"The New Lars" discussion

Well, he's a teenage male. The name of the mag was NOICE, which is funny itself. (Notice the cover model had blonde hair, pale skin and was curvy...)

I like Steven's love of schmaltz showing through possessed Lars. Some awful Twilight knock-off.

Steven's power to take over people's bodies while he sleeps is disturbing. At least with the watermelons there was a connection. What he did here was clearly a violation, that Lars is a jerk is irrelevant.

Given her job, Sadie must be older than Lars, whom I assume is in high school unless he's a total idiot wasting his parents' money in community college. But if he's in high school, how is he working at the Big Donut so much? Skipping school? Do most episodes with him take place in summer?

Still a better episode than Drop Beat Dad.

Oh nooooo, not Caligula!

You gotta bury that tape quick, Sadie.

Well, Lars finally realized that he is a bit of a jerk. But the problem is, while he's not a complete a-hole, there's still nothing particularly noteworthy of him as a character outside of his jerkiness. I get that Beach City needs a character like Lars to create conflict between its population (because otherwise it'd be a bit of a boring utopia.... but hey, I'd move there!).

And yeah, Steven doesn't come clean out of this either. Yes, he's still young and doesn't quite fully understand how teenage romance works. BUT, he really should have gone to the Gems first for some sort of explanation of this new power! Instead, he immediately went Being John Malkovich instead of respecting the guy's privacy. I honestly expected better of the kid.


"DO NOT WRECK THIS GIGANTIC DOOM."
http://astrolupine.deviantart.com

Yikes this episode was uncomfortable to sit through....although I have a feeling it was meant to be.

Steven is no stranger to completely embracing new experiences (he immediately touches Lion, broke into a run as Stevonnie, leapt right in front of Peridot's monitors way back when she was still a threat and even stole her pod once to boot!) but it was amazing the narrative actually let us chastise him for this behaviour for once. After all, Steven's curiosity and rule breaking gave us Lapis, as did his initiative stop the Hand Ship from blasting the Crystal Gems to smithereens in The Return.

To see Steven's childish sense of adventure and do-gooding backfire was both refreshing and cringeworthy. I'm grateful for this change of pace, and especially that Lars and Sadie's relationship was the vehicle (pun intended?) chosen to achieve this through because if they're is anything in Beach City that is beyond Steven's comprehension it is definitely this relationship.

I read a lot of criticism of this one was wrapped in how Steven's read of Lars and Sadie seemed odd compared to the tension between Pearl and Greg he got on top of in Mr. Greg. To that I say, Steven did admit in song that he didn't understand the animosity of Pearl and Greg in that episode, only that he wanted to fix it, while in The New Lars, Steven once again demonstrates how he has never had a good read of Lars and Sadie by comparison. That oversight caused this to end badly while Pearl and Greg are mature enough to appreciate Steven's lack of nuance earlier.

Here's hoping that no matter the shenanigans, Lars and Sadie use this as an attempt to understand each other better but not so much so they end up an item when the dust settles.

This episode kind of points out that Steven's and Connie's relationship is doomed from the start. This episode illustrated Stevens lack of understanding of any sort of romantic relationship considering how *beep* up of job he did trying to handle lars and sadie's complicated relationship simply because he's a child. I always found it weird shows like this force kid's steven and connie ages into a relationship because it just never works because children those ages don't understand the fundamentals of a relationship.