April 19, 2016
Hello, blog readers, this is Neil Rush. After weeks of specific assignments with the blog, I am finally able to review something I wanted to review in this blog for a long time- the Gravity Falls series finale, "Weirdmageddon 3", due to the broader nature of this prompt- write about something entertainment-related in general and propose an idea. While not exactly perfect, this was probably the most dramatically effective hour-long episode of the entire series.
Continuing where "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality" left off, after escaping the mindscape bubble, Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy find Stan and an assortment of characters from throughout the show's run holed up in the Mystery Shack, which has been converted into a dark-magic-and-weirdness-proof fallout shelter thanks to the unicorn hair from S2E15 "The Last Mabelcorn". Stan intends on waiting out Weirdmageddon until they run out of food, eat some of the smaller magical creatures if necessary, and hope that maybe something else can stop Bill Cipher's reign of terror, because he's grown too bitter at the world to have the desire to do anything about it himself. Dipper, disgusted that Stan would let the rest of the town that is still frozen and made a part of Bill's stone throne suffer because of his own cowardice, reminds Stan that Ford is still being held prisoner by Bill. Stan shrugs this off and says that it's Ford's fault that Weirdmageddon happened in the first place because of how many of his attempts to keep Bill from making it into the physical world only made it easier for Bill to get into the physical world (apparently Stan has never heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy). A secret news broadcast from inside Bill's base floating above the town, the Fearamid, shows the stone-person-throne and the local news reporter Shandra Jimenez getting turned to stone by one of Bill's eye-bats. The townspeople are mortified to see their loved ones as part of a stone sculpture, such as Wendy's father and brothers and Pacifica's parents, despite her highly strained relationship with them because of their frequent emotional abuse of her, as she agrees that no one deserves to be turned into stone sculptures. Dipper knows that Ford knows Bill's weakness, and he and Mabel give the group a rousing speech to motivate them to fight back against Bill and his monster allies. The group begins to convert the Mystery Shack into a battle machine in order to have a weapon immune to Bill's abilities.
At the top of the Fearamid, in a penthouse suite/study, Ford is removed from his golden statue state but is chained to the floor. Bill sings the public domain song "We'll Meet Again" while playing the piano, playing up his creepiness factor more than ever before. Bill reveals his origins and motivations while fantasizing about the end result of Weirdmageddon. He explains that he lived in a two-dimensional plane and wanted to be free, so he hopes to use his reality warping powers to spread fun and joy (read: chaos, destruction, and horror) to a nearby three-dimensional universe, that one being Dimension 46'\. He even imagines himself drawing a smiley face in the middle of North America, leveling the entire American Midwest in the process. He offers Ford the keys to control the cosmos if Ford tells him how to break the force field around the town confining the town's paranormal activity to the borders of Gravity Falls, but Ford obviously refuses. Bill sets out to find something that Ford cares about enough to make a deal with him for entrance into Ford's mind and find out how far he'll go to protect it.
While the townspeople prepare the Mystery Shack Battle Robot, Dipper, Mabel, and Stan discuss the situation privately. Stan doesn't want to save Ford because of how Ford never thanked him for rescuing him from the multiverse, and is bitter over how Ford is considered the more heroic of the two Stan twins despite his greater responsibility for bringing Weirdmageddon to Gravity Falls. Dipper tells Stan that Ford is the hero because he wouldn't hide when others would, but Stan says that he'd still be alive if he had hid. Once the Shack-tron is all ready, the townspeople launch an assault on the Fearamid. Bill and his allies are trying to torture Ford into revealing the secret to breaking the shield surrounding the town, but Ford refuses to give in. Soos demands the safe return of Ford or else Bill and his friends are in for a beatdown. After a furious but brief fight between the Shack-tron and the monsters. Ford, from a distance, congratulates Dipper and Mabel, making Bill realize that Ford cares about the two of them more than himself, and plans on torturing them. He attempts to destroy the Shack-tron, but it is unharmed because of its immunity to Bill. Bill begins to rapid-fire punch the Shack-tron in a fit of rage, still doing next to nothing to dent the machine. The Shack-tron tears out Bill's eye, giving the townspeople an opportunity to send a handful of them into the Fearamid by rocket-parachute.
