Steven Universe Vlogs: Episode 41 – Horror Club

Just in time for Halloween, Steven Universe gives us something REALLY scary, Lars and Ronaldo together. Check out this Steven Universe Vlog, Horror Club.

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48 comments

  1. It was obvious that you would hate this one XD

  2. i’d honestly rather be stuck with renaldo for a day than with lars, atleast we could distract him from his gem conspiracies with anime and videogames

  3. The creators of the show maintain a real life “Keep Beach City Weird” blog on Tumblr, where they post snippets and half-joking teasers for upcoming episodes,which is why I think they keep using Reynaldo so much.

    And I personally don’t think this was a bad episode. In fact, it was the only episode where I think Reynaldo was actually tolerable. Plus I also liked that it showed off some of Steven’s maturity–He pretty much handled a gem monster and protected his friends all on his own.

    • Oddworld Inhabitant

      I mostly agree, but, as annoying as Lars can be, I think Reynaldo was a bit quick to try to sacrifice him. It was a bit of a weird moment; honestly, had the played up the comedy of resorting to human sacrifice that quickly, I think the episode would have worked a bit better.

    • I dunno I thought theother Renaldo episodes were funnier, but that might just be because he reminds me of a guy I went camping with right before I saw keep beach city weird.

  4. “C.G.?! Blasphemer! You saw the remake! I have the original. A true fan would accept nothing less.”

    Figured this one would get a negative reception. I don’t strongly dislike Lars or Ronaldo, but I am generally far less interested in episodes that are focused on them, especially when compared to those centered around Steven/the Gems/Connie. Ignoring Horror Club (which I think is just alright), pretty much all the season 1 episodes from Lion 3 onward are really good.

    I think this is the only other episode episode in season 1B that features a corrupted gem. Interesting that that Gems aren’t around for either of these instances.

  5. You know, I feel like these characters are likable to people because they tap into our insecurities and obsessions–the sorts of things that geeks and nerds and dorks would really be able to identify with–and also hyperbolising it while maintaining some sense of humanity, as much of our contemporary popular culture does (through the power of memes and web comics and all that). And it makes me wonder if these guys just hate these two characters so much because they simply are either too old or too secure with themselves to be affected by that.

  6. Yeah, we knew this was coming

  7. I actually thought at first that everything that was happening in this episode was just Sadie, Ronaldo and Steven trying to scare Lars, so I wasn’t shocked at anything that happened. Especially when Ronaldo threw Lars at the monster, I just thought “Yeah, this is all an act. There’s no way this is actually all supposed to be real.”
    That would have saved the episode IMO.

  8. Lars and Ronaldo aren’t adults. They, aswell as Sadie and the cool kids, are teenagers.

    You really consider Lars and Ronaldo unlikeable? I can think of tons of characters from different franchises that are considerably worse than both Lars and Ronaldo combined. Both are just regular people with insecurities and emotional baggage. I also have to say, since you brought it up, Jar Jar Binks never bothered me at all. The hatred for this character is massively overrated and he’s actually pretty easy to ignore.

  9. I thought that Lars at least earned some sympathy here. He seemed more concerned for Sadie than himself throughout the ordeal, and he almost got killed by the giant mouth. Ronaldo was as insufferable as always. He literally tried to kill Lars, and he is always more concerned about himself than others.

  10. I completely agree with you guys, Lars and Ronaldo are completely insufferable. They’re both so obsessed and shallow that it feels like they belong on a different show.

  11. Oddworld Inhabitant

    I’m curious to how they’ll react to “Rising Tides, Crashing Skies” when they reach it. That’s the Reynaldo episode that most people like, so it’ll be interesting if they find something in it too or if Rey. spoils it for them.

  12. wait til they get to the episode that’s ronaldo’s clip show

  13. ᵗʰᵉNight★Star

    Don’t you guys think you’re being a little TOO harsh on Reynaldo? Now i’m not defending him that much or anything. I mean, he’s probably my least favorite character in the show, but I find it easy enough to just treat him like “meh”.

    And it’s not even HIM that I dislike as much as his shtick that gets really old, really fast. Like “ha. ha. yeah, he’s a conspiracy truther and the show is making fun of that whole ‘9/11 was an inside job’ tin-foil hat culture thing. ha. ha whatever, we get it, not funny, move on.”

