professor that what you are and how you see the world changes from time to time. Think yourself back a decade or more and you will notice with near certainty that, how you view the world and the kind of person you were back then, is totally different from today. And your persona and your view of the world will once again change many years from now. Change is inevitable no matter how much you want things to be the same. In a way it adds some variety to your life. Nevertheless, we all need to come to terms with these changes the moment they arrive.
Rose further remarks how the Gems are simply created, already aware of both their existence and role, and played out their role for the rest of their lives. Seeing how humans live their lives, Rose wants to show that Gems can as much live out their lives the way the want to, rather than what they are assigned, or 'programmed' to do.
I'm saying 'programmed' because the way Rose, and the show, discusses about the Gems goes back to the theory I mentioned earlier that the Gems are somehow a form of Artificial Intelligence - all of their data is stored within the Gem and they form physical manifestations of themselves based on the role they are given. I would bet that part of the reason the Gem War happened is because of a rising number of these Gems behaving outside of their programming, as is the case between Ruby and Sapphire.
Now I REALLY want to know more of the history of the Gem Homeworld and its origins. I do hope Sugar and the crew somehow make a compendium that provides the detailed history of the Gems.
Going back to Rose, it is suprising that despite being on Earth for 5000 years, she and the other Crystal Gems know very little about humans in general. The fact that she asks Greg if he created Sour Cream shows Rose having little to no knowledge about reproduction, which is likely why she allowed herself to become pregnant with Steven, in spite of the risks, for the human experience. And like the moral lesson of change I said earlier, in Rose's message to Steven, she has a more motherly and compassionate persona than when she was with a younger Greg.
So Greg The Babysitter is a good episode. Has a great moral lesson in it, and gets us even deeper into the show's lore. Other than the Kiki episode I didn't like, the 2nd week of Summer of Steven turned out a little better.
A number of screenshot and info leaks have come out recently and what we can expect from the third week is more of Jasper encountering Steven and the gang. We don't know if this is going to give Jasper her redemption path, or we'll be seeing more of her as the show's version of Team Rocket.
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