Okay so where to begin with this hour long episode, let’s take this in chronological order of events, first of all the big battle with the Mystery Shack Gundam, damn if that wasn’t an awesome scene. It’s nice to see a whole bunch of characters come together to help fight and plenty of callbacks to earlier episodes coming back to help as well, like the shrink ray, the Gobblewonker, etc. The fight scene itself was epic as all hell and seeing everyone contribute to the fight is a nice touch. Then once they’ve arrived in Bill’s mansion we learn a big piece of the mystery that was yet to be answered, the pentagram we’ve seen for the past 2 seasons finally explained. We get people matched to their symbols and we learn it’s a prophecy meant to be the only way to kill Bill (hehe, movie references). The problem I have with this is that it turned out to be entirely useless as they don’t use this to defeat Bill which means this mystery was entirely pointless, shame. But that wasn’t the only disappointment, then they finally do kill off Bill but have to sacrifice Stan’s mind in order to do so, a noble sacrifice and a very well done scene…only for it to mean squat because Stan gets his memories back anyway…huh.
Then we get our happy ending of everything going back to normal and Dipper & Mabel’s birthday party, then they say goodbye to everyone and honestly the goodbye scene is the best scene in the episode. So which goodbye did I think was the emotional anchor for me? Was it Dipper & Wendy? Mabel & her friends? Nope. It was Mabel & Waddles, even the damn thought that those two were going to be separate was enough for me to be shouting “NO! You cannot separate Mabel & Waddles! Don’t do this to me Gravity Falls!” and then when Waddles starts grabbing onto her skirt, Mabel’s in tears, oh my god it’s too much to take! Thank god Stan & Ford forces the bus driver to let Waddles on the bus. Then we get a montage of what everyone’s doing now and it all ends on a happy note, firmly planting that Gravity Falls flag in my heart that will now act as an empty void.
Now let’s get to some character stuff! Dipper & Mabel, their story finally comes to a close, even though there wasn’t much development for them in this episode, but to be fair it wasn’t needed, we got so much of it in the previous episode, this was all about showing why Dipper & Mabel work great as a pair. Dipper is smart, Mabel is creative, Dipper patient, Mabel compassionate. The two make a perfect pair and seeing their story come to a close together, their bond stronger than ever, goddamn if I won’t miss them. But Stan & Ford are the real hero twins of this episode, finally bringing their differences aside so they can save the world and actually forgive each other for their past mistakes. Stan’s sacrifice felt right, it was a good character moment and would have been a fine way to end the character, which is why I’m kinda pissed they undid all that. But on the other hand, seeing Stan & Ford travelling the seas like they always said they would, fighting giant monsters was a pleasant sight to see, and if it wasn’t for the sacrifice Stan made I would have said that was the perfect place to end their story.
As for all the other Gravity Falls town members, Soos becomes the manager of the Mystery Shack, which is just really sweet to see. Wendy doesn’t really change but hey, her goodbye scene with Dipper was really sweet. The Northwest family kinda ends on a downer of them going bankrupt…yeah we don’t really get any happy closure on them, especially for all the Dipcifica shippers out there. Ol’ Man McGucket becomes a millionaire and ends it on a funny note, as it should. Oh yeah, speaking of McGucket, we finally get a scene between him and Ford, and it’s sweet as all hell. Blubs and Durland finally profess their love for each other but don’t kiss because apparently Korra isn’t the only show with gay restrictions. Gideon is now a nice kid, but still has his Mad Max thugs to beat up bullies (I’m glad they stuck around).
But let’s talk about the big baddy of the show, Bill. I’ve stated before that this is one of my new favourite villains, he’s like The Joker if he was Omnipotent, just having the sickest sense of humour possible while still posing a legitimate threat. Hell when he transformed into that red demon version of himself he was actually terrifying. Bill was everything a great villain needed to be, threatening, funny, sadistically cruel (He has a couch made of human skin for crying out loud!) and he was as brilliant as ever in this episode.
So those were my thoughts on the final episode, it was really good. Some plot points were redundant or disappointing but 90% of them were really good. The characters were excellent, the animation was marvelous, the emotions were riding high and it’s an enjoyable finale to an excellent show. 9/10.
Gravity Falls is a show like no other, it’s like a cross between Twin Peaks and The Simpsons. Comparing it to other TV Shows on TV right now it has the most engaging dramatic story like no other, while simultaneously being the funniest show on TV. Nothing else got me as excited for the next episode, nothing had this many excellent characters, Mabel, Soos & Bill in particular will go down as my favourites but I love so many. On top of all that it had excellent animation, a talented voice cast, creative monsters and even when it took recycled formulas it found a way to make them interesting again. It’s writing, it’s animation, it’s atmosphere, it’s story, it’s characters, it’s voice talent. Everything was top notch and that makes this one of the best television shows of all time. 10/10.
-Danny
…Shit we never learned Dippers real name!
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