    I don’t even find him insufferable or worth getting angry at, he’s just kind of there. I dunno, maybe I just feel like the show is so good even when he’s around that it’s far easier to tune him out rather than straight-up get mad or hate the character. Now if he was in every episode, and the Steven Universe equivalent of John Cena shoved in our face, then it’s say he would deserve some level of hostility.

    The fact that you guys even rank him as more annoying than Lars baffles me. Lars is a straight up asshole and a douche. That guy deserves far more legit annoyance than Reynaldo, who really isn’t that unlikable or an asshole or anything, he’s just a deluded conspiracy dork with a joke that gets old after 5 minutes., and then just becomes “meh”.

    • I’ve always liked Lars more than Ronaldo and the reason is that Lars is unlikable in a much more human, understandable way, he’s insecure and his attempts to be ‘cool’ cause him to shoot himself in the foot and drive away the people who care about him. All of his problems are of his own design, which is a very relatable human fault. This humanness giveshim potential to grow as a character to be more likable.

      Furthermore, Lars has never done anything that actively threatened anyone else. He’s just a bit of a jerk, whereas Ronaldo is a purely flat character amidst a cast of real people with identities beyond conspiracy nut. Now I actually kind of like the conspiracy theorist trope, especially when they’re subtly correct, but Ronaldo has no motivation to back it up and no personality to fall back on, yet his flat characteristics have caused him to do terrible things to other people.

      He abandons his little brother to manage the family business alone, he nearly dissected steven, and he tried to fucking sacrifice Lars to what he could only assume was some fucked up demon. But even all of this is somewhat excusable in context. No, what really made me hate him was the fact that he was the only person to realize the totally valid point that the gems pose a threat to beach city, and yet not only did he only try to stop them to feed his own ego, but he begged them to stay just because he would get bored if they didn’t despite still believing they were a threat.

      Now I get that the gems would never have listened to him, but he still could have spread the word! If some serious shit goes down, which will almost certainly happen, then Ronaldo basically fucked his entire town merely because of his petty need to be the center of attention. Nothing Lars has done compares to that.

  14. Uhhh… aren’t they overreacting to this episode just a bit? I mean, I get not liking the characters, but jeez, guys! This was an alright episode with Steven stepping up as the more mature person in this situation and you’re acting like it’s the worst thing ever. I thought you were sort-of joking at the start of the vlog, but really? You’re acting like Ronaldo’s freaking Hitler or some crap! He’s not a great character, but this is nowhere near as bad as you’re trying to make it out to be.

  15. Putting aside Lars and Ronaldo/Reynaldo I would like to point out that hell would likely have more Onion.

  16. Ronaldo is very meh,and i think people only like Lars for Saddie
    if at all

    • Lars is a jerk, but he’s also kind of a tragic character in that all of his problems are his own fault, and to be fair he hasn’t done anything that actually posed a threat to anyone, which is something you can’t say about Sadie.

  17. Well I could see this coming. Put two characters they don’t like together they aren’t gonna like it. Maybe they will get more development soon. Hopefully.

    Ever notice how people seem to hate nerdy characters? I wonder why….

  18. The thing that bugs me about Ronaldo is his sense of entitlement and him thinking he’s so important that’s annoying about him.
    I absolutely couldn’t stand the scene when he was standing on that cliff next to Steven, saying (and I paraphrase) “You’re just like me, Steven… those Other People don’t don’t see things like we do”
    Like, NO BITCH! YOU’RE NOT IMPORTANT!
    Him actually acting like he’s doing something constructive is NOT a behavior that should be encouraged. One of these characters needs to tell him that he needs to calm down and keep his theories to his blog and not shove them in people’s faces IRL.

    And then there’s Lars, who is pretty much the archetype douchbag. Just about everything he does shows that he has absolutely no likable qualities to him and it’s still so confusing for Sadie to be oh so infatuated with him.

    Personally, I would put Lars over Ronaldo for the Worst Character category… as annoying as Ronaldo is, at least he’s TRYING to do something productive with his life… he just needs a wake up call to realize he’s going about it in the wrong way.
    Lars is just a manipulative prick… he knows Sadie likes him, and takes advantage of her because of it. He knows she’ll do whatever he asks her to… Lars is simply the worst kind of person.