Mabel retrieves Ford, who had been turned back into a golden statue briefly, from the throne, but they have no idea how to un-petrify him and the rest of the townspeople frozen in the throne. Gideon, who had been trapped in a cage and forced to dance in a dress for all eternity as punishment for turning on Bill at the end of "Weirdmageddon Part 1", says that the statue of Mayor Tyler Cutebiker is the load-bearer of the throne, and if pulled, the throne will come undone. Tyler is removed from the throne, and Gideon is freed from his cage in the process.
Wendy and Pacifica are reunited with their families, and, in one of the most simultaneously funny, heartwarming, and awkward scenes in the show, Sheriff Blubs is reunited with his cop partner (and ostensible life partner) Deputy Durland, and the two of them declare their undying love for one another. Ford is unfrozen and sees his old friend Old Man McGucket for the first time since he exposed McGucket to the portal and inadvertently drove him insane thirty years before the events of the show. Ford apologizes for what happened to McGucket, and McGucket says, "I've tried forgettin'. (referencing how repeated use of a memory-eraser gun on himself drove him even more insane until he became the crazy hillbilly with a knack for building inventions that appears in the show) Now how about I try forgivin'?" Ford states that Bill's weakness is a special wheel with the image of Bill in the center and ten symbols meant to represent different people, and finds a spray-can to create the image of the wheel. Dipper is meant to represent the pine tree on the wheel because of his hat, Mabel is the shooting star because of her sweater, Stan is the mackerel fish because of his fez hat, Ford is the six-fingered hand because of his, well, six-fingered hands, Wendy is the ice bag because of her cool-as-ice personality, Soos is the question mark because of his T-shirt, McGucket is the pair of glasses because of his scholarly aspirations, Gideon is the pentagram because of the pentagram logo on his old Tent of Telepathy, Robbie is the stitched heart because of his hoodie, and Pacifica is the llama because of the sweater she borrowed from Mabel.
Bill, still fighting the Shack-tron, notices the legs aren't in the shield and tears them off, temporarily defeating the robot. Everyone that has a symbol representing them on the wheel gets on and holds hands, beginning to activate a glowing aura. Stan has not gotten on yet because of his continued bitterness towards Ford, and won't get on until Ford thanks him upfront for saving him. Ford thanks him through clenched teeth, and even corrects Stan for saying "me and him" rather than "him and me". The rest of the people on the wheel can't believe that Stan and Ford would both be so stubborn and petty at this moment of all moments. Stan shoves Ford in anger and breaks the link of the wheel. Bill, with a regenerated eye, appears and laughs at the ten heroes fighting among themselves.
Bill turns Soos, Wendy, Pacifica, McGucket, Gideon, and Robbie into banners hung on the wall of the Fearamid, binds Stan and Ford in ropes, and traps Dipper and Mabel in a triangular prison cell. Bill offers to spare the twins if Ford allows him into his mind, and the twins yell for Ford not to listen to Bill. Mabel sprays Bill in the eye with her own spray-can, giving Stan and Ford another opportunity to escape.
While Bill is distracted, Dipper uses his size-altering flashlight to make the prison cell large enough for him and Mabel to get out through the bars. Once Bill regrows his eye again, he traps Stan and Ford in a cell similar to the one he trapped Dipper and Mabel in, while the twins taunt Bill into chasing them through the halls of the Fearamid. Bill turns into a large, monstrous red-and-yellow form and prepares to kill the twins, saying probably the most horrifying and kid-unfriendly line ever said in the show- "I'VE GOT SOME CHILDREN I'VE GOT TO MAKE INTO CORPSES!"
