You all know about the show Steven Universe right? A show where a child named Steven and the Gem group fight some monsters and try to save the world? If you watched the show then you know.
You know there is Peridot in the show who is a technician who was originally a villain in the show but had a redemption arc and became one with the Crystal gems which became one of the most like characters in the show. She lived in a barn with another character named Lapis and a living pumpkin.
Now why am I talking to you about this? Well there is an episode around her having a nightmare and it was crazy to say the least. This episode was supposed to appear after the Hit the Diamonds episode but didn’t happen over some scenes being too violent.
Apparently someone who claims to have worked at the Steven Universe show told anyone that this episode exists somewhere in the internet but couldn’t be found.
But that didn’t really stop some people because there was a link to that episode somehow for a short while till it was removed from Reddit, specifically the Steven Universe Subreddit. Some people (Myself included.) were lucky enough to watch this episode and people were pretty shocked afterwards.
I managed to copy the link and save the video so I can tell you what I saw and maybe post the video soon when I get the chance. I’ll try to explain the episode in a short summary so you get the idea.
The Episode starts off with a normal intro and a title with the words, “Peridot’s hunt” as it opens with Steven and the Crystal gems in a forest looking for something.
Peridot is here with them being annoyed by why they are looking for something in a forest. Steven tells her that they are looking for a corrupted gem who was been making a lot of noise.
Pearl then explains that they are looking for the source to poof it and transport it’s gem back into their home and Peridot starts acting confident and starts saying that she is brave even though Steven says she’s not as Peridot complains about it in her tape recorder.
Amethyst overheard this and started to talk smack as Garnet just watched as her usual calm self. They have an argument for a while till a sudden sound stops them in their tracks.
The Crystal gems try to follow the noise and supposedly they found it and begun to fight it although the screen doesn’t show us of what is going on.
The gems started to chase the beast which leaves Peridot alone as she tries to catch up but trips into a ditch and the Gems didn’t knew about it. Peridot starts to cry out for her friends and Steven while making a recording on her tape recorder about how she lost the team in the forest.
Some loud noises abruptly make Peridot stumble and run in fear as the sounds get closer as she tries to calm herself. Peridot then suddenly trips and hits her head on a tree which knocks her out as she falls face first on the ground. Now from this point on, this is where everything get weird.
Everything fades into black except for Peridot which remains till a few seconds later when she just disappears. A moment later Peridot wakes back up with a grunt and continues to look for her comrades. She just walks in the forest for a minute with just the sound of leaves rustling as she makes a recording.
As she continues walking in the forest, she starts to look worried and eventually stumbles upon something. She looks down at something offscreen with a horrified look as she cries her heart out although the screen doesn’t show of what she is looking at.
It went on for a few seconds till a single frame appeared on screen for a split second. I rewind to that frame and it was Steven, or just his corpse as his entire gut region was torn off with some of his gem pieces around him. That scene really made me gag hard. Peridot starts to dry heave at the sight before her.
Peridot then tries to figure out what happened and a flashback begins. The flashback shows Steven lost and looking for the gems after the battle while an unfamiliar figure approaches him from behind as Steven turns around.
Steven at first greets the figure with some relief thinking it is one of the Gems but slowly transitions into fear as a silhouette of Steven gets his guts torn open by a crooked arm.
It cuts back to Peridot with a horrified expression as she just walks off. She continues to walk and encounter the shattered remains of the Crystal gems as she stands there in distraught and another flashback happens as the gems were picked off one by one by a crooked gem monster leaving Garnet as the last one to get her gems shattered.
She even stumbles upon the Ruby gang’s remains as the flashback plays with the Ruby gang also getting picked off one by one as the gang try to fight which they almost got the hang of it till the thing ripped one the rubies in half.
Did I forget to mention that every time after she discovers a corpse the wind in the background gets more distorted as it progresses as a figure slowly approaches in the distance? Because I just started to realize it after a while.
Peridot is beyond horrified at this point as she barely uses the tape recorder since she only used it after finding their remains. She then discovers a phone which belongs to Ronaldo for some reason as we hear his voice on the phone as he was just investigating the noise to find out what it is, then he is panting as he runs away from something and…well the rest of the audio is just him screaming his lungs out.
This freaks Peridot out even more but what was not prepared for either Peridot and the viewers who watched was the corrupted gem just popping out of the tree.
The thing looked like a humanoid spider beast that seemed to blend in with the forest.
It had madden fur that ran down it’s back onto the ground and had some on it’s head looking like a crown. Its head is split into 4 mouth pieces with 4 golden eyes as the head constantly turns like a broken clock hand. It had two yellow gems on its chest, both of them were broken and cracked yet the thing is still alive as it constantly glitches now and then. You barley notice it but it happens.
It then spoke to her with a scratchy yet soft voice, “You’re never alone here little gem.” This makes Peridot just bolt for her life as the wind in the background is just loud and corrupted as that thing follows suit. She somehow finds a shed and hides in it till the monster goes past her which happened for 1 minute.
