December 8, 2015
Hello, blogosphere, this is Neil. After a little more than a month, I can finally write my review of "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality", the penultimate episode of Gravity Falls Season 2, and to an extent, the series as a whole, because after this, one last hour-long (44-minute-long) special will conclude the series when it airs in either the end of December or in early 2016. There are multiple good and bad things about this. On one hand, it's disappointing to see the show end just as I'm getting into it. On another, it makes sense, seeing as how the show has reached its natural end. It's the end of the summer, end of the world, end of Dipper and Mabel's childhood, and aliens have been introduced into the plot, which Alex Hirsch once compared to talking to God (allegedly), so I don't think that they can go any higher without going into really contrived territory. Some ideas that fans have considered were making the show about traveling through time, space, or the multiverse to try to stop Bill's plans before they can happen; and another was about Dipper and Ford studying new paranormal, supernatural, and pseudoscientific things together, almost like a slightly more family-friendly version of Rick and Morty, the show made by Alex's friend Justin Roiland and that he may do more for after the end of Gravity Falls. However, I think that no matter how spectacular an idea for Season 3 may sound on paper, it won't be a good idea in practice. The story has reached its natural end, and attempting to drag the story out and make it do more than it was meant to could ruin its good name. Alex Hirsch knows what's best for his show, and even if it means disappointing his fans, they'd be more disappointed if he looked like a sellout. As long as they can tie up as many loose ends as forty-four minutes will allow while also providing a satisfying, emotional, and optimistic conclusion, I'll be happy with the end. Gravity Falls had a good run, but its end is for the best. Now, without further delay, I shall review Gravity Falls Episode 219 "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality."
Despite how it was advertised, Bill was not in this episode much. His only two scenes can be described as one, that's how little he appeared. Bill prepares to spread Weirdmageddon past Gravity Falls, only to learn that Weirdmageddon is confined to Gravity Falls by a mystical dome surrounding the town. This is one of the few times we see Bill mad, leading him to say this meme-starter- "Can anyone please tell me why in spite of our INFINITE POWER, we can't get past the borders of this STUPID HICK TOWN?!?!?!?!?!" Bill thinks that Ford may have something to do with it, and considers removing him from the statue-backscratcher state Bill put him in. It's not nearly enough Bill as expected, but at least the main story makes up for it.
Dipper, Soos, and Wendy go into Mabel's prison bubble and find a bizarre world full of things Mabel liked from throughout the series called "Mabelland". They think Mabel is being held against her will there and find her at the top of the tallest tower, only to learn that she has made herself the mayor of Mabelland and loves it there, as it is a perfect place in which nothing bad happens to her and she can have whatever she wants. Still feeling angry at Dipper for expressing a consideration to leave her and become Ford's apprentice, she tells everyone that she made "a backup Dipper with a more supportive attitude"- an idealized clone of Dipper stylized after Kid Vid from the late-80s-early-90s Saturday morning Burger King Kids Club commercials named Dippy-Fresh. He speaks in stereotypical 90s skater talk, and his favorite things are skateboarding, supporting Mabel, and giving high-fives after anything he says. Dipper hates Dippy-Fresh upon seeing him (and how could he not? How would you feel if your sister not only replaced you because she's too emotionally immature to handle when you disagree with her and when you want to follow your dreams that just happen to be away from her, but this replacement of you is a total choad?) and even says "You're dead to me, Soos." when Soos's always-positive attitude makes him too dumb-nice to know better than to high-five Dippy-Fresh. Dipper, Soos, and Wendy try to convince Mabel to come back to reality, but Mabel gives Wendy and Soos fantasies to make them happy and forget their problems- a monster truck with Wendy's friends in it wanting to duct-tape the high school's principal to the high school's ceiling, and an idealized imagining of Soos's dad that looks like a luchador willing to play catch with Soos (given how the story of Soos and his dad is that of an absentee-deadbeat-dad story, I found this to be almost cruel of the writers). Mabel says that it shouldn't matter if it's not real as long as her friends and family are happy, but Dipper doesn't want to fall for Bill's tricks and refuses to look when Mabel tries to conjure up a happy fantasy for him. Dipper sits by a baby-giggling lake and a singing stuffed animal tree in Mabelland, disgusted with the horror-show outside the bubble and the fake, girly happiness inside it, until Wendy comes up to him, seemingly bored with hanging out with her friends. Wendy tells Dipper that he's so much