Dipper and Mabel Pines are two twelve year old children.
They share a common bond of being twins but have very different personalities.
Dipper is bookish, nervous and tends to overthink everything. Mabel is
energetic (some would say mad), extroverted and has a magnetic personality.
They live a suburban life in Piedmont, California but are whisked off by their
parents to live with their Grunkle (great-uncle) Stan for summer to "get some
fresh air". Their uncle lives in Gravity Falls, Oregon, a quiet little
town with seemingly little things going on for the little people who live
there. Stan runs a business, a tourist trap known as the Mystery Shack, where
he dons the persona of Mr. Mystery promising a look into the weird and
supernatural. The exhibits are fake, of course, but Stan, being a professional
con-man, makes them come alive. However, as Dipper and Mabel get settled into
Gravity Falls, they soon discover there might be some validity to weird
going-ins in the town. The twins uncover that the town is something of beckon
for the strange and supernatural. The mystery deepens as Dipper
discovers a journal, written by an un-named author, hidden in the woods which
records the strange happenings and how to push the dark forces back. So Dipper
and Mabel's mad summer begins, balancing hi-jinks, romance, new friendships,
getting to know their strange uncle and uncovering the mysteries of the town.
The twins come up against gnomes, zombies, mermaids, secret orders, dinosaurs, time-travellers
and a one-eyed, extra-dimensional, Eldritch demon shaped like a triangle.
The central tenant of the whole series is the relationship dynamic between
Dipper and Mabel. To have characters like this in a children's show is very
unusual. In normal fare, Dipper would be the main character going off on
adventures, while Mabel would be a side-character - the kooky, weird, girly,
comic-relief sister. And she is some to some extent but she is far from a
side-character and is just as active as Dipper. It's quietly feminist in a way
in that she is active in the plot but she is not condemned for her more
conventionally 'girly' side (which would be the butt of jokes in traditional
children's characters - e.g. Deedee from Dexter's Lab). She if also
shown hanging out with her new girlfriends, which is also incredibly rare in a
children's show. Hirsch was very clear to his staff about how to write Dipper
and Mabel. In fact, he wrote 'ten commandments' on how Dipper and Mabel
interact with each other, as many members of staff in the early days assumed
they would be hating on each other (1). This was done to create a more
authentic sibling relationship. They have different personalities, and
sometimes they do get into arguments, but ultimately they love each other. The
show balances the ups and downs of a real sibling relationship just perfectly
and begins to actively play on this towards the conclusion of the series as the characters begin to get older.
Dipper and Mabel are voiced by Jason Ritter and comedian Kristen Schaal, both
turning in spirited and funny performances.
However, Dipper and Mabel don't come to a boring old town filled with boring
people. For Gravity Falls is a beckon for the weird and its residents match
that bill perfectly. First up is con-man and local entrepreneur, Stan Pines (voiced
by Hirsch himself). Stan is a crusty old curmudgeon but secretly hides a heart of gold. His sarcastic and world-weary outlook stands in great contrast to the supernatural antics. Grunkle Stan serves an anchor in the first season as the twins get used to their new home but increasingly becomes involved in the plot in the second season when the true nature of his goals come to light. But the Mystery Shack wouldn't be complete with its staff members. Soos (also voiced by Hirsch) is Stan's underling through and through. The embodiment of a "man child", Soos is an innocent, willingly going along with Stan's mad schemes (and seeing him as a surrogate father figure). Soos has some of the best and funniest lines in the whole show. He almost becomes like an older brother to Dipper and Mabel and his sound, often insane advise, sticks with the twins. Looking after the register and wishing she could be anywhere else is the coolest girl in town, Wendy. Wendy is your atypical teenager but she has a cool laid-back exterior, which Dipper instantly falls for. Dipper knows he has no chance with Wendy (considering the age gap and all) but still he tries. This makes up a lot of Dipper's character arc in the first season coming to terms with this. Over the course of the series, Wendy proves herself to be one of the toughest and most resourceful members of the gang. Outside of these three, the rest of Gravity Falls is filled with quirky and strange side-characters, including hapless reporter Toby Determined, diner owner Lazy Susan, Mabel's new girlfriends Candy and Grenda and local nut Old Man McGucket. It almost feels like early day
Simpsons, where Springfield is full of funny and colourful characters that just add comedic punctuation marks to the madcapped stories.
