October 27, 2015
Hello, blogosphere, this is Neil again. I did an episode review of Gravity Falls Season 2 Episode 17, "Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future", last week before learning that no blog post will be due on October 20, 2015, simply because my teacher felt like giving my CMT class a break week. The next episode, "Weirdmageddon Part 1" will have aired the night before this one is due, October 27, 2015, which I don't see as enough time for me to write a review on that one. I'll review that one for next week's post that would be due November 3, 2015, but for now, I'm going to make a Top 10 list of my personal favorite episodes.
I didn't become a Gravity Falls fan until this past spring when I began to watch more Disney XD because of my expanded interest in animation and desire to go into that field as a career, but once I was in, I was all in. Centered around twin siblings Dipper and Mabel Pines (voiced by Jason Ritter and Kristen Schaal, respectively), it follows their adventures in the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, where they've been sent to spend the summer before they turn thirteen with their great-uncle, or "Grunkle" Stan Pines (voiced by series creator Alex Hirsch), the ex-con owner of the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap/museum/gift shop that they live above. Stan may have very gray ethics, but he is kept on the side of good by his love of his great-nephew and great-niece. Dipper discovers three journals that contain information of all of the mysteries, monsters, ghosts, and everything discovered by their author, who is eventually revealed to be Stan's estranged twin brother, also named Stan, but he goes by Ford (as in Stanley and Stanford) (voiced by J. K. Simmons) to avoid confusion. In spite of their opposing personalities, Dipper and Mabel are best friends that love each other to the end. They spend the summer learning lessons about growing up, such as Dipper learning how to overcome his awkward crush on Wendy Corduroy (voiced by Linda Cardellini), the mellow and cool teenage girl that (apathetically so) runs the cash register at the Mystery Shack, and Mabel learning how to be not as self-centered in her quest for fun and boys. In three years (ironically set all over one summer of 2012), it became the smartest, funniest, most epic, most heartwarming, saddest, darkest, scariest, most innately progressive without being excessively preachy, creative, most mature and realistic, boundary-pushing, and all-around best animated series produced at Disney Television Animation in the 2010s. These ten episodes are the ones I find to be my personal favorites.
Honorable Mentions- S1E01 "Tourist Trapped" for starting it all, S1E04 "The Hand That Rocks The Mabel" for establishing Gideon Gleeful as one of the show's main antagonists, S1E05 "The Inconveniencing" for establishing Dipper and Wendy's precocious-crush-friendship, S1E07 "Double Dipper" for establishing Candy and Grenda, Mabel's two best friends for the summer, and Pacifica Northwest, Mabel and Dipper's spoiled-rich-girl frenemy, as characters, S1E09 "The Time Traveler's Pig" for establishing Blendin Blandin and Waddles as characters, S1E15 "The Deep End" for its fun pool-related plots, S1E16 "Carpet Diem" for its humor, playing with the body-switching story trope, and providing a conflict between Dipper and Mabel that they have to settle and make up on by the end, S1E17 "Boyz Crazy" for satirizing boy bands and when girls become too obsessed with them, S2E01 "Scary-oke" for introducing Agent Powers (guest-voiced by Nick Offerman) and Agent Trigger as characters, S2E02 "Into The Bunker" for being the darkest episode yet up to that point, guest-starring Mark Hamill as the shape-shifter, and allowing Dipper an opportunity to move on from Wendy, S2E06 "Little Gift Shop Of Horrors" for astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson guest-starring as "Smart Waddles" and showing just how creepy the show can get when it breaks the fourth wall, involving the viewer being turned into an exhibit at the Mystery Shack, S2E07 "Society of the Blind Eye" for making Old Man McGucket's involvement in the story more important and having some of the funniest (read: boundary-pushing) jokes in the entire series, S2E08 "Blendin's Game" for its realistically heartbreaking depiction of Soos having a dad that doesn't care to be involved in his life, S2E09 "The Love God" for giving Robbie character development and its parody of the Woodstock festival, S2E10 "Northwest Manor Mystery" for being one of the creepiest episodes of all and for giving Pacifica character development to turn from a stereotypical blonde mean girl to one of the good guys and a possible love interest for Dipper, and S2E16 "Roadside Attraction" for establishing Emma Sue as a playful quasi-love interest for Dipper, and she is my favorite possible love interest for Dipper, even if she's only a one-time character.