smarter than everyone else in town, and that if he were fifteen, he'd be the perfect boyfriend for her. She says that in this bubble world, you can have anything you want, including being any age you want, and outstretches her hand, offering Dipper the ability to turn fifteen. Dipper almost happily accepts, having wanted a decent way to date Wendy ever since the beginning of summer (or at least since E105 "The Inconveniencing"), but seeing Wendy wink like the shapeshifter in the form of Wendy at it did in E202 "Into The Bunker" reminds Dipper that this is not the real Wendy, which she most certainly isn't. She's a creation of Bill's and the bubble world's, and falls apart as soon as Dipper rejects her. The stuffed animal tree's face briefly turns demonic and says "You shouldn't have done that, Dipper..!" before going back to its normal cheery state. Dipper now decides that he needs to try even harder than before to bring Mabel back to the real world. Upon hearing the real world be mentioned, the citizens of Mabelland all freak out upon hearing the one rule of the place be broken- mentioning reality. Mabel is so infuriated that she takes hers and Dipper's argument to court in Mabelland. The judge is Judge Kitty-Kitty-Meow-Meow-Face-Schwartzstein, an anthropomorphic pink cat guest-voiced by Jon Stewart, Alex Hirsch's comedic idol, doing his Southern judge voice. He gets distracted by yarn and has a tendency to hairball, but he doesn't let that get in the way of his job. The case is that of Fantasy V. Reality. If Dipper, representing Reality, wins, Mabel will return to the real world with him. If Mabel, representing Fantasy, wins, Dipper will be removed from Mabelland and replaced permanently with "town darling" Dippy-Fresh. Xyler and Craz (voiced by John Roberts, known for voicing Linda on Bob's Burgers, another show Kristen Schaal is on, and Greg Cipes, the voice of Beast Boy on Teen Titans, Kevin E. Levin on Ben 10: Alien Force, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, and Ben 10: Omniverse, and Michelangelo on the current Nickelodeon incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), two guys inspired by 80s Saturday morning cartoon characters that were two dream guys Mabel thought of in E119 "Dreamscapers", are the prosecution in the case. They share with the court audience how reality has wronged their client Mabel and the defense Dipper in the past, citing an event from second grade picture day in which one of the other kids at their school stuck gum in Mabel's hair before she could take her picture and humiliated her, and an event from fourth grade Valentine's Day in which Dipper didn't get any valentines because of his dorky status among most of the other students. Dipper, in the present, says that those two events were in the past and shouldn't matter anymore, but Xyler and Craz tell Dipper that it's not any better now, with the heartbreak experienced by Wendy officially friend-zoning him at the end of E202 "Into The Bunker", the apocalyptic disaster of the previous episode, and the promise he broke at the end of E217 "Dipper And Mabel Vs. The Future", all serving as reasons why they think that Dipper should either give in and embrace fantasy or leave Mabelland without further offense. In spite of Xyler and Craz's confidence in their case, Dipper is allowed to present his case because Judge Kitty (I'll just call him that for brevity's sake) is curious to what he has to say, as "us cats are known for being particularly curious". Dipper says that even though life is hard, you can't ignore the real world just because of some bad things, and that there's still good in the world as well. Those bad situations from Dipper and Mabel's childhood mentioned earlier were made better by Dipper and Mabel's sibling love for one another. The bad picture day was made better by Dipper giving Mabel a razor to shave the part of her hair that had gum stuck in it, and the bad Valentine's Day was made better by Mabel taking all of the valentines she received, gluing them all together into one big one that reads "For My Favorite Brother", and sliding it under the door to the janitor's closet where Dipper was sitting and crying. Dipper reminds Mabel that they've been there for each other through everything, and the book of memories that showed the bad memories now showed the good memories from throughout the show, such as when Dipper put a band-aid on Mabel's scratched elbow in E112 "Summerween", their sock-puppet-fist-bump at the end of E204 "Sock Opera", and Dipper and Mabel saving one another from Gideon back when he was still the main villain and certain death at the end of E120 "Gideon Rises", not to mention the countless other times they show how much they love each other. Dipper admits that he's been living a fantasy for the past few days as well, thinking he'd want to spend his teenage years in a stuffy underground lab with Ford, and that he will never abandon Mabel for anything and is proud to return back to California at the end of the summer with her. Dipper offers Mabel one of their trademark "awkward sibling hugs", and Mabel instead asks for a "sincere sibling hug". The sibling hug breaks the spell of delirium the bubble world has over Mabel, and all of the cute characters of Mabelland turn into creepy