 |
| The Mystery Shack's 'loyal' employees (l:r) Soos and Wendy |
 |
| Gravity Falls is filled with funny and unique side-characters |
 |
| Mabel's quirky new friends (l:r) Grenda and Candy |
Gravity Falls has a very solid first season which mostly concentrates
on stand-alone episodes, slowly building up the world and its mysteries. The first handful of episodes take time to set up Dipper and Mabel's relationship and their new one with Stan. They mostly fall into well made monster of the week-style episodes. One of
the brilliant early episodes is
The Time-Traveller's Pig, which
introduces the beloved Waddles. A time-traveller's time machine falls into the
hands of Mabel and Dipper. The twins begin to manipulate time to their own
will. The episode that really begins to prove that Gravity Falls is a special
show is
Double Dipper. Dipper needs to be in multiple places at once -
he discovers an odd Xerox machine that lets him produce clones of himself to disastrous effects.
Fight
Fighters sees an arcade character brought to life to help Dipper fight for
him to ward off bully, Robbie. The Ryu-esque character, Rumble McSkirmish, is
loving rendered in 16-bit sprite animation. My favourite episode of this season is
Summerween. The residents of Gravity Falls love Halloween so much they
celebrate it again in the summer, replacing pumpkins with watermelons. However,
the creepy Summerween Trickster is on the loose, preying on children who do not
have the Summerween spirit. Dipper can't get into the spirit this year; he would rather go to a party with Wendy than go trick or treating with Mabel. You
can see where this is going...And there are plenty of other episode highlights,
including a change of management at the Mystery Shack, a seemingly
too perfect
boy band and Mabel falling in love with a Merman (Mermando).
 |
| A beautiful friendship is born |
 |
| The reveal of who the Summerween Trickster really is is brilliant |
 |
| Too many Dippers! |
Season one, as mentioned, mostly consists of individual episodes. However, a
handful are connected by the presence of this season's Big Bad, Gideon. He may
look cute and folksy on the outside but inside is an insidious monster with
diabolical plans for the town. Ultimately, he is an incredibly selfish brat and
his quick turns between his staged persona and the real Gideon are hilarious.
His schemes come to haunt the twins over the course of the two seasons. He
first crops up in
The Hand That Rocks The Mabel, in which he attempts to woo Mabel
. Gideon is the first stage of the wider story that
Gravity Falls tells. Gideon possess another copy of the journal and reveals that there are multiple
of them that, when combined together, can unlock the mysteries of the universe.
This is where the series' overall Big Bad comes into play - Bill Cipher. Bill loves to make dodgy deals and agrees to
help Gideon to obtain the Mystery Shack. Bill is an inter dimensional being
straight from the Necronomicon, who can bend reality to his every will. In a
hyperactive performance by Hirsch, he is a fast and smooth talking demon he
loves to make deals with unwitting humans. Anytime he is on screen is a treat. All this culminates in
the final two episodes of Season One, which are by far the best -
Dreamscaperers
and
Gideon Rises. Gideon believes that buried underneath the Shack
is another journal (unaware that Dipper has one) and thus seeks to obtain
the Shack. As part of the deal, Bill goes inside Stan's mind to obtain the code
for the Shack's safe, which contains the abode's deed. The gang must venture
into the warped and disturbed mind of the beloved Grunkle and stop Bill.
Gideon
Rises sees the little wart enter full villain mode as he attempts to thwart
the Pines family once and for all. Both these episodes are inventive, funny,
and action-packed, as new layers are revealed to the characters. It's a mad cap
rush to the finish line, which includes a giant robot Gideon! These episodes
serve as a brilliant conclusion to the first season and as the midway point of
the story.
 |
| He looks innocent but underneath the surface Gideon is truly a monster. Mabel continuously has to shake off his affections. |
 |
| When you come to Gravity Falls never make a deal with Bill Cipher |
In between seasons, fans began flooding the internet with theories about
where the series could be going. Hirsch seemingly wanted to cause discussion,
leaving ciphers at the end of each episode. After the credits at the end of each episode is a jumbled up sentence that must be
decoded. Over the course of the season, the scrambled words use a mixture of
ciphers, including Caeser, Atbash and A1Z26. Clues to what ciphers to use are planted throughout the episodes. These sentences reveal either
funny phrases or full on clues to solving the mystery of the plot. These just
helped to stoke the flames of fans desperately re-watching episodes to find new
clues and hidden plot-points. Hirsch encouraged and supported this, as fans
increasingly scoured the episodes for clues and stoked the flames for a second season.