#10.) S1E10 "Fight Fighters". In this one, Robbie Valentino (voiced by T. J. Miller), Wendy's emo-goth-rocker-teenager stereotype boyfriend for the first season and Dipper's arch-rival calls Dipper out and challenges him to a fight. Keep in mind that Dipper is twelve and Robbie is either fifteen or sixteen. Most teens would laugh off a preteen that had a crush on their girlfriend, and Robbie does that as well, but he must see Dipper as a threat to his relationship with Wendy because of how Wendy, even though she obviously doesn't romantically like Dipper back, always tries to be nice to him, enjoys hanging out with him, and always stands up for him when Robbie bullies him. Because Dipper is a preteen with no muscle, he uses a special cheat code to summon a character from a game at the local arcade, Fight Fighters (an obvious parody of the video game series Street Fighter), the character being the main one, Rumble McSkirmish, to intimidate Robbie into not fighting Dipper. Rumble is a hilarious over-the-top parody of every fighting game character stereotype ever. He's hilariously overconfident, talks in a voice that mixes William Shatner syntax with old karate movie dialogue, and offers to help Dipper after he lies and says that Robbie killed Dipper's father, and thinks that himself and everyone that he allies himself with is seeking vengeance for their dead father. Dipper hopes that Rumble will intimidate Robbie into leaving him alone and possibly breaking up with Wendy, but Rumble instead proceeds to attempt to beat Robbie to death. Dipper now has to do the last thing that he'd ever want to do- save Robbie- in order to keep Wendy still liking him, as she would probably not be too happy to find out that Dipper was indirectly responsible for her boyfriend's untimely-yet-bizarrely-comical-to-the-audience death, and she even said she would hate to see her boys fight. Dipper admits to Rumble that Robbie didn't kill his father and fights Rumble in Robbie's place. He loses horribly, but Rumble's victory causes a game-over that turns him back into code. Robbie decides that it's not worth it to fight someone who's openly willing to accept a beating without fear, and they decide that, for Wendy's sake, they'll hate each other in secret, "like girls do", and pretend to laugh together when hanging out with Wendy while making angry gestures at each other when Wendy's back is turned. The video game references in this were really clever, and the absolute insanity the episode escalated to made this one of my favorite episodes.
#9.) S2E11 "Not What He Seems". This was quite the episode. Government agents come to arrest Stan under conspiracy to build a doomsday device. While they know that their great-uncle is a crook, Dipper and Mabel would never expect Stan to destroy the universe for kicks. They escape being sent to child services to sneak back into the Mystery Shack, which is now under government surveillance. Meanwhile, Stan uses the gravity anomalies caused by the portal under the Shack to escape the government agents that have arrested him and get back to the Shack in time for what he wants to be there for. Dipper, Mabel, and their friend Soos (also voiced by Alex Hirsch), the Mystery Shack's handyman and a man-child who is very close to the twins and admires Stan like a father figure due to the lack of one in his childhood, get under the Shack and find a variety of things that cause them to lose trust in Stan, such as a box full of fake IDs that he had assumed over the years and an old newspaper saying that Stan Pines had died in a car crash. They find the portal and attempt to shut it off, but Stan gets there just in time to yell for them to not touch it. The final gravity anomaly goes off before the portal does what Stan wants it to do, and everyone but Mabel gets pinned against the walls by cables. Mabel is floating on a cable in front of the switch that would turn the portal off, and while Stan tries to convince her to let it go, Dipper is positive that he's lying and begs Mabel to turn it off. Mabel looks into Stan's pleading eyes and lets the portal go. It doesn't destroy the universe (though Stan knew full well that it could, which is why throughout Season 1, he makes plenty of offhanded remarks about preparing for the apocalypse), but it brings someone into this dimension- Stan's twin brother. This was the episode that set up all of the other epic moments of Season 2, which makes it one of my favorites.