monsters, including Judge Kitty. As they say, curiosity killed the cat. Dipper, Soos, Wendy, and Mabel escape Mabelland as it crumbles around them on Giant Waddles, and once they've made it to the edge of the town, Mabel takes a spare giant knitting needle and pops the bubble, returning them to Weirdmageddon-scarred Gravity Falls, and shrinking Waddles back down to normal size (Waddles somehow got into the bubble with Mabel and was grown to giant size, and he doesn't turn into one of Bill's monsters from inside Mabelland? Whatever.). Mabel says that she's no longer unable to emotionally handle Dipper being away from her, and that if he really wants to, he can stay in Gravity Falls as Ford's apprentice, but Dipper says that he won't want to miss out on Mabel's awkward teen years. The four of them return to the Mystery Shack and prepare to fight something inside, but instead come across Grunkle Stan, Celestebellebethebelle the unicorn from E215 "The Last Mabelcorn", the gnomes, the Manotaurs and the Multi-Bear from E106 "Dipper Vs. Manliness", the gnomes, Candy and Grenda in warpaint, Pacifica, Old Man McGucket, and Sheriff Blubs, who have all banded together as the last remaining Gravity Falls citizens and fantasy creatures besides Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy that haven't been turned into statues by Bill's eye-bats and made a part of Bill's giant throne, and possibly preparing for a last stand against him. In the credits scene, Xyler and Craz, because they're a little more than products of the bubble and have existed in the Mindscape before as well, escape the remains of the bubble and witness the destruction of Weirdmageddon firsthand. They even quote Jean-Paul Sartre without knowing the emotions behind the quote- "Jean-Paul Sartre postulated that every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance." "Totally righteous, bro!" "I know!" One of the end-of-episode codes says that Xyler and Craz went on to run the legal department at a major children's television network, probably the Gravity Falls in-universe parody of Disney XD. Too bad they couldn't go further and actually show the two of them at the network, but they probably couldn't directly make fun of Disney XD, even if it's not necessarily a biting-the-hand-that-feeds-them critique.
The involvement of Jon Stewart is an interesting bit of Alex Hirsch trivia. Hirsch has been quoted as saying that Stewart is his hero and has been the voice of reason in his head since his teens. Stewart in return has praised Gravity Falls on The Daily Show back during the mid-2010s, saying he enjoys the show's mystery element, sharp, multi-layered humor that is both silly enough for kids and intelligent enough for adults, and genuine heart, exemplified by its progressive depiction of sibling relationships as not bad just for the sake of it, equal appeal to boys and girls, and its stressing the importance of family and its broad definition. E208 "Blendin's Game" must've struck a nerve with him in particular because of its revelation that Soos had an absentee deadbeat father, a situation somewhat similar to Stewart's strained relationship with his father. Stewart has mentioned enjoying watching the show with his kids and imitating Grunkle Stan in a humorous fashion for them (Stewart and Stan's similar square heads and large chins help with this effect). He even named their most recent family dog "Dipper" after Gravity Falls's protagonist. Jon has often jokingly pestered Kirsten Schaal, one of his contributors and the voice of Mabel, for secrets about the show back when they were still working on The Daily Show together, but, of course, she's bound by oath to not reveal anything other than "Reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, bye!" In September 2013, shortly after Season 1 of Gravity Falls had ended, and Jon Stewart had come back from being away from The Daily Show for three months to direct his first film, Rosewater, and correspondent John Oliver had taken over hosting duties for the summer of 2013, paving the way for his HBO show Last Week Tonight, which is basically The Daily Show on steroids, Alex Hirsch was in the studio audience of an episode of The Daily Show, and after the filming had ended, one of the ushers pulled Alex aside to meet Jon. They then had a fifteen-minute conversation involving them gushing over each others' shows. If some of the more trolling-prone Gravity Falls fans were there, they'd probably try to measure whether Jon was Alex's hero or man-crush. Alex wanted nothing more than for Jon to guest-star on Gravity Falls at some point, more than any of the show's other guest-stars, and he said that he chose the role of Judge Kitty for him because as the voice of reason for so long in his head, Alex said that he should be the voice of reason in Mabel's head as well. Except he's not. Judge Kitty is a representation of Mabel's emotional baggage keeping her from growing up, the farthest thing possible from a voice of reason, and while he was a funny character, I don't think that the intentions in Alex's head matched what actually happened in the show. And to me, Jon Stewart isn't so much a voice of reason so much as he is "a voice occasionally worth considering", but that's something to go further into somewhere else.
