Gravity Falls Review

For the ABC Challenge this week, G is for Gravity Falls. I know what you are thinking, this is 3 weeks in a row that I’ve reviewed series everyone knows about. Well the truth is, prior to this week I had never actually watched all of Gravity Falls. I had the opportunity to catch most of the first season a while ago, but never finished the series. This had nothing to do with the quality of the show, I just never really caught it. It’s the same thing that happened with Over the Garden Wall for me. There is only so much you can watch. Not to get too much ahead of myself, but after this week I wish I had expedited watching Gravity Falls because it’s just amazing. But onto the actual review. Spoilers ahead.

Basic Plot

Gravity Falls is a chronicle of the adventures that twins Dipper and Mabel Pines have over the course of a summer spent in Gravity Falls, OR at their great-uncle (or Grunkle) Stan’s Mystery Shack. Basically the Mystery Shack is a novelty fake oddities gift shop and museum. Early into the series, Dipper finds a journal that talks about the mysterious things that happen in Gravity Falls. Basically within Gravity Falls’s borders things like gnomes, zombies, ghosts and other actual strange things exist. Most of Dipper and Mabel’s adventures stem from interacting with these beings. Dipper, Mabel, and Grunkle Stan are joined in their adventures by the Mystery Shack’s repairman and cashier Soos and Wendy respectably. Over the course of the series the Pines initially develop a rivalry with a fake psychic named Lil’ Gideon Gleeful. Gideon uses a journal written by the same author as Dipper’s to attempt to takeover the Mystery Shack, rule over Gravity Falls, and make Mabel his queen. Eventually at the end of the first season, Gideon does takeover the Shack, but in doing so releases a demonic force that lives in your nightmares named Bill Cipher. The Pines family finally reveals to the town that Gideon is the fake liar that they always said he was and he gets arrested at the end of season 1. Season 2 starts with Dipper trying to figure out who the author of the journals is. In the background, you see Grunkle Stan working on gateway to dimensions unknown. Eventually, the dimensional portal is opened and both the author and the person Grunkle Stan was trying to save is revealed. That being Grunkle Stan’s twin brother Grunkle Ford. Grunkle Ford is a genius that spent his life discovering the abnormalities of Gravity Falls. He later explains that he was the person that originally released Bill Cipher 30 years ago. He also reveals that Bill is a being that if he comes into our dimension will do everything in his power to destroy it. Eventually Bill breaks the remaining dimensional barrier and comes into our dimension and destroys Gravity Falls. After a laundry list of events, Bill is finally defeated and the twins go home after their summer of adventure.

Commentary

I’m going to flat-out say it, Gravity Falls is basically a perfect show. At least as close as I’ve seen in a while.

Every character in this show is interesting. I mean even characters like Toby Determined or Manly Dan, who are very minor characters are more interesting than most lead protagonist. Your villains of the day are just amazingly written. Examples are Giffany the crazy dating sim girl who will kill anyone that gets between her and Soos or the Summerween Trickster who is creepy and disguising yet a tragic villain. As awesome as the minor characters are the main characters are just amazing. Dipper is brave, smart, and very down to earth character. He plays the closest thing this series has to a straight man, but he still has a pretty active personality. Mabel is fun, energetic, optimistic and free-spirited. She is very much the yang to Dipper’s yin. Between the two of them they can do literally everything. Grunkle Stan is a very complex character. On his surface he appears to only care about himself and money. The truth is, even though he is very selfish, he will do anything for his family. At the end of the series, he was willing to give up everything that makes him, him, so that his family could live. Soos is stupidly wise. One second he will say something so profound you think man this guy’s brilliant. Then he will something about a video games teaching him to eat ghosts to survive and you think this guys an idiot.  Their individual personalities work great alone but together their interactions are just perfect. Too often I horse laughed at just comments that they make to each other. Like Dipper telling Soos he was dead to him for high fiving a fake cool version of Dipper. Another one is, the girls yelling at Soos for badmouthing Lazy Susan’s mascara. Those are just two examples that immediate pop into my head, however there are some in every episode. Finally, Bill is a horrific villain. He admits himself that he is insane. He made Gideon who at the time appeared to be your main villain call him insane within 10 seconds of meeting him. His motivation to destroy our dimension was to get out of his 2D space. He takes over people’s bodies to meet his own needs. He is cunning, terrifying, and yet has the amazing personality that you can’t help but like. I have seen several great villains recently and he is right up among the best.

The plot structure is very different between the two seasons. Season one tends to follow a villain or hero of the day structure. Basically the main cast would interact with some paranormal being in that episode and that would be it. There was a subtle overarching plot but not nearly to the extent of season 2. Season 2 while there are individual episodes that have nothing to do with the overall plot line, the season is basically one continuous story. The season is a methodical setup for the finale of the show. And with that I will say the final 4 episodes are so brilliantly put together that it could have easily been a movie. My only complaint about this show is that the show only lasted 2 seasons. Admitted this was by design of the creator, but the plot was so awesome that it sucks that it had to end so quickly. My other comment with the show only lasting 2 seasons is that, there were still some things that they touched on and never went into much detail on. Things like the history of the town prior to the current events or whatever happened to Quentin Trembley. They also never gave a reason for Gravity Fall’s high paranormal events. This is me nitpicking and not necessary for the main story but would have been nice to know.

Conclusions

Gravity Falls is one of the best television series I have ever seen. The jokes are hilarious and well-timed. The plot is almost perfect. All of your characters are extremely memorable and entertaining. I cannot recommend this one enough. If you have never seen Gravity Falls I suggest you watch it. Even if you have seen it I would say watch it again. Gravity Falls is just amazing.