    While I would hope that they will get a Pacifica-esqe episode that will improve their likability, it will be incredibly difficult to do so, ESPECIALLY with Lars.

    • Lars didint know sadie liked him till the island episode. He never seen her in that way. Its not till this episode we see that lars is noticing that he may like sadie more in that way.

  19. was it me or did it seem like Ronaldo knew he was making lars a bit jelous espcially with the last line at the end.

  20. I actually really like Lars a lot and liked that he got some development in this episode. I’m also one of the few people that is perfectly fine with Ronaldo but I can see why people would dislike him

    But mainly the main reason I’m comment is because of the Stannis having no fans D:< Excuse you guys! He was actually the king to be I was rooting for during that dispute and I happen to really really like him.

    Mine you this is book Stannis I'm talking about mainly, and at least part of Tv show Stannis before he put his daughter in a fire which he would never do in the books D:<

    • Count me in among Stannis’ fans. They butchered the character in Game of Thrones but the book counterpart is one of the most fascinating characters, managing to elicit sympathy and respect but also disgust and wariness in the same page. A truly tragic figure who is probably doomed but is so fun to read about!

      Also he has lots and lots of fans. In A Forum of Ice and Fire for a time he was probably THE MOST talked about and praised character from the books.

  21. Lars are Ronaldo are great characters but horrible human beings and I’d hate having to hang out with either, let alone both. However this was a good episode.

  22. I didn’t liked this episode either, don’t worry. Lars and Ronaldo can be funny at how awful of characters they are but a whole episode with them is hard to watch.

  23. There is a small detail in the episode you may have missed. It’s tiny, but it says a lot; the scar on Sadie’s cheek.
    To be honest, I didn’t notice it myself until a much later episode. But yeah, there it is. Gotta tip my hat to the animators for such dedication.

  24. It took me a while to realise why steven sat behind the couch.
    He’s banned from TV and he’s simply too honest to violate his punishment.

  25. Take it down a notch.
    Evil Bears 2: Quickening!
    Please sacrifice Lars.

    Unfortunately, in my opinion this is the episode that features Ronaldo at his most likable (Lars has some better moments in previous episodes), so if you didn’t like him here, there’s not much to look forward to in the future as of this writing. It’s kind of amazing how much more likable he became when his voice actor dropped the hammy intonations and just talked to Sadie about horror movies in a normal tone of voice. I suppose him trying to sacrifice Lars to appease the lighthouse didn’t bother me that much, far less so than Ronaldo braining Steven with a potato and Jack Bauering him in the same lighthouse. That probably says more about Lars’ characterization than anything. My real frustration with the characters is that both have had multiple opportunities handed to them to pursue positive character growth and have never followed up on it. That’s really more a fault of the writers than the characters themselves, but it makes them singularly frustrating in a show where every other character only gets more likable with time.

  26. This was the very first episode of Steven Universe I saw on tv…. I hated it, and because of this episode I almost didn’t watch the entire series.

  27. You say this but you two are brothers that care about one another but they hate one another
    I like Lars less and this did not helped
    Ronaldo is fine

  28. I just realized why I think Lars is more likable than Ronaldo. Lars is obnoxious in a very teenagery way. He’s overly concerned with how other people view him, and he’s lazy and selfish. Those are all problems that could diminish with maturity. In other words, he has a lot of potential to become better. Ronaldo, on the other hand, is self-righteous, egotistical, and occasionally cruel. These are traits that are much more hard-wired, and he is unlikely to outgrow them or have much room for development.

  29. Okay, I HAVE to check up with these this weekend. -_- Follow up comment to come. For me, Lars is worse than Ronaldo. To me, Ronaldo is just annoying to me. I wonder what you would have said it Onion was in this episode as well. Ronaldo? Really? He’s the one that makes you insult Mother Teresea?

  30. I personally don’t hate Ronaldo or Lars, but they are far from my favorite characters, so I didn’t dislike this episode so much as just completely forget it, in fact the only thing I really remember about this episode is that I’m pretty sure this is the last time the gems fight a corrupted gem.

    Next up: The third weirdest Groundhog Day sequel I’ve ever seen, just under Undertale and Madoka magica.

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