Channel Awesome
Nobody likes a faker, but when it’s your own dad? Ouch.
Tagged with: cartoons channel awesome doug walker house guest rob walker steven universe steven universe vlogs television
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His dad tries his best, that’s all I gotta say. I like him for it.
Even tho its cliched trophe, they still did it in they own way, and when you think of what kind of life Greg has….Its no wonder he did what he did. ANd he made up for hsi mistake.
“Oh hey, Steven! Just making sure that this thing actually works. Heh.”
In retrospect, some of the early season 1B episodes (House Guest, Secret Team, Fusion Cuisine) are just okay; however, most of the episodes from 35 onward more than makes up for this. I had a feeling they wouldn’t care for the quasi “liar revealed” trope. Dear Old Dad isn’t one of the show’s better sung songs, but I did like how Steven and Greg harmonized towards the end.
….welp they’re not gonna like Fusion Cuisine I’m gonna bet. Other than maybe the fusion.
But yeah, this episode, I don’t know, it felt kinda forced?
I feel like it was basically “We made Steven a bit too powerful for now…. We should probably do something to dial him back a bit until he grows.” and this was the first thing they came up with to throw him off his game.
Damn, Rob is earning himself more and more anime nerd points with me.
I had to do a double take and rewind the video to make sure he was talking about THE Mysterious Girlfriend X.
Good on you, Rob.
Being a Greg fan I might skip this vlog.
Even if it’s not the weakest SU episode, I have to say it might be one of my least favourites. It’s the first Greg focused episode since Lazer Light Canon and Cat Fingers, so it’s got the job of reintroducing Greg for those who haven’t been paying him much attention and it does a pretty bad job of it.
It’s a Lamar & Helen episode. They do good drama but for some reason often end up with the more sitcom like episodes which often feel slightly clunky. I don’t much like the models they go with when it comes to the characters either. It often looks off and stiff.
My biggest annoyance though is that they tend to play up Greg as a bumbling dad which he really isn’t. It get’s a bit better in their later episodes but this one was the worst offender. Greg is disorganised, easily distracted,and forgetful but he’s also a hard worker and a loving, dedicated father.
(Let’s just say it’s not the Gems who cover Steven’s living costs, or their own.)
They got it right when Greg’s immediate reaction to realising he inadvertently hurt his son is to try and fix it, but it’s strange to see him acting like such a load beforehand. It makes sense that he doesn’t fully realise the extent of Steven’s Gem life, we know both Greg and the Gems are hesitant to get involved in their respective non-areas. However Greg isn’t stupid. I think he’d pick up if something was upsetting Steven and he certainly wouldn’t carry on a façade if it meant hurting him.
He also seemed to be attempting to manipulate him which is just, no. Steven is the world to him
I think Maximum Capacity did a much better job of showing Greg’s shortcomings, and just about every other episode he’s in shows what a great father he is, including the next episode; Space Race.
I really hope the Walker brother’s don’t write Greg off as an ass from this episode alone and notice his better writing in future episodes.
Ya know gregs actions may have messed up stevens confidence,but I give it to him still. I mean it shows that he really loves his sons and wishes he could be around him more. Though even though im up to date with steven universe im still confused on why he has to stay away from the house so much. Also why the hell does he still live in the van. I mean he must make some cash from his car wash since hes able to keep the doors open.
Greg pays for it.
The crew confirmed that Greg covers all of Steven and the Gems living expenses. Greg also played a large part in building the house Steven now lives in.
Presumably everything he earns goes towards Steven, the rest towards the Car-wash, and whatever’s left is what he lives on. Which is probably why he lives in the van.
So he pays for food and junk. Which makes me kinda laugh since he pays for food for amythist as well,but gems dont need to eat to live its just for enjoyment so hes kinda loosing out on cash. Cash he could use to proboly live in an actual house and not a van out in the open. I would also like to know how much does he really make from the car wash.
What makes this even weirder is that there’s an extended opening to the season 2 theme song (nobody look it up unless you’re done with Season 1 because it will spoil the crap out of this show for you! It is on youtube, though, in case you want to see it.) And in the extended opening, it shows that they pretty much built the house themselves. So there’s no like rent limit or anything, Greg just doesn’t stay there for some reason that has yet to be revealed. Maybe it’s because the Corrupted Gems are attracted to the Crystal Gem’s magical nature, but IDK, that seems like a bit of a flimsy excuse, to be honest…. So I have 0 idea why Greg is just never around.
The impression I got is that Greg and the Gems essentially decided to raise Steven half and half.
Greg’s a great human dad but any human would struggle nurturing the crazy magical side of their child. So the Gems decided to cover that, and as Gem powers are a little more wild then…human powers, they’d need to keep a close eye on him so Steven went to live with them.
