The thing about perpetually coming late to the party, especially for a completed series like Gravity Falls, is you tend to get people’s impressions based on how things end, not how they’re received as they air. So in that respect the oddest thing about Season 1 is how much of a slow burn it is. ‘course, considering it spent a year and a half airing 20 episodes, and included a lot of overt elements to intrigue fans between episodes, it’s a fair argument to say that watching all of them over the span of a few days isn’t the intended means.
I don’t really plan to dig into that side of the show, although if I want to keep going with it after season 2 that’s not a bad idea. But having not been there I dunno if that outsider perspective is useful. And of course, being a slow burn is hardly a bad thing, just a surprising thing.
Fundamentally the first season is actually a very typical show for the demographic. Sitcom-ish setup mostly based in exploring childhood, coming of age, the first clashes between budding adults and their caretakers, that sorta thing. And considering the love for the cast, that’s actually to be expected. But the supernatural elements, the mystery so boldly jammed straight into the center of that opening? Gravity Falls plays very coy with it all. Oh sure, there’s usually a touchstone moment (typically a single line of dialog) of Dipper remarking on the weirdness of the town, and usually there’s some abnormal element attached to the week’s lesson/problem, but until Gideon Rises really only the first episode goes all in on weirdness.
Now having a general idea of the ending I know that slow burn goes very fast very quickly once it starts picking up, but here we’re really focused on making sure we understand who the cast are and how they function as a unit.
To that end I’m a bit mixed: I know he’s not, but I have trouble thinking of Dipper as not being the “boring main character” type. No mistake, he has traits, the way the show sets him up to start taking on the pretenses demanded of masculinity only for the episode’s lesson to kick it right back to pieces is very much appreciated, but… I dunno? It’s hard to get a sense for him because he’s starting this journey not as a boy but as unshaped clay. We don’t know who he is because he doesn’t seem to have really defined himself at all. Dipper will depend entirely on where he ends this journey and… well, this is the middle.
Mabel… oh Mabel. Why aren’t there more real Mabels? Okay that’s unfair, we can’t actually have that many before we reach complete global saturation, but I think everyone needs a Mabel in their lives. Not so much a shoulder devil as a shoulder sister, who reminds you to keep your head in the clouds and find joy in other people sometimes. And yet that’s not to say she doesn’t have worries, or depth. But there’s a deep sense of who she wants to be at the core of Mabel’s being, and her conflicts are when she starts to doubt if she can be that person, or if that person can find a place among others. The contrast between that and Dipper’s quest to find that for himself forms the core of the series really, and even here you can see that they both know this and fear what it may bring. Or rather, fear that it might mean they might become people who don’t love each other anymore. But I think going into that should probably wait until the series is done.
The rest of the Mystery Shack crew are a bit one note, with asterisks all over the place. Grunkle Stan sits upon a throne of lies made from a house of cards, and more than anything else the season finale wants you to know that throne is going to start crumbling down very, very soon. Soos… his moments are great but his baseline sometimes gets a bit creepy I’m afraid. Wendy is who the plot needs her to be at this point, but they leave themselves plenty of room to go places with her. It’s a strange way to handle the supporting cast really, because while they slot easily into a lot of different stories there’s plenty here for people to glom into if that’s the character for them? I’m not sure how to describe the vibe they give off exactly, almost like a +1 Archetype if you will.
I’m going to skip the episode honors this time around, but I do want to single out one for further discussion.
Too Real- The Hand That Rocks the Mabel. Okay, so a lot Dipper’s quest for identity is him trying on and quickly rejecting a lot of aspects of… let’s call it traditional masculinity. He wants to be masculine, indeed he seems in quite a hurry to be a man, but at every turn he keeps finding out that all the usual ways manhood is defined involves hurting others. It’s common enough that I’m comfortable saying a big part of Gravity Falls as a show is exploring masculinity and trying to find a form of it that works today. And in that light this episode, Gideon’s debut, is something that had to be here. The degree to which Gideon cultivates the mask of the classic Nice Guy is almost unnerving. It’s all an act, not just in the way any “Nice Guy” is ultimately not sincere but in a “he’s a swindler intentionally creating a persona of being a Nice Guy” sense. He’s so villainous he doesn’t even realize the act he’s putting on is a red flag to someone who’s appropriately cynical even when pulled off flawlessly.
And gotta say, it’s a hell of a thing to watch the episode lay this all out? The manipulations Gideon pulls out to keep getting those reluctant “yes” agreements from Mabel is so textbook it’s eerie. He breaks down in the way of all abusers, something that seems especially potent on the day this is being posted. But they never go full throttle with it, which I appreciate. It makes it a lot easier to send younger audiences away with the core lesson: if you say no, and they keep asking, leave. Run away. If they won’t take no the first time they won’t take no ever, and teaching people that red flag is something I’m glad to see.
Mmm. Writing this out I’m definitely finding some angles to really get a better bead on the first half of the show, but I gotta admit, my actual experience with the show wasn’t amazing by any stretch. It’s good! And the seeds for sheer awesome are absolutely there. But just as 20 episodes of television…
Rating- 7/10
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