WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the first four episodes of Steven Universe Future.
The original five-season run of Steven Universe was the story of Steven saving the world through his ability to talk things out and reason with even the most fearsome enemies. It was a story that worked as well as it did because of Steven's innocence, his lack of awareness of his own power and his uncertainty that anything he did would work. Now, Steven is two years older, and his victories have gone to his head a bit.
Steven Universe: The Movie started to chip away at Steven's belief he could save everyone. Steven might have been able to point Spinel on a path towards redemption, but he couldn't redeem her himself; his actions were just a bit too self-serving to become the start of an actual friendship. The first four episodes of Steven Universe Future go further at deconstructing Steven's savior complex, each in their own way.
The season premiere, "Little Homeschool," establishes the new status quo: Steven's been reawakening bubbled Gems one by one and reintroducing them to the new society of Little Homeworld. The one Gem who hasn't been able to assimilate is Jasper, who is living in solitude, still training herself for battle even in peacetime. Steven is trying to recruit her to become a teacher at Little Homeschool. Not only is Jasper still unable to adjust to the new world, but she calls out Steven's motivations for trying to help her as being for his own benefit. Jasper actually develops some grudging respect for Steven when he stops trying to help her and instead tries to fight her. In the end, Steven stills wants Jasper as a teacher, but as a personal trainer instead of dragging her to Little Homeschool.
"Guidance" is a little morality play about the dangers of forcing foreign norms onto members of a different culture. Amethyst is helping Gems chose careers in Beach City, which all end up being similar careers to the ones they had on Homeworld. Steven sees this as them being stuck in their old restricted roles and not embracing the freedom to be anything you want, so he reassigns these Gems to new jobs, which ends in disaster. Ironically in the name of encouraging "freedom," he overrides the Gems' actual personal choices.
"Rose Buds" is the least directly centered on Steven's attempts to save people, instead focused on his feelings about his mom in light of meeting the newly unbubbled Rose Quartz Gems. However, it does show that Steven's desire to be polite and helpful to everyone can get in the way of his own needs; in the name of being charitable, he continually lies to hide his discomfort meeting Gems who remind him so much of his mom. Finally opening up and being honest about his feelings actually eases his relationship with the other Rose Quartzes, who in fact have similarly fraught relationships with Pink Diamond.
In "Volleyball," one of Steven's most reliable powers, his healing spit, fails him. As a nurse, he's repaired many damaged Gems, but he just can't fix the cracks on Pink Diamond's original Pearl (nicknamed "Volleyball" by Steven to distinguish her from the Crystal Gems' Pearl). It turns out Volleyball's damage isn't physical, but psychological, brought on by physical abuse from Pink Diamond. Steven, unable to deal with seeing both Pearls arguing about his mom, accidentally ends up setting off a device to reset them. It's only through the Pearls working through their pasts with Pink together that Volleyball can even begin the process of healing; Steven has nothing to do with it.
Four episodes in, Steven Universe Future is already developing a clear thematic throughline. Picking up the lose ends from the original series, it's working to address criticisms of Steven as a character without betraying the show's essential ethos. Episodes will continue to air each Saturday at 8 p.m. ET/PT throughout December.