#8.) S2E12 "A Tale Of Two Stans". This was the extended flashback episode that established the character of Ford Pines. Originally believed to be nothing more than a fan theory, no one ever believed that the concept of Stan's twin brother would ever be worked into the story, let alone be made into one of the most important characters on the show. Stan and Ford had a relationship similar to Dipper and Mabel when they were kids living in a New Jersey beach town in the 1960s, but the fear of Ford leaving for a better college than him made Stan make a rash decision (ruining a project of Ford's) that cost him what little love from his parents he had and the trust of his brother, forcing him to become a conman and sending him down a path that got him banned from the entire East Coast and got him put in multiple Latin-American prisons. Meanwhile, Ford became a success regardless, and wrote the three journals that contained all of the information on the things discovered in the town. He tried building a portal to another dimension with his friend and colleague, Fiddleford McGucket, but when trying it out for the first time, Fiddleford was very clearly scarred from seeing some disturbing things on the other side, which began his descent into madness and becoming the town's crazy hillbilly Old Man McGucket. Ford calls Stan up to get rid of the journals for him, fearing what he has brought upon the world, but, furious that his brother would call him up after having not seen him for so long only to tell him to get as far away from him as possible, Stan gets in a fight with Ford and accidentally gets him sucked into the portal. Stan spent the next thirty years trying to bring Ford back and decided to live under the name of Stanford Pines (Ford's full name) rather than Stanley Pines (his real name) to avoid attracting the cops (yet still committed crimes in his brother's name), and fake a car crash to make the police believe that Stanley was dead. He converted Ford's lab into the Mystery Shack and set the events of the series in motion. Whether it's for almost destroying the universe, stealing his name and giving him a criminal record, or because of what happened between them all those years ago, Ford isn't quite ready to accept Stan back as his brother, and, out of hurt and in response, Stan tells Ford to stay away from the kids. Mabel begins to fear that hers and Dipper's relationship will "get stupid" like Stan and Ford's did, but Dipper tells her not to worry about it. This episode was one of the boldest and most dramatic episodes of the show, and I hope another one like it is done soon.
#7.) S2E13 "Dungeons, Dungeons, And More Dungeons". This was made even funnier by how I had started playing Dungeons And Dragons with a group of friends around the time this episode first aired. In this one, Dipper gets a game of Dungeons, Dungeons, And More Dungeons, the show's in-universe parody of Dungeons And Dragons, in the mail and gets Ford to play with him after Mabel and Stan both seem to act insulted by the game's existence (there's thinking that what your brother/great-nephew likes that you don't is lame, and then there's the kinds of overreactions that Mabel and Stan do) and Soos expresses a preference for FCLORPing (Foam And Cardboard Life Operating Role-Playing), a parody of LARPing (Live-Action Role-Playing). After a brief fight over what is lamer- Dungeons, Dungeons, And More Dungeons or Duck-tective, a cartoon Mabel and Stan like about a mystery-solving duck, Ford's Infinity-Sided Die, a die he got during his travels through the multiverse that has mystical properties, hits the box and brings the game's wizard, Probabilitor The Annoying (guest voiced by comedy musical artist "Weird Al" Yankovic), to life. Probabilitor captures Dipper and Ford and attempts to eat their brains, so Mabel and Stan have to play a game of Dungeons, Dungeons, And More Dungeons against Probabilitor to save