If you ignored Gravity Falls because it was a cartoon on Disney Channel, you missed out on one of the most nerdy and fun new shows of last year. The show thankfully got renewed for a second season and, I’m assuming because of their deal, should hopefully show on Netflix soon but it’s definitely a must watch. The show follows twins Dipper and Mabel Pines, who head to the Pacific Northwest town of Gravity Falls to stay with their Great Uncle Stan (who they call Grunkle Stan and is one of my favorite characters from anything, ever) in The Mystery Shack, a crappy tourist trap he runs that is basically a scam to get customer’s money. Lazy but cool teen Wendy and dumb but lovable Soos round out the crew at the Shack. Things are not what they seem in Gravity Falls as Dipper finds a mysterious journal full of information about creatures and objects and each episode usually deals with Dipper and Mabel having to deal with some sort of mythical or paranormal occurance, so it’s kind of an X-Files/Twin Peaks for kids, but still incredibly smart with plenty of jokes and references for fans in the 20+ age range. If you decide to check it out, here are five great episodes from an overall great season.
5. Summerween: Dipper and Mabel are on summer vacation at the Mystery Shack, so how do you handle a Halloween episode in that timeline? For Gravity Falls, you come with a fake holiday called Summerween that the town celebrates during to get twice the Halloween fun during the year. The monster of the week is the legitimately creepy Trickster, who moves like a giant spider and demands the kids get him 500 pieces of candy, or he will devour them. The kids eventually learn that the Trickster is actually a living mass of discarded candy that is defeated when Soos, who will eat anything, eats the Trickster from the inside out. This episode also has the hilarious sub-plot of 60-70 year old Grunkle Stan trying to scare a couple of kids who can’t be more than 6, failing, and getting more and more pissed off.
4. Dreamscapers/Gideon Rises:
The season finale of Gravity Falls was an epic two part adventure that first saw Soos, Dipper and Mabel having to go into Grunkle Stan’s mind to protect the combination to his safe that holds the deed to the Mystery Shack that the show’s villain, Lil Gideon, is looking to steal. Gideon summons a powerful demon named Bill Cypher, who is simultaneously amusing and horrifying, doing things like ripping the teeth out of a nearby deer just for kicks.
With the help of terrible 80’s cartoon characters Xyler and Craz, the gang stops Bill but can’t defeat him, although they gain his respect, and they come back thinking they’ve stopped Gideon but they learn he just blew up the safe with dynamite and stole the deed, forcing the Pines out of the Shack. In the second half, Dipper and Mabel face off against Gideon in a giant robot version of himself and we learn that Grunkle Stan is most likely the key to all the weirdness in Gravity Falls.
3. The Time Traveler’s Pig: Waddles! If you’ve seen the show, you know I can probably stop there but this episode features a great mystery of the week as the twins learn that time traveler Blandin Blendin (amazing name BTW) has been monitoring things around the Shack because something at the fair is causing time disruptions. Dipper steals Blandin’s machine and tries to change events to get Wendy to like him but ultimately has to give up on that so that Mabel can win Waddles and he won’t end up with that bitch Pacifica Northwest.
2. The Inconveniencing: Dipper and Mabel tag along with Wendy and her friends as they break into a supposedly haunted convenience store that turns out, yeah, it’s haunted by an elderly couple who were shocked to death by Will Smithesque rapping by a teen and have now pledged revenge against teens. The kids disappear one by one and Mabel is eventually possessed after tripping out on banned “Smile Dip” (basically Fun Dip) and the day is eventually saved when Dipper is forced to perform his humiliating “lamby lamby dance” for the ghosts. Back at the Shack, Grunkle Stan gets super invested in the Downton Abbeyesque “The Duchess Approves”, one of the best of Gravity Falls many great fake TV shows (personal favorite might be “Girl, Why You Ackin So Cray-Cray?”
1. Fight Fighters: If there’s one episode that will convince you how awesome Gravity Falls is, it’s this one. An episode long parody of Street Fighter II/Final Fight, the premise is that Dipper accidentally unleashes his favorite video game character, Rumble McSkirmish (again, brilliant name), into the real world and tricks him into fighting Robbie, his rival for Wendy’s affections. Dipper realizes that Rumble may take it too far and eventually has to face off against himself. There are so many jokes and references that only 90’s kids raised on Hadoukens would recognize and it’s all done perfectly in the tone of the games it’s parodying. The pitch perfect and hilarious performance by Brian Bloom as Rumble puts it over the top (NOW I MUST DEFEAT THE WORLD’S GREATEST FIGHT FIGHTERS, TAKE ME TO THE SOVIET UNION!).