Welcome back to Gravity Talks, our review series for Gravity Falls that is not crying at this episode, you’re crying. This week, Blendin Blandin returns, Dipper has the most uncomfortable experience of his life, and we learn the identity of Jesús Ramirez. As always, spoilers ahead.
After last episode’s crossover, the Rick and Morty love is back as Justin Roiland returns to Gravity Falls as time traveler Blendin Blandin. Roiland is in full on Lemongrab mode as Blandin, wailing his way towards vengeance against the Pines by challenging them to a series of gladiator games in the future. The future controlled by a Time Baby and patrolled by soldiers named Lolph and Dundgren. We saw a little bit of this era in a post-credit sequence in “The Time Traveler’s Pig,” and I’m glad “Blendin’s Game” refused to offer anymore context about how this society works. Gravity Falls already spends so much time building its characters that explaining this world would take away from the Pine Twins and Soos, who receives a lot of backstory in this episode. Also, no one should ever explain what Time Baby is. All hail the time baby.
As I just mentioned, this episode largely focuses on Soos and does a way better job of it than “Soos and the Real Girl”. Just like Fiddleford in “Blind Eye”, Soos (or Jesús Ramirez according to his driver’s license) receives a tragic backstory that adds a lot of depth to the character, though not at first. People having a deadbeat dad is one of the easier ways to manufacture pathos for a character but the plot is handled excellently in this episode. By framing the plot around the mystery of why Soos hates his birthday, the revelation has a larger impact, and the follow-up isn’t bad either. Instead of turning this into a quest to find Soos’s dad, Dipper and Mabel acknowledge how this isn’t really a problem with an easy solution. I mean, there is technically an easy solution what with the Time Wish, but all doors on the mystery of who Soos’s dad is are shut when Soos opts to use his wish to clean up his friends from their time battle and get an infinite slice of pizza.
It’s moments like these that establish just how dedicated Gravity Falls is to establishing some really loving characters. Other shows might have completely ignored a character’s previously established thinking so they could introduce a new character like Mr. Ramirez. Instead, Soos – without a second of hesitation – makes his wish for both his friends and his pizza: the two most important things in his life.
While we’re being all lovey dovey, I’d also like to take a moment to recognize how hilariously cruel the Pines Twins can be for anyone who’s not on their side. The d-plot of Toby Determined’s dream of making it on Broadway as The Raz Dazzler is absolutely the highpoint of my existence. Moreso when the Pines go back in time and find him practicing in a studio only for Mabel to scream “THIS PATH LEADS NOWHERE, TOBY!” Granted, Toby did technically join an evil cult that wiped the minds of everyone in town so it’d be reasonable for the Pines to be mad at him but holy heck was this the most second deliciously cruel moment of the week. The first goes to Mabel impersonating Lolph’s gam-gam. “I ain’t no one’s Gam Gam, sucker! YOU JUST GOT TIME TRICKED.” If the theory about Mabel having an evil twin are true, this episode is half foreshadowing.
On the other side of the twin coin, Dipper meeting a five year old Wendy was simultaneously adorable and potentially horrifying. Young Wendy telling young Tambry(!!!) that she thought Dipper was cute could have re-opened up the can of worms that is the Dipper-Wendy crush plotline but instead, with some insight from Mabel, just made Dipper realize how Wendy feels about having a younger boy crush on her. A really well-done segment that moves the Dipper-Wendy relationship forward and doesn’t revert back to the weird crush place we were at with “Boyz Crazy.”
Continued belowOverall, “Blendin’s Game” was a great episode of Gravity Falls that brought in a lot of elements the show needed. If Soos is going to go from secondary to primary cast member, his expanded backstory was absolutely necessary to making him a compelling character. Plus, the relationship between him and the Pines kids is going to be crucial in the coming episodes if Stan makes the inevitable heel turn hinted at in the ending to “The Blind Eye Society.” The message of “Blendin’s Game” is how your family is whoever loves you and goes out of their way to help you, right? That might not meld so well with Stan’s declaration that he won’t let anything get in his way.
And while we know that any friction between the kids and Stan is going to be rough, it’s going to be heartbreaking for the boy who, on his twelfth birthday, came to the Mystery Shack and found a t-shirt, a job, and his new father figure.
Final Verdict: 8.6 – A totally solid and heartwarming episode. The only thing it needed was Justin Roiland as Rick Sanchez bursting through a portal to throw up on five year-old Robbie.