Stan, while sharing a drink with Ford from what looks like a whiskey hip flask but is probably just a water pouch, expresses guilt for his self-centered behaviors from both the events of "Weirdmageddon 3" and the entire series, and says that he is just as big of a screw-up as his and Ford's father believed he was. Ford regrets that he ever had tried to be Bill's friend like he did during his earlier research in the 1970s, and further laments how bad the relationship between himself and Stan got, wondering how Dipper and Mabel work so well together. Stan says it must be because of their childhood innocence. Ford decides to allow Bill into his mind if it means Dipper and Mabel will live. He also acknowledges that if it weren't for the metal plate Ford put in his head, Stan could erase Ford's mind with Bill inside it, killing him. Stan recommends that Bill goes into his mind, but Ford states that Bill doesn't want anything in Stan's mind and remains adamant in his decision.
Bill eventually catches Dipper and Mabel and brings them back to where Stan and Ford are, preparing to make one or both of them explode. Ford expresses his terms of surrender to Bill, and Bill's physical form turns to stone as he makes the deal with Ford and his mental state goes into Ford's mind... or so he thinks.
Bill realizes too late that he entered Stan's mind, as Stan and Ford switched clothes and pretended to be one another in order to make Bill enter the wrong mind. Ford prepares the memory-erasing gun for erasing Stan's mind, and inside Stan's mind, Bill attempts to frantically call off the deal and begs to give Stan anything he wants in exchange for his life, but Stan won't take the bait, says that the one mistake Bill made was that he messed with his family, and epically one-punches Bill into oblivion. Stan's last thoughts before his mindscape is consumed with blue mind-fire are those of self-reassurance for not being a total screen-up after all.
The effects of Weirdmageddon are undone, the monsters are sucked back into a giant portal, and all of the townspeople are safe and alive. All that remains of Bill is a stone statue with his arm stuck out that begins to gather moss as it sits in the middle of the forest. Stan regains consciousness with total amnesia of everything outside of basic human functions and courtesies. Dipper and Mabel tearfully try to jog Stan's memory, but nothing seems to be working. Ford tells the twins that Stan sacrificed his memories in order to save the world and, now crying himself, tells Stan that he's their hero. They try to sit Stan back in the barely-together Mystery Shack, but he still doesn't remember, and can only say, "Come on, why are all of you so sad? It's like you're all at someone's funeral or something." Alex Hirsch said that a major character would die, and while this wasn't exactly death per se, it almost has the emotional toll of a major character death... for a few minutes.
As Mabel shows Stan pictures from her scrapbook of summer memories, he still can't remember anything until he instinctively calls Waddles and Soos by their names. From there, he seems to get the rest of his memories back within a few minutes. Mayor Tyler Cutebiker passes the "Never Mind All That" act, saying that Blubs and Durland have permission to tase anyone who mentions the events of Weirdmageddon. The two cops say "We're mad with power! AND LOVE!"
The Northwest family has gone broke as a result of Preston Northwest attempting to invest in "weirdness stocks", forcing the Northwests to sell their mansion in order to buy an upper-middle class house. Priscilla says that Pacifica can only afford one pony for her birthday this year, and she reacts with exaggerated shock and horror. McGucket sells his inventions and becomes rich enough to buy the Northwests' mansion and live in it himself. Toby Determined, under his newfound trying-too-hard-to-be-cool persona Bodacious T, invents a new sport called Death Ball and tries to cover it on the local news.
Everyone in town shows up for Dipper and Mabel's thirteenth birthday on August 31st, the last day of summer and the twins' last day in Gravity Falls. Gideon shares that thanks to the twins, he's not going to be an evil psycho-child anymore and will try to be a "normal kid" with a skateboard... albeit one with his own crew of ex-convicts to beat up those that bully him for being fat. Dipper said that at the beginning of the summer, he would've wished for adventure, mystery, and friends, but learned over the summer that he has all of that already. Mabel wishes she could shrink everyone in town down to action-figure size and take them all home, but she settles for everyone signing her scrapbook, and steps on the memory-eraser gun to show her commitment to never forgetting the people in town. Now that they are teenagers, Wendy, Robbie (who no longer resents the twins), Tambry, Nate, Lee, and Thompson chant "One of us! One of us!" to celebrate.