Gravity Falls enters the stratosphere with its second season. Here,
all the character and world set-up in the first season begins to
pay off. For the second season becomes increasingly serialised as it races
towards its epic conclusion. All the questions are answered (with a couple left
hanging) in an incredibly satisfying season that leaves you craving for more.
This season contains some of the show's best episodes, so I'll highlight a
few.
Into The Bunker sees Wendy officially coming on her first
mission with the gang as they encounter a shape-shifting demon, voiced by Mark
Hamill, in a hidden bunker thought to belong to the mysterious author of the
journals. This is a great one as it moves along Dipper's infatuation with
Wendy, which reachs a surprisingly mature climax. One of the funniest episodes of
the whole series,
The Golf War, sees Mabel and Pacifica go head-to-head
in a miniature golf tournament (with some hidden surprises awaiting on the
course).
Sock Opera sees Mabel stage a musical sock puppet show in order
to impress a boy. It basically writes itself but there's further complications
when Billy Cipher gets involved. This one has some amazing visual gags and
body-swapping shenanigans. A personal favourite episode,
Soos and the Real
Girl, sees the hapless Mystery Shack employee trying to get a date. With
poor social skills, Soos buys a dating simulator game, in the style of a
Japanese visual novel, in the hope it will improve his talking skills with
girls. However, the girl in the game, Giffany becomes obsessed with Soos as she
reveals to be a malicious and extremely jealous AI. This one has some of the best
visuals in the show and has great character development for Soos.
Northwest
Mansion Mystery sees the gang get an incredibly rare invite to Pacifica's
family home for an upper-class party. However, ghosts from the past threaten to
ruin the party and maybe the town. This episode has amazing atmosphere and
animation. The second season reaches its apex at the mid-point, with one of the
show's best episodes,
Not What He Seems.
 |
| The twins uncover new mysteries and mythology in the brilliant second season |
 |
| My favourite visual in the whole series |
 |
| Do you ship it? |
Major Spoilers - seriously, skip this NEXT paragraph and scroll past
the picture as the next two episode completely change the status quo of the
show.
Over the course of the second season, Stan has been working on a mysterious
device in the basement of the Mystery Shack, leaving the purpose unclear (working from a
third copy of journal and ones gained from Dipper and Gideon). In
this episode, FBI agents reveal to the twins that Stan has been stealing
government waste and is working on a doomsday device. The twins set out to
prove them wrong but soon discover that Stan has a much more mysterious past
than they initially realised. They discover numerous fake IDs, a newspaper
clipping claiming Stan Pines is dead and, worse, the damning security footage of
Stan bringing the toxic waste back to the Shack. Suddenly, the twins and the
audience question who Grunkle Stan really is. The episode does such a brilliant
job of making us question where our allegiances lie. Children's shows don't
normally do this kind of thing with its character ... could Stan really be a
villain? No, no, it's a show on the Disney channel, there's no way...but maybe,
all the clues line up...This all comes to an affront when the characters
converge outside the device, demanding answers from Stan. In one of the show's
best moments, where gravity finally begins to fall, Stan implores the twins not
to switch the device off. Dipper, convinced that Stan is a villain, implores
Mabel, the one closet to the device, to switch off the machine with Stan
arguing his case. In an emotionally charged moment, Mabel must choose between
her heart or her mind. And if you know Mabel, you know what she is going to pick...The
device is actually a portal to another dimension. And out of it walks a hooded
figure revealed to be ... Stan's twin brother, Stanford, aka Ford (voiced by
J.K. Simmons no less). The next episode finally answers all our questions about
Stan and his relationship to his brother and how they ended up Gravity Falls.
Ford is actually a brilliant scientist investigating the mysteries of Gravity
Falls. The brothers are not on the best of terms with each other after a major
mis-understanding in their youth (Stan cost Ford a scholarship at a brilliant
college). Ford is intent on ensuring that the nefarious Bill Cipher, who he shares a shady past, cannot
escape into the real world (the portal couldn't directly affect this - Ford is
angry that Stan attempted something so dangerous; Stan just wants a thank you
continuing their history of misunderstanding) as the two share an unbreakable
bond. Ford brings a great new element to the show as Dipper naturally floats
towards him. This also helps to subtly start driving a wedge between Dipper and
Mabel, which is paid off in full in the final episodes. With only a handful of episodes left (including a cute episode paying homage to
Dungeons and Dragons) the show races towards its conclusion.
