Steven Universe revealed its new villain and she’s terrifying

During SDCC, Rebecca Sugar and Co. unveiled an upcoming Steven Universe episode that would no doubt lead us into Steven Universe: The Movie and showed us the new villain.

While we weren’t at the  Steven Universe panel at SDCC to see this new episode, it has appeared on the Cartoon Network website and does not disappoint. “Legs from here to Homeworld,” while being a truly fantastic title, is a good episode in and of itself, but it’s not until the final moments that it becomes something altogether frightening.

Picking up directly from where “Reunited” left off, Steven and the rest of the Crystal Gems find themselves having to explain what happened to Pink Diamond and how Rose became Steven to Blue and White Diamond.

They’re most surprised that anyone is still alive since they obliterated all of the gems when the war ended thousands of years ago. Steven explains that they weren’t actually destroyed and the ones that weren’t protected had become corruptions.

Steven takes them to see Centipeedle, who had been left her old ship after Steven tried to heal her the last time, and convinces them to try to heal her. It does end up working for a moment, but ultimately reverts back to her corrupted version.

Blue and Yellow explain that the only sure-fire way to help Centi and the rest of the corrupted gems is if all four Diamonds help, which means asking White Diamond for help. Yellow, Blue, and Pearl all advise against this given how different White is from everyone else, even for a Diamond.

Steven wins out, though, and they retrieve Pink’s old ship that looks like a pair of pink legs and they set off for Homeworld with Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Connie. Bismuth stays behind mainly because she doesn’t want to go back to Homeworld but also to keep an eye on Peridot and Lapis. (Please let there be a Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth episode coming up.)

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They take off and arrive on Homeworld without incident. Blue and Yellow want to talk to White alone to mitigate any damage, but are intercepted by White’s Pearl. She is completely unlike every Pearl we’ve seen so far in the sense that she appears very much like an android with blocky speech patterns and what looks like cracks in her body.

Before anyone can do anything, Steven is engulfed by a bubble and transported to a room that looks like a nightmarish Apple store. This is the part that’s terrifying.

Before him stands White Diamond and she is equal parts captivating and horrifying. Whereas Yellow, Blue, and even Pink use their colors in a kind of subdued way, White looks completely unnatural, almost angelic.

The design actually is exquisite in how unsettling it is, but what truly takes it over the edge is the voice of Christine Ebersole. She has this kind of uncomfortable ease with the way she speaks that it feels like talking to someone who’s having a dissociative episode.

More than anything, this really puts into focus what the tension of Steven Universe: The Movie is likely to be.

Now that Yellow and Blue are somewhat allies, White remains the last truly undiscovered section of the series. Plus, given how unlikely it is that White will in any way understand what is happening on Earth, this makes her the new Big Bad to contend with.

No word yet on when Steven Universe: The Movie will be released. Are you excited for it? Let us know in the comments.