them. After Probabilitor is defeated, the gang watches Duck-tective together and learns that Duck-tective has a twin brother, agreeing that the "mysterious twin brother reveal" trope is overused. Soos even says he knew this would happen a year ago. This is a reference to how the "Stan's Twin Brother" fan theory that was eventually made canon is actually pretty old, originating shortly after the end of Season 1 in August 2013. This was one of the funniest and most meta episodes ever aired. It is probably the most accurate depiction of a tabletop RPG in mainstream media that I've seen. The episode essentially turns Duck-tective into the in-universe equivalent of the show Gravity Falls, with Stan even saying that a lot of stuff goes over kids' heads and Grenda saying that she doesn't get most of the humor but enjoys watching cute cartoon animals do human things. Not the most important episode in the swing of things, though it does hint at the eventual importance of the interdimensional rift bubble and show that as Dipper and Ford grow closer and Mabel and Stan do the same, Dipper and Mabel grow further apart. This also established that the show is set in the dimension known as Dimension 46'\ in the multiverse, which I think was an indirect shoutout to Rick and Morty, a show on Adult Swim made by Alex Hirsch's friend Justin Roiland that returned for Season 2 around the initial airing of this episode and it's implied is set in the same multiverse as Gravity Falls. Definitely try to watch it if you're a fan of tabletop RPGs.
#6.) S2E14 "The Stanchurian Candidate". Stan is going through a mid-life crisis. Not much is going his way, and Ford seems to be the preferred great-uncle with the Pines family and Mystery Shack employees. Conveniently enough for him, Mayor Befufflefumpter, the 102-year-old mayor of the town, has died of old age overnight, and an open running for mayor is going across the town. Stan decides to run to feel liked again and to keep Bud Gleeful, Gideon's dad, from becoming mayor and using his political power to get Gideon out of prison so that he can take his revenge on the Pines family and once more rule over Gravity Falls with Mabel as his queen. Dipper and Mabel know that Stan lacks a filter and has no idea how to say the things that will make people like him, so Ford gives the twins a mind-control tie to make him the perfect candidate. When Stan learns that he's been being controlled, he fires the twins as his campaign managers and tries to go it alone. Dipper and Mabel decide to make Soos their candidate to stop Bud, who is also being mind-controlled by Gideon at this point. When Gideon/Bud ties Dipper and Mabel up in a monument to the previous mayor full of explosives, Stan throws the election to save the twins, which gives him enough praise to win... until his criminal record is taken into account, and they have to elect the only person who actually filled out the mayoral paperwork- local enthusiasm enthusiast Tyler Cutebiker (voiced by Will Forte), whose catchphrase is multiple variations of the phrase, "Git'em! Giiiiiiit'em!" Meanwhile, Gideon reveals a Bill Cipher Wheel hidden under a poster in his prison cell and expresses a desire to make another deal with him. This had plenty of funny political satire, made even funnier by some blatant references to Ronald Reagan (Ford apparently used the tie to help with his campaign in the 70s and 80s, which could definitely make Ford seem like more of a villain depending on your personal beliefs on Reagan) and the fact that this was around the time Donald Trump entered the running for the 2016 presidential candidacy and was making outlandish remarks of equal and/or greater absurdity to nearly everything Stan said. It also sets up a new alliance between Gideon and Bill in the future, which now seems like will happen in the upcoming three-part Season 2 finale. Sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction.
