Review: Steven Universe “Raising The Barn”

Were you raised in a barn?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

To further take his mind off not hearing back from Connie after the events of “Dewey Wins”, Steven fills Peridot & Lapis in on what’s been going on but out of paranoia from what Steven told them about what went down during the events of “The Trial“, Lapis suggests to Peridot that they should immediately leave earth with Steven rushing to the barn to stop them. When Steven finally confronts the two, he tries his best to reason with Lapis, but with the fear of history repeating itself weighing heavily on Lapis’s mind, who could blame a violent PTSD emo mess like her? She was imprisoned in a fucking mirror for 1000 years during a Gem War she wanted no part of and the mere mention of the Diamonds hunting Steven down is enough of a Trigger Warning to not want anything to do with earth and decides to use her water manipulation to literally “Raise the Barn” as the title implies.

By the time Lapis accomplishes this goal, Pumpkin ends up missing which spends most of the running time with all three of them searching for their sentient veggie-pet separately with Steven helping Peridot, but when they eventually find Pumpkin, Peridot in a subtle way admits to Steven that she isn’t completely on board with Lapis’s escape plan and Steven encourages her to talk things out.

By the third act when Lapis returns, she proceeds to raise the barn again only for Peridot to finally put her foot down and admit that both herself and Pumpkin don’t want to leave Earth and encourages her to fight and stay on Earth rather than escape, but with 1000 years of PTSD as an excuse for her unreasonable attitude, she ends up taking the barn with her without saying a word. The episode ends on a bittersweet note when Peridot is back to where she kinda started out when she first acclimated herself to Steven and the Gems, in Steven’s bathroom.

Our Take.

If “Dewey Wins” was the first step in a series of major changes, then “Raising The Barn” is almost a step backward for Lapis the most, because it feels like so much character growth & development that she had garnered is completely thrown out the window. The episode itself could also be a look at how emotionally damaging it is to blindly do as your told rather than question everything as Peridot doesn’t agree with Lapis’s defeatist mentality, but given Lapis’ shitty history with the Gem War, I say taking an entire piece of land with her and escaping can be viewed as one hell of an overreaction.

Will we see Lapis again? Who knows but I’m more curious what’s going to happen to Peridot without her.