What could Joy Ride mean?

Normally our weekly speculation posts regard the world as a real thing and attempting to make predictions about it based on what we’ve learned—much like lore implications except more… Speculative.

This week we’re doing something different: we’re zooming out and analyzing the show as if it’s a written creation (strange, we know).

Humans are very good at seeing what they want to see. Do you know what we want to see? A season two where Peridot joins the Crystal Gems. (Lapis, Jasper, and the centipeetle too, but one Gem at a time, alright?) Joy Ride gave us hope that we might get our wish, and it did it because of two facts working together: it’s an early episode, and Peridot was (at least indirectly) involved.

Steven Universe on the Central Finite Curve

Imagine that while we’re watching a season two that we know very little about, a million possible season twos were developed in as many realities. In some of these possible season twos Lapis Lazuli joins the Crystal Gems. In others it’s Jasper, the centipeetle, Peridot, some other Gem, or no Gem at all. There’s even one completely crazy season where it’s revealed that Buck Dewey is a Gem child just like Steven, except his mother was another Garnet from the rebellion—this version of season two ends on a cliffhanger with Buck and Garnet, exhausted from facing just one homeworld fusion Gem, get ready to face an entire swarm of them.

We don’t know which of these seasons is ours, but we can guess one thing: if a Gem switches sides from the homeworld to the Crystal Gems, she’ll need more episodes than if she doesn’t so that it doesn’t seem like she has her change of heart too quickly.

Well, we have a pretty small sample size of episodes right now: two episodes from season two have aired, and the second one seemed to be getting the hunt for Peridot started by making it clear that she landed very near Beach City. In some possible season twos this could purely be random chance, but knowing that we got a season two that starts Peridot’s storyline early means it’s more likely this is a season two where she gets more episodes—and therefore probably joins the main cast.

Of course that’s all it is at this point: probability. Chance. Assumptions. Still, every episode after Full Disclosure that didn’t feature Peridot would have made it less and less likely that she’d be somehow important to season two. Seeing her in the first episode after the season premier means that things are looking up.