Or at least that’s what they’d told themselves. After Rose gave up her physical form, the Gems withdrew even further from human lives and Greg never felt as comfortable with magic. It’s also not hard to pick up tension between Greg and the Gems which is why it was decided Greg would stay in his van and Steven could go visit him whenever.
Of course it’s all a false dichotomy, Steven isn’t Half-Gem Half-Human, he’s a GemHuman/HumanGem. As Steven grows he’ll not only bring the human world and the Gem world together, but fuse his own unusual family into one as well.
I always got the impression that Steven lives with the gems instead of Greg because Steven is still trying to learn gem magic and some of that stuff can be dangerous. The Cat Fingers episode is a good example of this, Greg and Steven are both panicking and don’t know how to help, and Greg has been known in the past to say, “Woah, is this gem stuff? I don’t really want to talk about this, the gems are better for that.” So as long as Steven is living with the gems, if something goes wrong they are (supposed) to be there to help.
This is all speculation on me and my best friend’s part, so we could totally be wrong. It seemed like the most logical explanation at the time.
This does seem like the most logical explanation. The house is basically a 24hr school for steven. Ya know just with magic instead of the usal boring school stuff.
You guys think things are dark now…whoo, boy you ain’t seen nothing yet!
9 episodes later:
“Well nothing happened this tim-”
“AMMETHHYYSSTTTT!!!!! *fake cries*”
Crap, got my plot-relevent episodes WAYYY mixed up…… That one’s like 13 episodes later. 9 episodes later is more like:
“I guess stuff is happening now.”
Yeah. It’s like the Lars situation all over again but at least Greg was lying with good intentions. Doesn’t make it good but it certainly DOES make Steven’s dad more likable despite being a little annoying.
Wow a Mysterious Girlfriend X reference. Impressive
well what annoyed me is at first he really was hurt and his son healed him and he lied about it which hurt steven’s confidence and somehow makes him lose ability to heal his actions had terrible consequences I like greg but this was not the best episode for him
Greg warped to World 8,
Are we gonna blow the dome?
More Gearhead Pearl soon.
I recall this episode triggering a lot of backlash against Greg, unfairly so. I’m glad the Walkers acknowledged that, despite the frustrating nature of the plot, Greg’s motivation is a compelling one. Fortunately he becomes a lot more compelling later on, to the point where he’s the one of the best fathers in fiction. It does handily introduce the theme of good characters doing bad things due to their own emotional hangups, one that will persist for the rest of the half-season and well into season 2.
I’m surprised that you didn’t mention the part where Greg hugs Pearl and she later hides behind Garnet XD
I actually being a school student myself have takin a few days off of school(so glad to see Doug and rob don’t blame me for doing that). Dint really remember watching this one but can’t wait for the next one where Steven tries to get pearl back into space(one of my other personal favorites as well!!)
Duct tape fixes everything!
It’s weird seeing the Gems and Greg interact, it’s like when two groups of older relatives meet up and you see that there’s this whole different dynamic and history that they have, that may not be as happy as the relationship they both have with you.
That’s part of the reason I (and probably others) recommended this series, it’s kind of an analogy for children learning of past family drama and also puting a positive light on non-traditional family structures.
AND STEVEN!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHHY16MVc3k
I just realized that you notice the oddest things in this show. Like, you didn’t even mention some funny things like Garnet showing her disapproval of Gregs music by jumping out of the van in Ocean Gem but you did noticed the Sailor Moon cameo wich was like 1 second long.
The show isn’t really dark but rather does it take everything regarding relationships very serious. Greg genuinly loves his son so it was understandable why he did that. The show does similiar things later on where you’ll have a hard time hating characters for their actions.
Considering that Greg helped build the house and still is sending money towards it there nothing wrong with him wanting to move in. The gems obviously don’t have jobs beyond being the protectors of humanity. Its worth noting that Pearl is the one is who most vocally opposed to Greg living with them. I expected a mention of Greg thanking Pearl and pearl’s hiding behind Garnet. There is really nothing stopping Steven from hanging out with his dad when he wants.
While I’m glad Doug and Rob acknowledged Greg’s sympathetic motivation (if anyone’s seen the extended Season 2 opening they’ll know that Steven has only relatively recently begun living with the gems full-time) for faking his injury, it still felt like were kinda hard on his character simply for partaking in a narrative trope they generally dislike.
Fun fact during a Reddit AMA Rebecca Sugar actually stated that Greg is her personal favorite character in the series.
I personally think this is a pretty good episode, unlike you I actuall really enjoy episodes focused around Greg, I really like his character since he’s basically as much of a perfect cinnamon roll as Steven, this is like the only episode were he acts genuinely selfish and even then it’s for a perfectly understandable reason.
it’s just so rare to get a dad character in an animated show that isn’t a bumbling idiot, and instead is actually portrayed as a good parent(even if he does make some mistakes), as somebody who has been raised mostly by his dad I approve immensely.
Next up pearl proves to be a much worse parent than Greg.
You will learn more