What we learned from Secret Team

As we said in our immediate reactionSecret Team was long on character and short on lore. We have a bit of character backstory that’s fit to speculate about, but what facts did we get out of this episode?

Even though she only had a minor role in the episode, Garnet was the one we learned the most about in this episode. The way Amethyst and Pearl interact was much the same as it was in Giant Woman, but that’s confirmation of an old pattern so will be a subject of tomorrow’s speculation.

Shut down by the G-Squad

When Ms. Sugar said Garnet would win in a fight between her, Amethyst, and Pearl, few objected: it was clearly the implication over the course of the series that we had seen so far. Even then, it would have been difficult to understand that she meant that Garnet could do it without her weapons and that despite that handicap it still wouldn’t be close.

Garnet’s role as the powerhouse of the group doesn’t seem to be in jeopardy, though it still can make one wonder whether Steven is destined to eventually surpass her in power—he was able to shut down the entire water clone fight in Ocean Gem, after all.

Fear of Garnet

While it would make sense that Amethyst and Pearl wouldn’t want to upset the team leader, their fear of Garnet finding out about the gem shards seems to go beyond that. Garnet herself seems to be aware of their underlying fear, chiding them for only working together when they think Garnet is going to kill them. She couldn’t have been talking about the fight they had just finished – they didn’t work together, and they didn’t know it was Garnet – so she must have been referring to their participation in Secret Team.

This calls back to Pearl in Mirror Gem, after Garnet – who has just given Steven the famous three-eyed stare – says that Steven is in big trouble. Pearl forgets all about her fear of the mirror and instead pleads to Garnet on Steven’s behalf, saying he didn’t understand what he was doing.

Amethyst and Pearl don’t just respect Garnet as a teammate or a leader, there’s a fear of her that surfaces from time to time.