#5.) S2E05 "Soos And The Real Girl". This was the first Gravity Falls episode I saw in its entirety, so that definitely helps it be one of my favorites. Soos needs a date to go with him to his cousin Reggie's wedding, and nearly every woman he talks to runs away from him in fear because of his immaturity and absolute inability to talk and act like an adult. He buys a dating simulator computer game, "Romance Academy 7" to use to practice, and begins to communicate with the anime-style girl in the game, .GIFfany. It is revealed, however, that .GIFfany is actually alive within the game and wants Soos to be her actual boyfriend, and becomes possessive and stalks him even outside of the game as a result. Soos initially wants to date .GIFfany because she is the only girl to ever like him back and she's predictable, but Dipper and Mabel remind Soos that he can't take a computer game as his date to his cousin's wedding. He meets a young woman who is immature in a similar nature to himself, and kind and playful to Soos because of it, named Melody (guest voiced by comedy actress Jillian Bell), and asks her on a date to Hoot-Hoot The Owl's Pizza Place, the in-universe Chuck E. Cheese parody, which she happily accepts. Soos attempts to break up with .GIFfany, which she does not take well at all. .GIFfany follows Soos to his date with Melody and takes over the animatronics at the restaurant, forcing Soos, Dipper, Mabel, and Melody to fight the animatronics. .GIFfany tries to upload Soos's mind into a computer so that they can spend eternity together, but Soos "kills" .GIFfany by throwing the game disc for "Romance Academy 7" into the restaurant's pizza oven. Soos is afraid that Melody won't like him anymore after how bad that date went, but Melody says that she's had worse dates (and that you should never date a magician), but she has to go back up to her home in Portland. She offers to stay in touch with him over computer, and while Soos is hesitant to date a girl he can only communicate with through a computer again, he accepts her offer because while Melody is a woman-child, that's perfect for Soos, and she's not grossly possessive like .GIFfany. The references to Japanese culture were all really sharp and you'd have to be pretty well-versed in it to get them, such as when Soos says that .GIFfany's father is an octopus-man. This episode will probably always crack me up whenever I see it.
#4.) S2E15 "The Last Mabelcorn". While I don't like Mabel's story in this episode because it may have been meant as a criticism of those who don't like Mabel as much as Alex Hirsch, Dipper and Ford's story is one of the most intense plots the show has done so far. It begins with Ford having a nightmare in which Bill Cipher (voiced by Alex Hirsch), the interdimensional triangular dream demon with reality-warping abilities that plans on bringing the apocalypse upon the world just for his idea of fun, taunts Ford about his plans almost coming to fruition and says that Ford's efforts to keep Bill in the Nightmare Realm won't last forever. Ford sends Mabel to find unicorn hair, which will help them make a shield around the Shack that will keep Bill from possessing anyone inside. Dipper and Ford go to a secret room under the Shack that not even Stan knows about even after living in it for thirty years, and Ford prepares to "Bill-proof" Dipper's mind. The process is taking too long for Dipper's liking, so he tries to learn Ford's thoughts. Due to a bunch of Bill-themed tapestries in the room and Ford's foggy glasses and ominous manner of speaking, Dipper believes that Bill and Ford are in an alliance and that Ford is now a willing vessel of Bill's. Dipper takes a nearby memory-erasing gun and attempts to use it to "kill" Bill by erasing him from Ford's head. The beam ricochets off of Ford's glasses, and it's quickly revealed that Ford is only acting this way because his glasses are foggy and he's not possessed by Bill. He reveals his history with Bill and talks about how he initially believed that Bill was a benevolent spirit until his true nature was revealed and that he wants to destroy the universe. Mabel, Candy, Grenda, and Wendy return with the unicorn hair, which they use to make a shield around the Shack to protect them from being possessed by Bill. Of course, because Bill is almost always watching everything that goes on in the town from the Nightmare Realm, Bill is not phased by being shut out from the ability to possess Dipper, Mabel, Stan, or Ford, and says that if he can't possess anyone inside the Shack, he'll just have to possess someone on the outside, and his eye turns into a roulette wheel flashing images of all of the characters not in the Pines family that are available for him to turn into a pawn in his game. This episode shows just how unhinged Bill is and establishes him as one of the scariest villains in fiction today.
