Since it seems we have a fair few GF fans here, and since show discussion was kind of clogging up the happymaking thread, I figured it might make sense for us to have a dedicated thread for it. So...favorite episodes? (My favorite S1 ep is Fight Fighters; my favorite S2 ep is either Soos And The Real Girl or Northwest Mansion Noir.) Favorite characters? (I honestly don't know who my favorite character is but it's probably Mabel, let's be real here.) YEAH.
You beat me to it! :P Favorite episode? Hmmm... from Season One, probably Land Before Swine. From Season Two... Northwest Mansion Mystery or Into the Bunker, I think. 'S funny, I'd have named Golf War as weaker than Scary-oke, myself, and wasn't a huuuge fan of Soos And The Real Girl (lots I liked, don't get me wrong, but it fell a bit flat). Favorite character? Mabel, Grunkle Stan, oorrrr Wendy. Prooobably Wendy. Really hope she gets at least one episode more in the limelight beyond Into the Bunker. EDIT: Suuuper excited for Not What He Seems, though. Oh man.
of the top of my head, i'd say my favorite characters are the two cops. i love them all though even bill. i loved Northwest Mansion Noir because i've wanted to see in pacifica's house since she was introduced. Spoiler: episode spoilers i honestly can't believe they got away with the whole blood pouring out of things scene. i was shocked haha. i love dipper's conviction in the episode, and how they weren't afraid to portray him as mean instead of doing the whole wishy washy "grin and bear it" mentality most characters are forced to have. i'd love an analysis on the whole "pavlov's dogs" style of training pacifica's parents are doing to her, i thought that was super nasty. i'm scared for the bill foreshadowing. i'm starting to take him more seriously than i first did as a character, because the more i see of him the more terrifying he gets.
Spoiler: I guess for the most recent episode it makes sense? Yeaaah, give her a few years (or just reliable internet and time to think) and I imagine Pacifica'd fit right in on the ITA? forum. Re: Bill, yeaaah. I like how they made him out to be the most terrifying, but let him be kinda silly, and are now wrapping right back around to the "ohgodno" of his picture in Book 3.
I actually think Bill's demeanor makes him scarier, in a way. He's goofy and nonchalant but you absolutely know he'd still fuck you up--and that's honestly one of my favorite flavors of villain. Spoiler: spoilers! Pacifica's development and story was what made Northwest Mansion Noir for me. The Pavlov thing was horrifying, but I actually think it's good they were able to show something like that, since I honestly think showing kids fucked up things like that and making it abundantly clear that it's Not Okay can be pretty important. I mean, obviously the bell thing is less than likely to be a common tactic IRL, but they're shown to be controlling and she's shown to be genuinely scared of them, and I just have hope that some kid will see this episode and realize that their own situation (or that of a friend) is unsafe and possibly get help. Probably too optimistic of me but whatever.
Pacifica would totally end up on this forum eventually. For a triangle in a top hat, Bill is scary as hell. For season one, my favorite episode is actually probably Dreamscaperers, cause that was the first one I saw. (Yeah yeah, I know. The friend who had been trying to get me into Gravity Falls was so annoyed about it. Just all, 'but, you watched it out of order! why did you watch out of order!') For season two I don't really have a favorite yet. Northwest Mansion Noir is highest on the list at the moment. Spoiler: This show, seriously. Bleeding taxidermy and family curses and horrible death and abuse, you know, for kids!
My favorite episode is either Northwest Mansion Noir or Soos and the Real Girl, I think. Spoiler: Spoilers! I was actually pretty legitimately upset at how Pacifica's parents treated her. It was a very cartoony level of abuse - bell ringing, seriously?? - while still being clearly abuse and clearly something that was messing her up. Go muddy that carpet, Pacifica! And get help, seriously.
