No doubt the fandom will remember the episode, “The Answer” as one in which they got to see the proto-Garnet (Estelle). And while it’s true that “The Answer”‘s very important (and adorable) in that regard, what’s most important is that we finally get some clarification about Rose’s (Susan Egan) rebellion and the sociopolitical situation of the Gem Homeworld.
The episode is a nested story, its framing narrative being Garnet sneaking out to the barn at midnight to wake up Steven (Zach Callison). Her original “welcome-to-maturity” reveal to Steven was inadvertently spoiled by Jasper (Kimberly Brooks) in the two-parter that ended the first season. So instead, Garnet begins to tell Steven about how …
(I have to mention that this episode was, by its nature, one big spoiler about Garnet’s nature. If you haven’t seen “The Return” and “Jail Break”, I’d suggest you go watch them before continuing.)
…Ruby (Charlyne Yi) and Sapphire (Erica Luttrell), the two gems whose fusion created her, met. Sapphire was the Gem equivalent of a countess or duchess in service of Blue Diamond (Estelle), and Ruby was part of a caste of expendable infantry, apparently below the level of quartzes like Jasper and Amethyst (Michaela Dietz). Sapphire is called in for a “diplomatic” assignment, which consists of her using her near-omniscience to plot a course of action that will lead to the rebellious Crystal Gems’ capture. The most straightforward path that Sapphire sees necessitates her own death and the death of many other gems — and it’s a course of action of which Blue Diamond immediately approves. One gets the feeling from Garnet’s narration that the moment Sapphire told Blue Diamond there was a method of ending Rose’s rebellion immediately, everything else that came out of Sapphire’s mouth was dismissed.
As predicted, Rose and Pearl (Deedee Magno) lead an attack against Blue Diamond’s forward operating base, and Sapphire resigns herself to dying at Pearl’s hands. But for the first time in her life, something throws a rock into the clear stream of Sapphire’s atemporality: Ruby. Ruby saves Sapphire’s life by inadvertently fusing with her, and derails Sapphire’s entire vision, allowing Rose and Pearl to escape. Blue Diamond is enraged, but the episode leaves the question of what first triggered her rage. Blue Diamond considered Sapphire’s life an acceptable trade for ending Rose’s rebellion in one fell swoop, and Ruby’s interference protracted the war indefinitely. But at the same time, the Gem Homeworld has such a rigidly stratified system that bonding between Gems of different castes is unthinkable. In either case, Blue Diamond’s reaction is to order Ruby’s summary execution.
Either way, Sapphire returns the favor to Ruby and grabs her, fleeing from Blue Diamond’s base into the wilderness of Earth. Here, the action of the episode falls away, and the audience is left with Ruby and Sapphire wandering through the alien environment of what I imagine is North America for an unknown amount of time. It’s a frightening and disorienting idea, but the two of them are interested in being one another again, and while “The Answer” doesn’t show Ruby and Sapphire in love yet, the episode indulges in a kind of beautiful irony—the person framing the story, Garnet, is the 5700-year old product of their relationship, and she can proudly tell Steven that all of Ruby and Sapphire’s struggles paid off in the end.
“The Answer” doesn’t tell us much new about Ruby and Sapphire beyond a clarification of their roles in the Gem caste system. We already knew that the two of them were in love, and we already got an idea of their personalities from “Jail Break” and “Keystone Motel”. So the story of their “coming out” was a beautiful cover for the fact that this episode was mostly an info dump. We saw a same-caste fusion! We got to see what Homeworld really thinks of fusion! We saw another slave-Pearl! The writers have finally refuted the theory that Rose Quartz was the villain of the story!
The real thing to focus on, I think, is what’s going on in the background. For the first time, we get confirmation that there really is a “Diamond Authority” to match the symbols from the Gem Homeworld. It isn’t clear if Blue Diamond still holds power after five-and-a-half millennia, but she was some manner of leader on the same footing as Yellow Diamond. Her actions suggest that the cruelty of the Gem Homeworld wasn’t something that started after Rose’s rebellion, but was an indirect cause of the rebellion. I enjoyed that the visual contrast between Blue Diamond and Rose amplified the distinction between their personalities, too. Blue Diamond, for example, was constantly seated in a palanquin of machinery and architecture, whereas Rose’s appearance at the end of the episode was in a wide, spacious garden. Blue Diamond and all of her servants (perhaps including Lapis Lazuli [Jennifer Paz]) are depicted with their eyes covered, while one of Rose’s most notable qualities — and something she passed on to her son — is that her own eyes are big and happy and expressive.
As a final reflection, “The Answer” gives some clarification to Garnet’s comments in “Friend Ship” about relying on Pearl as much as Pearl relies on her. “The Answer” shows us that Pearl is older than Garnet, and she was already a mature collaborator in Rose Quartz’s rebellion when Garnet was just being “born”. This reversal of the audience’s expectations suggests that yes, Garnet relied on Pearl over the millennia to grow and become the leader she is in the present. There’s a quiet tragedy in seeing the damage that Rose’s death caused to such a vital character; in knowing that one of Garnet’s “mothers” is so depressed and traumatized that the relationship of support they’ve cultivated for thousands of years has broken so utterly.