And here it is: the master of overshadowing. Yellow Diamond herself, with the added bonus of a Pearl who doesn’t care because she doesn’t have to—she’s with the homeworld.

While in the first viewing it’s not immediately obvious what Peridot’s plan is (though Peridot’s redemption is still pretty likely even if you hadn’t seen the preview for Log Date 7 15 2), there are enough clues in her dialogue for her it to be clear that she was siding with Earth even at the start of the episode. Poor Peridot just wanted more episodes of Camp Pining Hearts, and Yellow Diamond simply wasn’t having any of it.

It was great seeing Amethyst have a moment just like one Jake from Adventure Time might have: being too mad to be able to come up with a mean nickname for Peridot. Pearl also did a great job at missing the point when she told Steven he could feed bad all he wanted back at the temple. Comedy gold, as always.

Of course, even if this was just the episode that finally confirmed that we’d be getting Peridot joining the team, it would be plenty great. That we got so much else too is just spoiling us.

Again, seeing Yellow Diamond was impressive. She’s a very business-oriented leader, not the mystical, distant ruler that Blue Diamond seemed to be.

Finally, a fun fact to just take note of: the moon base’s top room had blue glass, and we know that Earth was ruled (in the end, anyway) by Blue Diamond. The base Yellow Diamond was in during her call with Peridot had pink glass. Interesting, isn’t it?

How many exciting things can you pack into one episode? A secret Diamond base? A trip to the moon? Pictures of the Diamonds? A look at the initial Gem plans for Earth? An angry Garnet, combined with Peridot intrigue? It Could’ve Been Great was, itself, great!

Just the orb that White Diamond was depicted as holding, and apparently stored in a room in the base, would be enough speculation fuel for one episode. In addition to that though, we got good looks at three of the four Diamond portraits. Can you guess whose portrait was barely shown? Of course: Pink Diamond. You can’t hide forever, Pink Diamond! (Speaking of Pink Diamond: “We are literally walking in the footsteps of the Diamonds!” she said as she followed behind Steven.)

Of course Peridot’s matter-of-fact statement about Gems being designed to conquer planetoids was also interesting. We haven’t seen any new episodes since we pondered whether the Diamonds are, in fact, designers of the other Gems, so obviously we don’t have a good perspective on that yet. Still, at the time, it was great to finally have confirmation that the Gems are designed beings.

The ending to It Could’ve Been Great was quite satisfying—if the show had been airing weekly, waiting a week to see what Peridot was going to do with the device she took from the command chair wouldn’t have been too agonizing. We definitely had plenty to geek out over (including some pictures of apparently unseen Gem structures on Earth), but… Well next week we’ll cover it, but we have no complaints about how quickly we got that scheme resolved.

The Answer was partially overshadowed by It Could’ve Been Great, but both were overshadowed by the episode that came next: Message Received. That doesn’t make this episode any less impressive to re-watch though.

They sure took their time telling us how old Steven was: thirteen for most of the series, until he turned fourteen in Steven’s Birthday. Perhaps they wanted us to be as surprised as Connie was. The only surprise worth noting, however, is how dapper Steven can be (he and Connie are perfect friends).

This was Steven’s first proper use of shapeshifting, we think. Amethyst seemed to recognize it as normal shapeshifting, rather than a whimsically fluctuating age. Assuming it was, in fact, normal shape changing, we’re definitely looking forward to him moving closer to mastery of that power in the future. (Whatever he did, maybe he can use it to get his first beard hair back from Mabel.)

While the episode raised the concern that Steven might be stuck as a child forever, that beard hair was apparently used to indicate that he can, in fact, still grow. The Crystal Gems certainly recognized (and remarked upon) his growth over the past year—as a member of the team, no doubt. He’s much more mature than he was at the beginning of the series, and can handle himself around danger now.

You know how we mentioned the perfect friendship between Connie and Steven, though? While it was so perfectly illustrated by their totally spontaneous greeting where they managed to be perfectly in sync with one another despite how off the wall the whole thing was (they managed to say “clink” at the same time, for crying out loud), they both found ways to step up their game later in the episode. Steven, picking up on Connie’s clear initial concerns, worried that him staying physically young would be bad for Connie; after the crisis happened though, Connie came through for Steven—when it came down to it, her friendship with Steven was too important to let even a magical mishap get in the way. It’s really quite sweet.

Not all of the attention was on Steven and Connie this episode though: Steven’s Birthday gave a good peek at Amethyst’s and Pearl’s improved relationship, with them happily dancing together (in a style that seems to have enough energy for Amethyst and decorum for Pearl). Of course later, in Log Date 7 15 2, we’ll see Amethyst and Pearl easily fusing to form Opal. Hold on to that hopal, everybody, that we’ll be seeing more Opal this season!