Stan and Ford go off to the side so that Ford can tell Stan about strange anomalies in the Arctic Ocean, and that he wants Stan to explore the oceans with him like they dreamed of as kids. Stan announces that due to his upcoming adventures, he will have to close the Mystery Shack, and declares Soos the new Mr. Mystery and proprietor of the Mystery Shack. Soos's grandma moves in immediately.
After Dipper and Mabel's rooms have been cleared from the Mystery Shack and all that remains is Dipper's papers about his original theories of who the author of the journals was and Waddles' food bowl, the twins and their closest friends and family members are with them at the bus stop right before they leave. Wendy tells Dipper that he means a lot to her, takes his hat while giving him hers so that they can remember each other, and gives him a letter to open next time he misses the town. Waddles is initially thought to not be allowed to come home due to the low likeliness of a pig surviving in the suburbs of Piedmont, California and animals not allowed on the bus, but Stan and Ford "convince" the bus driver to let Waddles on with Dipper and Mabel by flashing their brass knuckles and laser gun at him (because this is totally something you should do when you want your family members to be able to take their pet home with them). Stan, in a tearful way that clearly means the opposite, tells the kids that they were nothing but a nuisance and he's glad to be rid of them. Dipper and Mabel, with tears staining their eyes as well, hug Stan back and say they'll miss him too.
Dipper and Mabel walk onto the bus hand in hand, with this exchange- Dipper- "Ready to head off into the unknown?" Mabel- "Nope! Let's do it!" They wave to their friends and family as they chase the bus for a few steps.
The closing montage shows Soos and his girlfriend, a young woman from Portland named Melody who had her most prominent appearance in S2E05 "Soos and the Real Girl", running the Mystery Shack together and Stan and Ford fighting a Kraken-like creature in the middle of the Arctic Ocean while aboard their new boat, the Stan 'O War II. Dipper's narration states, "If you've ever taken a trip through the Pacific Northwest, you've probably seen a bumper sticker for a place called Gravity Falls. It's not on any maps, and most people have never heard of it. Some people think it's a myth. But if you're curious, don't wait. Take a trip. Find it. It's out there, somewhere in the woods, waiting." As Mabel falls asleep on Dipper's shoulder, Dipper opens the letter Wendy gave him, and it says, "See you next summer!" with signatures from Durland, Schmebulock, Gideon, Lazy Susan, Thompson, Stan, Tyler, Soos, McGucket, Grenda, Nate, Lee, Candy, Robbie, Wendy, Ford, Blubs, and Pacifica. Dipper gives a reassured smile from seeing all of the people that love him as the bus rides off into the sunset. The credits, which are made in a more cinematic style than all of the previous episodes, show pictures of things such as Grenda kissing Marius, her Austrian prince boyfriend, while on a boat with him on vacation, Dipper clones 3 and 4 from S1E07 "Double Dipper", who were never seen again after stealing Robbie's bike in that episode, sitting by a campfire in the forest and avoiding melting in water like all of the other Dipper clones by wearing raincoats, Dipper, Mabel, and Waddles making it safely back to Piedmont, and live-action footage of a Bill statue in the woods, prompting a real-life search for a Bill statue planted in the Redwood Forest.
This was not perfect. The use of the Bill Cipher Wheel was somewhat unsatisfying, given that most of the decisions for who represents each symbol were obvious and that it didn't even work in the end. I think it would be better if it showed Stan will be gradually getting his memories back over time rather than him getting all of them back once, as it made Stan's heroic sacrifice come off as unearned. I also think it might've been nice if it showed Dipper having just-friends endings with the three characters he's been shipped with the most that are the least bizarre- those three people being Wendy, Candy, and Pacifica- with room for him to possibly date one of them as a teenager. I think they could've given Bill deeper motives than what essentially amounts to "I was bored." He is known for having even worse family issues than Stan, and even implied on the Bill Cipher Reddit Ask Me Anything session last year that he is a self-made orphan, another thing way too dark to explicitly state on the show. Lastly, I would've liked to see Blendin Blandin and the Time Baby return for all loose ends involving them to be tied up. Fortunately, many things are to be resolved in what is basically a Gravity Falls Expanded Universe.