Agreed. It was genuinely disturbing, in a way that even the creepiest supernatural crap in the series can't top. Same applies to Soos And The Real Girl, actually. Giffany is my favorite one-off villain in the show, specifically because her motives are just plain creepy in a frighteningly realistic way. Speaking as someone who's dealt with a crazed stalker (and, sadly, continues to deal with him, because he lives in a different state and it's mostly been cyberstalking and creepy letters/phone calls/texts and the like and the police can't (or won't) do much, but that's irrelevant), it hit very close to home. Especially her actions towards Melody for committing the oh-so-heinous crime of...going on a date with Soos, who had outright broken up with Giffany already. Given that my stalker threatened at one point to hurt anyone I dated...yeah. (The Hand That Rocks The Mabel had a similar effect on me, for what it's worth.) Gravity Falls is actually really good at dealing with really serious real-life issues in an entertaining and cartoony way. Take Fight Fighters, for instance--while the whole Rumble McSkirmish thing is obviously ridiculous (and hilarious), the basic crux of the plot, Dipper getting challenged to a fight with a bully, is the kind of thing a kid might legitimately have to deal with. And a lot of the scariest and saddest shit in the show is the stuff that actually happens. Fights with bullies, not having enough money to care for your charges, creepy stalkers, parental abuse...the list goes on. It even plays into a lot of minor fears and anxieties as well. Dipper's crush on Wendy is a good example; I'm sure pretty much everyone who experiences romantic attraction has had that crush that they just can't spit out their feelings to, and that they're scared to tell for fear of ruining things. Or Soos trying to find a girlfriend and just not knowing what to do. Or Mabel dealing with the feeling of always being in Dipper's shadow. Stuff like that. It's kinda funny that a series this absurd can also be so realistic.
I think it helps, actually. What's the saying, again? People will accept the truth more easily if it dresses itself up like a lie? Spoiler: about Northwest Manor Mystery I'm glad they did the thing with the bell, actually, and not anything more likely. It's very clearly abuse, but it shows that abuse can look like all kinds of things, and also, well... it doesn't fall into a extant trope of "this is what abusive parents are like" really? I dunno, I might be well off-base, but I think having abuse shown like this might be easier to recognize because they never actually hit her or do anything to her, but she's visibly terrified of them. They don't need to do anything more than that to get her to do what they want, and I know of so many people who have that ingrained "if I just listen to them nothing bad happens so it isn't abuse" idea in their heads.
Gravity Falls! A friend of mine got me into this show by comparing it to an M rated horror game I love...and she was 100% right. Favorite episodes: The Hand that Rocks the Mabel (bc of how it handles an abusive relationship), Boyz Crazy (it makes me laugh), Into the Bunker (Wendy is awesome), Society of the Blind Eye, Northwest Mansion Noir (I was waiting for "it's ketchup/fruit punch...NOPE)
I liked Northwest Mansion Noir a whole lot, but I kinda wish that Pacifica'd been a bit more caustic, I guess? It was a bit jarring for me to see her go from talking down to the girl saving her life in Golf Wars to just being kind of awkward and generally pleasant. I dunno, it just felt a bit weird to me. Then again, it might have been hard to make her mean and uncertain about whether or not her behavior and that of her parents was acceptable, and still have her be unambiguously sympathetic, especially all within twenty minutes.
I sort of attributed the difference to her parents being around, actually. Her relationship with them is so unbalanced, it rips away her confidence to be mean, or something.
Also she was in a position of begging for help plus all the high society people were around. So it's probably a combination of those and her parents
During the frontier day thing her parents were right next to her when she was humiliating Mabel, and if I recall correctly, they outright encouraged her to talk down to other people. But I guess the atmosphere would definitely be different between those two events.
Yeah, that was what I was trying to say. The frontier day was all about the Northwests talking down to other people, the ball was them with people they might conceivably see as equals, so suddenly Pacifica stops being a prized member of their wonderful family that needs to talk down to everyone else, and starts being, well, a prized trained dog to show off.
SO GUYS HOW ABOUT THAT EPISODE THAT JUST AIRED. Spoiler: Not What He Seems HOLY SHIT WHO EVEN IS GRUNKLE STAN WHAT DID WE JUST DO I AM SO CONFUSED. I'm glad it was Mabel on the button, though. Whoever or whatever Grunkle Stan is, he really does care about Dipper and Mabel. I think trusting him was the right idea, whatever nonsense he's just done.
AUGH Spoiler: Not What He Seems WE WERE SO RIGHT THE THEORY WAS RIGHT OH MY GOSH but in other news what about THIS lookit those pupils also Dipper stretched A LOT when compared to Soos, Stan, and Mabel also don't you think this would be the sort of thing Bill might show up to?
Spoiler: Not What He Seems i thought the twin theory was canon, i was totally expecting it. i WASNT, however, prepared for him being the author! now i just wanna know who/what bill is, and how grunkle stan knows him. also, has anyone got on translating the secret backwards messages from the commercial breaks yet? i kinda hope they aren't something dumb like gideon's.
Does anyone know when the next episode is? Though I'm not going to be happy with anything not right now after that cliffhanger.