She finds a crowbar in the shed and walks out finding Connie a few miles ahead for some reason. She runs up and tries to warn Connie about the “Monster” but before she could say more, a heavy rock comes out of nowhere and destroys Connie’s head leaving a giant hole.
This startled me because of how fast it happened when I first watched it. This left Peridot just bewildered as she looked at Connie’s corpse. She then slowly turns to the screen and cuts to a close up of the Beast between the trees as it says, “You have nowhere to go little gem.”
The scene then cuts to Peridot running again with the distorted wind now quieter as the sounds in the scene are leaves being crushed under Peridot’s feet. She then stumbles upon the rest of the gem’s pieces on ropes similar like how you see the hung stick figures in the Blair Witch movie.
Peridot looks on in horror as the corrupted gem beast from before catches up behind. Peridot turns to see it as the thing says one sentence, “Your pieces little gem, I need them to live off to survive.”
The thing was talking about it’s broken gems on it’s chest and the pieces from the gems were on the cracks on it’s gem. This left me to conclude that thing was getting pieces of the gems to fix it’s own. I mean there WERE pieces of said gems on it’s broken gems so It looked like it was trying to fix itself in a morbid way.
Peridot has had enough of this and begins to fight the thing blow after blow with that crowbar she found earlier. The Thing gets the upper hand as it uses some powers it got from the gems it killed and pins Peridot on a tree preparing to rip her gem out. Peridot then uses her “Metal Powers” and drives the crowbar into both of its gems, killing it for good.
She rests on the tree completely exhausted till two dark figures appear over the shattered remains of its gems, One tall looking like a pearl as her gem is on her stomach and one short looking like Aquamarine with the gem on her chest.
Everything becomes loud and distorted as the two ghostly figures approach her as Peridot panics more and more. I then started to hear the words, “Wake up.” and then suddenly, Peridot wakes up with a scream.
Peridot then breathes in and out a few times before she sits up right contemplating what just happened as she realizes she is not in the forest anymore. Amethyst then appears in frame as she startles her by accident asking if she was alright.
Peridot tries to play it off by telling her she just had a simple bad dream but Lapis and Steven told her that they saw it as Amethyst told her she was with her the whole time and saw everything and with Lapis checking up on her and seeing her nightmare halfway done.
Some scenes from the nightmare start to play in the background as Peridot tears up and cries as she gets hugged by Steven, Lapis and Amethyst.
From this point on, the episode continues somewhat normal in Steven Universe standards. Most of the episode from this point is just Peridot being paranoid, seeing and hearing things while trying to work on the drill, trying to rest and talking to her Tape recorder to recall the horrific nightmare.
Here are the moments that some people talked about during the time where the link was still there.
There is one scene where Steven was about to go to the store with Amethyst to get food and Peridot recalled a scene from the nightmare and just yelled, ‘NO!!” startling Steven which makes Peridot apologize quickly. ( The scene was very similar to the scene in Steven Universe movie where Spinel yells no when Steven says he will be back.)
Another scene is that Pearl checks up on Peridot who has baggy eyes and messy hair. Pearl talks to her about how worried she is and Peridot then looks at the screen than cuts to behind Pearl where there is a figure that looked like the Thing in the nightmare as it looks at her.
Another scene is where Peridot is looking at a ceiling at night time with her eyes open and I could’ve sworn that there was something on that ceiling before it crawled away.
The last scene shows Peridot looking into the forest with a tired and saddened look on her face with messy hair. She keeps wondering what the dream meant and why it happened the way it did. She tears up after recalling another scene from the nightmare.
Amethyst and Lapis appear alongside Peridot and all three have a meaningful conversation about nightmares while Amethyst, who saw the nightmare, hypes her up for facing her fears that she never brought up and Lapis trying to comfort her. Peridot cries again as Lapis and Amethyst both hug her and bring Peridot back into the group.
As they leave, the scene cuts back into the forest with the four golden eyes looking back. The eyes slightly nod up and down before disappearing back into the dark. After that, the episode ends.
I was pretty shocked about it and wanted to know why this was made. Someone had the same idea as someone emailed Rebecca Sugar about and she actually responded.
The shortest I could put it is that she planned this episode for Peridot to know that she doesn’t need to be overconfident to face up something unknown and two teams of animators worked on it. One team worked on the episode before and after the nightmare and the other worked on the nightmare.
The team who worked on the nightmare scene REALLY misunderstood the subject and outdid themselves with the nightmare scene but they made it to violent and Rebecca really hated it as she completely discarded the episode completely.
At least Peridot faced her fear of being alone and facing a bigger opponent while also knowing that there are bigger fish out there. I mean what can I say? There are people out there who are stronger than you and you might be overconfident about it till it happens.
But there is one thing I still don’t get. If the whole thing was a nightmare, then why did the corrupted gem appear at the last scene nodding its head like a deed was done?