 |
| Who is Stan Pines really? |
 |
| Probably the most powerful visual in the show |
I have
decided to place
Gravity Falls under the
Criminally Underrated
label. While a minor hit in the USA,
Gravity Falls is basically un-heard of in the
UK, outside of a small but dedicated fanbase. This is likely down to a very
limited run and limited promotion in this country. I also think that this is due to the show's run time - it never got a chance to really catch on in the way the slow build of
Steven Universe and
Adventure Time have allowed. My only criticism
of
Gravity Falls is also its greatest strength - it ends too soon. Following
the reveal of a major character, we are only given a small handful of episodes
before we head into the three-part finale,
Weirdmaggedon. Hirsch decided
to the end the series with the second season, citing creative reasons and that
the show had not been cancelled. Breaking the news on his Tumblr account days
ahead of the series finale, Hirsch stated that he designed the show as one epic
summer adventure with a clear beginning, middle and end. Hirsh elaborates:
"I wanted
Gravity Falls to have a mystery that had a real answer,
an adventure that had a real climax, and an ending that had a real
conclusion for the characters I care so much about…
Gravity Falls
was never meant to be a series that goes on and on forever. It’s meant to
be an exploration of the experience of summer, and in a larger sense a
story about childhood itself. The fact that childhood ends is exactly what
makes it so precious- and why you should cherish it while it
lasts"(2). Hirsh's decision to do this is inspired. Childhood is fleeting
and before you know it, it's over. Facing up to this and moving on is an
important part of growing up. And
Gravity Falls captures this beautifully
bittersweet melancholia perfectly, in particular in its final episodes.
Major spoilers. Skip this paragraph if you haven't seen the final episodes.
 |
| One of the greatest villains of all time? |
In the final four episodes, for the first time, Dipper and Mabel have to
think about their future and face up to the reality of growing up. On the eve
of their 13th birthday, Dipper goes on an alien adventure with Ford and is
offered an apprenticeship with the brilliant scientist. All of Dipper's dreams
seem to come true in front of his face. But on the other hand, Mabel becomes
incredibly depressed when she learns that being a teenager isn't like an
episode of
Saved By The Bell when Wendy goes into the extreme details
of high school and puberty. But to make matters worse, Candy and Grenda won't
be able to make it to her birthday party. And the final nail in coffin Mabel is
learning that Dipper wants to become Ford's apprentice - i.e. they won't be
growing up together. Mabel spirals into depression and is probably the first
time we see this bright and positive character feeling this way. This sets in
motion the brilliant three-part finale,
Weirdmaggedon. The insidious
plans of Bill Cipher finally come together as the town is forced into an apocalypse
designed by H.P. Lovecraft on speed. I''m going to go out on a limb and say
that the final three-parter (with the last episode being an hour long) is
probably the best series finale of all time. Every character has a moment where
they can shine. The three episodes also really let you take in the scale of the
problems that Dipper and Mabel must overcome, both in defeating Bill and on a
personal level with each other. For the emotional core of
Gravity Falls is
about the twins and their relationship - this is at the forefront of the
finale. It's just so satisfying, epic and bittersweet. Every character arc is
complete. Yet still you are left wanting more - just a few more episodes! But Hirsch's
artistic integrity to end the show at this point is truly inspired and brave.
Gravity Falls was a singular vision for its creator, drawing
influence from his own childhood. Childhood is such a brief period of time that we
place so much emphasis on. Ultimately,
Gravity Falls is about that
classic mantra -
carpe diem, or seize the day. Dipper and Mabel
themselves are ciphers for exploring what it means to grow up and all the mixed
emotions that come with that. But the show is even more than that. It's a
brilliant fusion of nostalgia, TV and film influences, classic story telling, genuine
mystery and characters you grow to love. While it's too brief,
Gravity Falls
is able to leave an indelible mark on the viewer. There are so many
wonderful characters to meet, plots to uncover and fun to be had. It is
constantly inventive, heart-felt and funny. God, it's funny. So if you haven't
made a trip to Gravity Falls, Oregon yet, I can't recommend it enough.
Rating: 10/10
 |
| Goodbye Gravity Falls |
References
(1) 'Comedy Showrunners: Alex Hirsch on the real in the unreal of Gravity
Falls' http://www.avclub.com/article/comedy-showrunners-week-alex-hirsch-on-the-real-in-85801
(accessed 08/08/2017)
(2) Alex Hirsch, 'Goodbye Gravity Falls'
https://shmalexsmirsch.tumblr.com/post/133619326491/goodbye-gravity-falls
(accessed 03/04/2017)
No comments:
Post a Comment