When decoded, something Bill says when he's uncontrollably shapeshifting as he's being defeated in Stan's mind is "My time has come to burn! I invoke the ancient power that I may return!" It is decoded with a cipher that reads "Axolotl". An axolotl is a type of water-breathing reptile that is known for reaching adulthood without any type of metamorphosis as a type of regenerating ability. It's a nice sign of just how clever the show's writers are, and a nice way of showing that there are ways in which Bill can return. There are plenty of other mysteries to be solved, from what is Dipper's real name to what make Gravity Falls such a hotbed for paranormal and supernatural activity to what is Ford's connection to Rick Sanchez of Rick and Morty to a variety of other things. A lot is expected to be revealed in Gravity Falls: Journal 3, a hardcover book due out on July 26, 2016 containing 256 pages worth of never-before-told facts about the show. Also coming out that day is "Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure!", a choose-your-own-adventure-style book in which Dipper and Mabel travel through time and space with Blendin. There are plenty of other options for how the story can be continued, from young adult novels to comics or graphic novels published by a special Disney XD imprint of Marvel to a theatrical film to a TV film to an hour-long special to a miniseries to a spin-off series to a prequel series to a sequel series to references in Alex Hirsch's show on Fox to a console video game to a crossover with Rick and Morty (provided it doesn't become too much of a legal hassle between Disney Television Animation and Williams Street). Alex Hirsch has said that this is not the last you'll see of the Pines family, so just be on the lookout for things relating to the show. I know I'll continue the story in fan fiction format with the twins as sixteen-year-olds that have moved back to Gravity Falls for permanent residence in stories that will try to deconstruct and maybe reconstruct some things about the show.
Certain things aside (Alex's Hirsch's attitude at times, some uneven writing, and the fact that it's really not as kid-friendly as it thinks it is), Gravity Falls is one of the better things I've experienced in 2015-16. I didn't become a fan until spring 2015, when I heard about its critical acclaim, and quickly became attached to the characters, humor, and storytelling. The show is the easiest thing for me to write fan fiction for due to my empathy for characters like Dipper, and it has partially influenced how I write "Fanz", as most of what I watch does. In terms of actual quality and production value, it is probably the best thing produced at Disney Television Animation, and in terms of personal favorites, it is my third favorite show made there, behind Kim Possible and Star vs. the Forces of Evil, my thirteenth favorite TV show, and my thirty-second favorite media franchise as of right now. It's action-packed, epic, funny, heartfelt, scary, heartbreaking, emotional, genuine, realistic (as realistic as a show with a pig filling the role of a dog can get, at least), and empathetic. It dared to use plot elements that no other shows, animated Disney shows or not, would use, such as a brother-sister relationship as a platonic alternative to a romantic arc, crossing over nearly every entertainment genre to the point where the show has no real genre, teaching the importance of not stressing romance too much and allowing yourself to act like a kid while you still are one, and that family doesn't have to be an old-fashioned mother-father-handful-of-siblings. It can be your twin sister, your two old great-uncles, their man-child handyman, and their laid-back teenage employee. And if you trust in them and all of the other people that care about you, you can do more than you ever could've thought possible. I do thank Alex Hirsch for making this tasteful diversion from real life, and I wish him the best of luck with making a high-TV-PG-low-TV-14-rated show for Fox, because given his sense of humor, I think he'd be more comfortable in that environment. The adult cartoon environment, I mean, not the network television environment, because you need to be REALLY lucky to keep a show afloat that's not made by Chuck Lorre in that business model. Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next week, most likely with something not related to Gravity Falls. Stay weird, fallers.
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