This episode was pretty good. I wish there would've been more Bill, but that may have taken away from the desired emotional aspect of this episode. Dippy-Fresh was one of the funniest characters of Season 2 for all of the wrong reasons. I was admittedly pretty freaked out when Wendy seemingly was going to allow Dipper to become a teenager so that they could date without age difference, and still wonder if Dipper would've done it had either the creature pretending to be Wendy not winked and gave away her disguise or if there was some way not involving the bubble and involving the real Wendy in a way she would actually want for Dipper to be aged up and become her boyfriend. It was actually pretty sweet to see moments from Dipper and Mabel's childhood involving them making things better for one another. I do somewhat think that Dipper and Mabel's end-of-episode reconciliation was somewhat unearned, feeling that there should've been more tension as a result of Dipper learning that Mabel gave Bill the bubble he needed to cause Weirdmageddon. With the show nearly over, I feel that it wouldn't kill Alex to try to have Mabel realize that her need for comfort in life is bad and genuinely overcome it, rather than just teaching her how to reaccept reality. And yet, I think that they may have done this because the show could come off as too cynical if the writers try too hard to make Mabel feel guilty and ashamed of herself. That hasn't stopped them from doing it with Dipper, however, so it is a tricky situation.
Even with only one forty-four minute special left, there are still many questions to be asked. How will it all end? Will Ford be unfrozen? Will the town turn out OK? Will a major character death occur with genuine emotional weight, and not just the death of the mayor? Will Disney XD allow said death to happen to an under-18 character? Does Gompers the goat play into things at all? Will Dipper and Pacifica fall in love, or will that ship finally sink? Who's more evil, Bill or Time Baby? Will Dipper and Mabel ever return to Gravity Falls? And what is Alex Hirsch, exactly? Is he an idealist in cynic's clothing, a cynic in idealist's clothing, or is he a fourth dimensional being using Disney Television Animation to force his twisted will on humanity? OK, that last Alex Hirsch question is not a legitimate one, but all of the others are. I think the most important question, however, is did Gravity Falls leave a lasting impact? Um, yes. Isn't the proof obvious? I'm making a blog for a technical school almost entirely centered around it. It is one of the most popular shows ever produced at Disney Television Animation, generating an audience of kids, teens, adults, and internet dwellers, many who use their own love of the show to become internet celebrities themselves, such as YouTube channel makers Vailskbaum94 and Douglas Mackrel, who hosts a web series called The Royal Order Of The Holy Mackerel, both a pun on his last name and a reference to a secret society that Stan is often implied to be a part of in the show. It uses near-perfect storytelling to effectively blend humor, adventure, weirdness, a little creepiness (which becomes A LOT in Season 2), and genuine heart. It also shows probably the most empowering depiction of a brother-sister relationship and proves that brothers and sisters can be the best of friends. While not the most fun show currently being made at Disney Television Animation (that title I give to Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil), I definitely find it to be the smartest, creepiest in an innovative way, and most mature. It will be sad to see it go, but all good things must come to an end at some point. And Alex Hirsch has implied that he may do some form of revival of the program in 2017 at the earliest. Whether this will be through an hour-long special, a miniseries, or an actual Legend-Of-Korra-style sequel series remains to be seen, but we have not yet seen the last of the Pines family, the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, or any of the creepy, mysterious, and cool things Dimension 46'\ has to offer.
While not as good as it possibly could've been for my personal views of the cast's characterization, this was still a very good clip show-esque episode to air before the original series of Gravity Falls gives its final bow on either Martin Luther King Day 2016, President's Day 2016, or the first day of spring 2016. I give this episode an 8/10. Thanks for reading, and see you next week with something that will more than likely not be a Gravity Falls review.
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