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The Five Best Moments of Gravity Falls, Season 2

By | June 16th, 2016
Posted in Television | % Comments

All this week, we are taking a look back at the TV series that we covered during the year, and sharing our five favorite moments from each. We will be doing similar retrospectives in July, August, and September, focusing on different aspects of each show. Enjoy!

Our Gravity Falls retrospective is going to be just a little different than our coverage of other TV shows from this year because it, uh, ended. It also started in August 2014 and ended last February so there’s a ton of ground to cover. As a heads up, this is going to cover a ton of spoilers since so much of the show’s enjoyment revolves around its lore. I’ll do another big ol’ honking spoiler tag when I really dig into the meat of this season but check back in a couple months when we talk about how to dive into any of these shows you may not have watched.

5. .GIFfany

Gravity Falls has a lot of great villains. On top of actual cosmic horror Bill Cipher and child preacher Lil’ Gideon, we had .GIFfany: a dating sim character who gets extremely jealous of her waifu, the lovable handyman Soos. Gravity Falls is definitely a kids’ show, and the dating sim .GIFfany comes from is pretty PG, but it’s villains like her that show how out there the show was willing to go. And the fact that came off as a pretty legit threat, instead of just a thin joke, is a testament to how the show could add depth to anything.

4. Make Gravity Falls Great Again

Last August, when the 2016 election was just getting started and not completely ruining my life, Gravity Falls ran an episode with Stan running for the Mayor of Gravity Falls which is probably my go to recommendation for anyone trying to jump into the series, at least from Season 2. Seriously, just start with Season 1. Anyway, this episode featured the only good use of a meme on TV.

From here on out, our other Top 5 moments are going to involve Big Honking Spoilers.

3. Weirdmageddon

Gravity Falls was always building to some endgame but we had no clue that it’d be as intense as the Weirdmageddon trilogy. The status quo wasn’t just changed, it was thrown threw a Cronenbergian thresher as Gravity Falls was overrun by Bill Cipher and his monstrous friends for Gravity Falls’s three part finale. Also, Louis CK voiced a giant head that tried to eat people. Very few children’s show leave you with the feeling that nothin gwill ever be the same, but Weirdmageddon upped the stakes for the ending to Gravity Falls in an immeasurable way.

2. A Tale of Two Stans

Okay, this one kind of needs the #1 moment to happen, but the episode that explains the history of the Pines Brothers is nothing short of a miracle. It’s a wonderfully grounded episode that may not explain exactly how the science of Gravity Fall works, but lays down the blueprint for why Grunkle Stan is the way he is. Plus, it makes it all the more impressive how Gravity Falls can balance a show that has insane characters like .GIFfany with incredibly grounded stories like this one. Also, this episode revealed that Stan came from New Jersey so it is absolutely near the top of my list.

1. Not What He Seems

Okay, picture every fan theory you’ve ever thought of. R+L=J, everyone on Ed Edd ‘n’ Eddy is the ghost of a dead child, whatever. Now imagine that the fandom for this new show that debuted on the Disney Channel of all places started putting together the clues to this insane theory. Like, we’re all kind of laughing it off kind of theory. Namely, that the Stanford Pines we’ve been following in the show isn’t the real Stanford but his twin brother. It started innocuously when Stan picked up some glasses and forlornly looked at them, then we noticed the Stan in one flashback had a completely different haircut than modern Stan. Considering that the theme song had a coded message warning us that “Stan is not what he seems”, it was evident something was up. And if this theory actually came true, we would all reached critical mass.

We reached critical mass.

The FBI finally closed in on Grunkle Stan in an episode that is basically the animated version of Breaking Bad‘s “Ozymandias” and, after Mabel made a choice between trusting her uncle or her brother, validated years of speculation. If you haven’t watched Gravity Falls, I’m sorry you got it spoiled here but I cannot overestimate how rad the last thirty seconds of this episode. Especially when it turns out that the real Stanford Pines is voiced by JK Simmons.


//TAGS | Gravity Falls

James Johnston

James Johnston is a grizzled post-millenial. Follow him on Twitter to challenge him to a fight.

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