#3.) S2E04 "Sock Opera". Another episode to feature Bill. Dipper and Mabel are trying to crack the code to a laptop they found in the bunker two episodes earlier that is supposed to reveal many of the town's secrets, but none of the passwords that Dipper can think of are working, and Mabel won't help because she's distracted by trying to put on a sock puppet rock opera to impress her newest crush, a sock puppet enthusiast named Gabe (guest-voiced by Jorma Taccione of the comedy rap group The Lonely Island). Bill comes and offers to "help" Dipper in exchange for a "puppet", and convinces Dipper to make a deal with him by reminding him of all of the times Dipper was guilted into sacrificing his desires for Mabel and how she almost never returns the favor. The "puppet" Bill chooses, however, is Dipper's body. Dipper is now a ghost, and Bill is masochistically abusing Dipper's body now that he's in it and destroys the laptop. Dipper has to get Mabel's attention so that she can help him keep "Bipper" from getting Journal 3. Mabel almost gives Bill the journal when told that he will ruin the show, but when Bill boasts by saying "I mean, who would sacrifice everything for their dumb sibling?" Mabel responds with "Dipper would." She gets in a pretty rough fight with Bill and takes advantage of knowing all of the weak spots in Dipper's body and his apparent lack of knowledge and/or disregard for the human body's limitations. Bill can no longer remain in Dipper's fatigued body and is sent back to the Nightmare Realm, giving Dipper an opportunity to get back in his body. With the show ruined, Gabe won't speak to Mabel anymore, but after seeing Gabe make out with the puppets on his hands, Mabel decides that she probably dodged a bullet with him. Mabel may have her weirdness about her, but she's not romantically attracted to inanimate objects, and wouldn't want to date anyone that is. Mabel apologizes to Dipper for letting herself get distracted by a dumb guy "when the dumb guy I should care about is you." Dipper is appreciative of Mabel acknowledging this, but feels the need to get to a hospital immediately because of how Bill mutilated everything on his body that he possibly could when he was in control of Dipper's body. With Bill breaking into the real world through his possession tactics, the writers acknowledging that there's a little unevenness in the amount of times Dipper has had to give up his dreams for Mabel's happiness in the first season versus how many times Mabel has had to do it for Dipper and how it made many fans think that the writers were unfairly favoring Mabel with minimal justification and the writers showing that they, at least sometimes, are willing to admit that Mabel's not perfect, and some pretty funny jokes with Gabe, this is definitely one of the best episodes of the entire series.
#2.) S2E17 "Dipper And Mabel vs. The Future". This started out lighthearted, became really sad, and then became downright horrifying at the end. Dipper and Ford search for alien glue in an old UFO wreckage site and fight security drones that attempt to take Ford back to the planet of the UFO's origin. Dipper uses cleverness, resourcefulness, bravery, and his love of Ford to destroy the drones and save Ford. Ford wants Dipper to be his apprentice and stay behind while Mabel goes home at the end of the summer, which is only a week away, and while Dipper is initially hesitant to leave Mabel, Dipper decides to do so after feeling like a true hero from saving Ford (and seeing a larger reflection of himself in the destroyed drone, which can be a pretty strong confidence-builder). Meanwhile, Mabel prepares for Dipper and Mabel's thirteenth birthday party, which they'll throw on their birthday, the last day of summer, August 31. She tries to set up in the high school gym, but high school registrations keep that from happening, and Wendy telling Mabel horror-stories from high school lowers her high expectations of high school. To make matters worse, Candy and Grenda will be out of town for Dipper and Mabel's birthday weekend, preventing them from celebrating with her and from wishing her goodbye before she goes home for the summer. Stan comforts Mabel and reminds her that, unlike him, she'll always have her twin brother by her side through all of the hardships of life, which initially cheers her up, until she overhears Dipper agreeing to be Ford's apprentice over walkie-talkie. Dipper tries to tell Mabel about this best day of his life, but Mabel tells Dipper that this was the worst day of her life, and the worst part was hearing that her brother, the one person that's