secondly, it's about love. and trust. and mistakes. and family. and a fucked up triangle. but mostly those first things.
this is dipper pines. he's 12 years old, definitely not a teen, and he has a bit of a sweating problem. he's smart, conspiracy-brained, and above all else an earnest and awkward young man. likes include icelandic pop music group "babba", reading mystery books, not washing his clothes, wendy, and just general woogity woo spooky stuff. he shares the spotlight of the show with his twin sister, mabel.
heeeeere's mabel! dipper's twin sister, older by just a few minutes and taller by one milimeter. lolrandom but in an actually funny way, mabel is definitely the less sweaty of the two. she is, to put it simply, silly, which is why i love her dearly. she's also a bit of a romantic, with a desire, like most preteen girls, to have some sort of epic summer romance. she is also crafty, like in the literal "arts and crafts" sense, and each episode features a unique sweater. some of them genuinely whip ass. i want the one with a giant light bulb on it that actually lights up.
and who is in charge of these kids? that would be their grunkle (great uncle) stan of course! this old handsome glass of water runs a tourist trap called "the mystery shack", a wondrous place where you can find such unique exhibits as "the corn-icorn", "a horse riding another horse", and "rock that looks like a face". he's lived out in gravity falls by himself for decades, and his reputation as a local sheister preceeds him. despite the gruff exterior he truly cares for his family, and he's a totally normal old bachelor running a business and he has no secrets or mysterious past to hide. and i know what you're thinking. and no i am NOT attracted to a fictional old man. why would you even say that? that's so weird of you to say you should be embarrassed. i'm leaving now. because you've embarrassed yourself so much just now. yikes.
if you're gonna run a tourist trap in the middle of nowhere, you're gonna need a handy man. for the mystery shack, that handy man is soos! god i love this dude. he rocks. dudes rock. soos has been the handy man for the mystery shack for at least a decade of his young, unspecified early-20's life. he's got the kindest heart of potentially anyone in the show. he loves laser tag and lives with his abuelita and man i bet het gives real good hugs.
in order to run a successful business you also need an apathetic teenager to man your cash register. thankfully stan has wendy corduroy to do that. gravity falls local cool teenager and girl of dipper's dreams, wendy becomes fast companions to the twins as they help out around the shack. at 15 years old it may not surprise you to learn that wendy isn't exactly eager to crush on a sweaty 12 year old, but she becomes close friends with dipper regardless as their rapport grows over the summer. being raised in a family of lumberjacks has toughened her up, but her best skill is that of pretending to be chill at all times.
what's a town without a local kook? well thank god gravity falls has fiddleford mcgucket, hillbilly insane genius to fill that role. he's one of my favorite side characters of all time. i will always have a soft spot for a hillbilly and he's an excellent one. he's got some of the best lines in the show and definitely not one of the most tragic backstories. favorite lines include "old man mcgucket *spit* spittin' in a bucket","awwwww mcsuckit.... they got me good", and "so there i am, fightin a raccoon for the same piece of meat, when our mouths get close and we kiss accidentally!".
ah, lil gideon. who doesn't love a child psychic. this little patootie is a direct competitor to the mystery shack. it's easy to see why. i mean, stan doesn't have a singing and dancing white haired child who can read minds, now does he? notable traits include: being widdew and having a deceptive folksy charm. did i say deceptive? i meant totally natural and kind. his father, bud, runs a local used car dealership and seems to make a successful living off both the opposum-infested cars and singing child.
here we have local rich girl, pacifica northwest. her family is descended from the founder of the town, and thus have lived an excessive life of luxury because of their noble heritage. she is unsurprisingly snotty and just kind of generally unlikeable. some could even describe her as a one dimensional bleach blonde valley girl stereotype.
and who could forget dear waddles? just look at him. perfection. what else even is there to add?
at its most basic, the plot is that dipper and mabel are shipped off by their parents to go live with their grunkle stan for a summer. dipper insists there's strangeness afoot from the start, falling on his sister and grunkle's deaf ears. however he quickly discovers a mysterious journal in the woods, and the weirdness only escalates over the course of the summer. and although the kids don't know it at first- one of the greatest mysteries of the town is actually right underneath them.
at the end of the very first episode, we see grunkle stan secretly entering a vending machine. or like, a door behind a vending machine. this is, hilariously and frustratingly, not addressed again for over a dozen episodes. except for a cipher in the opening credits that reads "STAN IS NOT WHAT HE SEEMS". you can look at my theories page for more about that. suffice to say going through like an entire season of a show with a giant mystery that the main characters aren't even aware they should be looking into had us ripping our hair out (once again, check out my theory page for more on that).
god this episode has it all. it hilarious- the shot of gabe watching sock puppets burn and fly around him as ave maria plays gets me every fucking time.
also some of the one liners are some of the best in the show- "hey soos, wanna hear the exact time and date of your death?", "you look pretty sweaty. you should really take your shirt off! right? aren't we all thinkin that?", "sooooo, Grendo!", among plenty others. also i really like this poster we see in the library in the opening.
also just the art direction of the episode is fantastic. that can be said for most of the episodes in season 2, but it really stands out for me here. just look at this visual language!!!
i also love love LOVE this shot in the show. it's literally my desktop background and has been for years. it's so simple and so pretty and so woogity.
it's also genuinely freaky throughout! aside from the terrifying premise, the imagery is so effectively unsettling that it does a great job of balancing the scary with the funny and just makes for a super well rounded piece of media.