supposed to be there for her no matter what, is going to leave her for this, and how it comes off as a backstab. Dipper says that he'll stay in touch with Mabel and regularly visit and that things can't be the same forever, but Mabel won't hear any of it and runs into the forest crying. Mabel, while in "Sweater-Town", meaning pulling her sweater over her head, wishes that summer could last forever. Blendin Blandin (voiced by Justin Roiland, an animator and voice actor that is close personal friends and colleagues with Alex Hirsch, having worked with him on Cartoon Network's The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Disney Channel's Fish Hooks, and who created Adult Swim's Rick and Morty, which Alex Hirsch has guest-starred on and Easter eggs referencing Gravity Falls have appeared in Rick and Morty) a time traveler that was initially an enemy to the Pines twins until S2E08 "Blendin's Game", when they spared his life, reinstated his job at the Time Anomaly Removal Crew, and got him his hair back, appears and offers to, in return for everything she and Dipper have done for him, allow summer to last as long as she wants. All he needs is the time bubble. Because Mabel accidentally took Dipper's backpack rather than her own while running out, she has the time bubble, which had not yet been sealed by Dipper and Ford's alien glue, and gives it to Blendin. Blendin begins to laugh maniacally and smashes the bubble, taking off his goggles and revealing himself to be possessed by Bill. Mabel begs "Bill-din" to stop, but he snaps his fingers to make Mabel pass out. Bill leaves Blendin's body, now that he can exist in the physical world, and flies up to the sky and proudly declares that the world is finally his and that the prophecy a billion years in the making has finally come to pass. Dipper and Ford run outside to watch in horror as "Weird-mageddon" begins. The image that appears over the credits is of an invitation to Dipper and Mabel's thirteenth birthday party laying on the ground as screams of horror and cracks of thunder are heard in the background before the invitation finally blows away in the nightmare-wind. This had some pretty funny jokes, such as a tongue-in-cheek reference to High School Musical. Wendy- High school is the worst. Classes get super-hard, your body totally turns against you, and worst of all, everybody hates you! Mabel- Really? Why aren't they singing songs about following their dreams? TV told me that high school was like some kind of musical. Wendy- TV lied, dude! Enough time has passed that Disney is willing to make fun of its most infamous asset from the mid-2000s, and most kids know now that high school isn't all "we're all in this together", so that made this exchange even better. While not exactly paralleling Stan and Ford's relationship falling apart, Mabel and Dipper's relationship falling apart also came from their own flaws and their lack of empathy for their twin sibling, both ways. And Mabel accidentally destroying the world because of her fear of change is one of the darkest emotional gut-punches the show could go for. This will definitely set up the next three episodes, the Weirdmageddon trilogy.
#1.) S1E19 "Dreamscapers" and S1E20 "Gideon Rises". These two episodes made a two-part Season 1 finale, which is why I included them together. The first part is Bill's first appearance, in which Gideon makes a deal with Bill to go into Stan's mind and look for the code to the safe with the deed to the Mystery Shack inside it in exchange for Gideon helping Bill later. We learn the extent of Bill's creepiness when he uses his powers to rip the teeth out of a deer's mouth, give them to Gideon to freak him out, and then put them back as if nothing ever happened. Dipper is feeling down about Stan always making him do the heavy lifting around the Shack, and when he, Mabel, and Soos go into Stan's Mindscape to stop Bill, with all of Stan's memories in it, and Dipper mishears a memory of Stan's saying that he just doesn't like Dipper because of his scrawniness, Dipper decides not to help anymore, but once hearing the memory in its entirety and learning that Stan is hard on Dipper because that's how Stan's father was with him and he wants to prepare him for a cold and hard world, Dipper loves Stan again and even learns that anything you imagine in the Dreamscape is possible. Because Mabel and Soos cost Bill the code and made Gideon call off the deal he made with Bill, Bill has a massive fight with the two of them, and when it seems like nothing will defeat Bill, Dipper returns and tells Mabel and Soos to just imagine themselves with any abilities of their choosing to beat Bill. They are too evenly matched, so Bill stops the fight and says "A great darkness approaches. A day will come where everything you care about will change. Until then, I'll be watching you. I'LL BE WATCHING YOU..." They wake up from Stan's Dreamscape only to learn that Gideon has the deed to the Shack, which begins Part 2. The Pines's try to expose Gideon's fraudulence and scheming, but Gideon paints the Pines's as the bad guys and makes them social pariahs in the town. They try living with Soos and his grandma, but that's not the best way for them to live, and after another fight with Gideon, Gideon takes Journal 3 from Dipper and says that he's nothing without the journal. Gideon plans on destroying the Shack and building a "Gideonland" theme park over its remains. This takes away all hope for the good guys, and the twins are sent back to California on a bus. Gideon thinks he is victorious, but learns that he has Journal 3 and not Journal 1, and, believing that Dipper has Journal 1, chases the bus that the twins are on in a giant robot he's controlling. Upon learning that Dipper doesn't have Journal 1, he tosses him aside and prepares to rule over the town with Mabel as his queen. Initially appearing to be without hope, having a bloody nose and just a kid whose sister has been taken by a psycho kid in a giant robot, Dipper walks back into the forest, appearing to be on the verge of tears... until he runs out of the forest and jumps through the eye of the robot, which is being controlled by Gideon in a motion-capture suit, and physically fights Gideon, even making Gideon punch his robot with his own fist. The robot crashes, and Mabel saves Dipper from being in a particularly bad wreck with her grappling hook. When the townspeople arrive at the area that the robot was destroyed at, Gideon tells them that Dipper and Mabel tried to kill him and demands that they be arrested, but Stan exposes Gideon by pointing out that he heard a ringing in his hearing aid, took a closer look, and learned that the pins that Gideon gave the townspeople are actually miniature video cameras that he has been using to spy on the townspeople and learn their secrets to use in his psychic acts and be like Big Brother. Gideon is arrested for conspiracy and breaking the townspeople's hearts. Stan takes the journals from the wreckage, and Dipper tries to get them back, but Mabel tells Dipper that he doesn't need them because of all of the heroic things he's done over the summer, and that he's destined for great things with or without the journals. Stan takes the journals to the basement and puts them with Journal 1, and now that he has all three, he activates a machine and says, "Here we go." When you know everything that happens after this, it doesn't have the exact same desired punch as it might've, but that doesn't make it any less well-made. These two episodes are everything the show should be- funny, epic, and heart-felt, and set up what the rest of the series has to hold.
So what happens next? The next few episodes, the Weirdmageddon trilogy, are going to be the boldest episodes of the show, as far as I can tell. Bill is bringing chaos upon the world and nothing will ever be the same. No matter what, I think that this show will be wrapped up neatly, and while I don't always like Alex Hirsch as a person, I think that he created one of the better shows out there now, and, at the very least, find it to be good material for inspiration within my own works. I may make some original stories on the Internet featuring their characters, but all slightly older, and living in the town of Gravity Falls year-round and not just in the summer. One of my original characters in my original production, "Fanz", is essentially Bill Cipher in the body of a Care Bear. Much of the humor in "Fanz" is similar to Gravity Falls, though I like to think of it as more TV-PG-LSV than the barely TV-Y7 of Gravity Falls. The show also taught me that, in the future, Disney XD may be more willing to air TV-PG-rated shows because of its increasingly more boundary-pushing content, and I would definitely like to get "Fanz" on Disney XD with a TV-PG-LSV rating, if I can. So put on a pine tree hat, bury your gold, and give praise to your cipher masters and watch Gravity Falls- on at least once a day on Disney XD at various times, or on Xfinity On Demand, iTunes, Google Play TV, or the Watch Disney XD app on iTunes and Apple TV. Thank you for reading, and see you next time with my review of "Weirdmageddon Part 1".
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