The only thing I can say to adequately sum up “Weirdmageddon Part 1,” is that it left me completely and utterly speechless.
Recap
We open on a shot of Bill Cipher, hovering above the town and laughing maniacally as muscles grow over his astral form and he takes on a physical body.
Blendin Blandin has just come to, and is terrified as he wonders what just happened. He looks over at Mabel as her unconscious body is levitated into the air and a huge pink bubble forms around her. A shooting star symbol appears on the bubble and chains wrap themselves around it, trapping her inside. He holds up his wrist communicator and tells someone that they have a situation. Then he is beamed back to the future.
Bill descends from the sky to address the citizens of Gravity Falls. He declares himself their new Lord and Master, and then introduces them to his gang of interdimensional criminals. Mayor Tyler tries to convince them to leave as nicely as he can and the other townsfolk rally behind him.
All, that is, except for Preston Northwest, who tells Bill he welcomes his tyrannical rule and offers his services as one of his horsemen of the apocalypse. Bill repays Preston’s generous proposition by shuffling the functions of every hole in his face, which leaves him lying on the ground in a horrifying, screaming, twitching heap. The town panics and scatters immediately.
Bill, delighting in the hysteria, begins turning people into statues, while some of his minions – who resemble eyeball bats – begin to abduct them. Bill tells everyone that he wants to redecorate, so he conjures up a giant floating pyramid, as well as a legion of “Bubbles of pure madness,” which he sends all over town. As Gravity Falls descends into chaos, Bill shouts to all who can hear him: “This party never stops! Time is dead, and meaning has no meaning! Existence is upside down and I reign supreme! Welcome one and all to Weirdmageddon!”
Back at the Mystery Shack, Dipper and Ford have to dodge the creatures of the forest as they exit it at top speed. And it’s not just deer and rabbits that flee in terror, but also gnomes and even the fearsome, fearless Manotaurs. Dipper realizes the rift was in the backpack Mabel took, and that she must be in danger. He takes off running in the direction that she ran, but Ford stops him. He tells Dipper they will find Mabel soon, but first they have to stop Bill. Then he pulls Dipper into the house as a weirdness wave crashes over the trees.
In town Soos watches the chaos unfold out his window. He calls for his abuelita, telling her that a tidal wave of madness has just crashed over them. Behind him he hears her laughing, as his abuelita tells him that he has such an imagination. He turns around and is shocked to see that she has just turned into a chair! She tells him that she’ll be fine and that he should go help the others. He stands up tall, kisses her on her cheek, and runs out the door shouting that he’s coming for his friends.
Out in the forest near the Mystery Shack, Grunkle Stan is nailing up a sign when Gompers the goat comes up behind him and eats the tassel off his fez. Stan has had it and is just about to throw him off the property when the weirdness wave reaches them. Gompers grows at least five stories taller and Grunkle Stan decides to run away instead.
Inside the prison, Li’l Gideon is in the middle of an art critique. The teacher criticizes his art, which enrages the other prisoners who think Gideon is unappreciated in his time. As they chant his name the roof crumbles in. Gompers made his way to the prison and is eating it! The wall caves in and the prisoners stumble outside to see Bill’s minions spreading chaos. A tiny, three-headed bird lands on Gideon’s finger and lets out an otherworldly scream. “Oh my,” Gideon says with delighted awe, “Bill came through.”
In the town’s square Bill preps his friends to go out and spread havoc. Nearby, at the top of a church bell tower, Ford gets out a massive gun (which he calls a quantum destabilizer). He tells Dipper he only has one chance to hit Bill with it. He takes aim, but another weirdness wave comes through and suddenly the church bell is alive! It begins giggling like a crazy person, startling Ford and causing him to miss Bill and hit his hat instead. Bill retaliates immediately, blasting the steeple off the church in a huge explosion.
As Dipper and Ford try to pull themselves out of the rubble, Ford gives Dipper his journals and tells him that there is one other way to defeat Bill. He tells Dipper to get out while he can, because Bill is on them immediately. He telepathically grabs Ford and pulls him out to his crowd of criminals. He tells them the Armageddon would not be possible without Ford, and that they should all give him a hand. He offers Ford the chance to join him, but Ford tells him that he’d rather die and he’s promptly turned into a statue.
Dipper, who watched from behind the church, suddenly runs out and shouts at Bill to hand over his uncle, or else! He holds up one of the journals in defiance. Bill just scoffs. He tells Dipper he’s welcome to try anything to take him down. Dipper frantically leafs through the book looking for whatever Ford meant when he said there was one other way to defeat Bill, but he doesn’t have enough time. He opts instead to punch Bill in the eye. He fails, obviously, and is sent spiraling backwards and hits a tree. Bill tells him not to be hero. He takes all three of the journals and disintegrates them in a ball of fire. He leaves Dipper under the tree and tells his friends that they’re having a VIP party at they Fearamid. Then he turns to two of them, 8-Ball and Teeth, and tells them they can have Dipper as a snack.
Three days later, Dipper is still on the run. The town has been reduced to ruin and he’s alone. At least he hasn’t been eaten. He tries to contact Mabel on their walkie-talkies, but there’s no answer. As he makes his way to the mall to check for anyone there, he is chased by a giant head with an arm coming out of the top, who demands that Dipper get in his mouth. Dipper narrowly escapes and makes it into the mall.
Inside, he sees a container of nachos sitting on a table. He runs toward them, but is immediately trapped in a net. It’s Wendy! She tells him that she’s avoided capture because her family did apocalypse training every year instead of Christmas. Toby Determined is also there, with an arrow in his shoulder because she accidentally mistook him for a monster. She cuts Dipper down from her trap and takes him to her hideout. She tells him that the eye-bats froze all her friends, and she’s been alone ever since.
Wendy tells Toby to watch the hideout and they go to the roof to talk. Wendy tells Dipper that she knows he can defeat Bill. They’ve done it twice before and this time should be no different. Dipper tells her that he can’t; back then he had Mable. Wendy tells him that’s it then. They just need to find Mabel. She knows that when the two of them are together they are unstoppable. Just then a huge monster eats a giant billboard and behind the billboard, off in the distance, they see a giant bubble with a shooting star from Mabel’s sweater on it. That must be where she is. Now there is the problem of getting there. The bubble is on the other side of town, across a vast field of madness bubbles. But Wendy has an idea.
Up in the Fearamid, Bill’s party is in full swing. His friends all play “Spin the person” using Lazy Susan, who has also been turned into a statue, as a bottle. Susan ends up pointing to a creature named Hectorgon, and another creature, Pyronica, gasps with delight and swallows him whole. Bill watches them, laughs, and encourages them all to go nuts, because – as soon as they’re done partying – he will unveil phase two.
Suddenly there is a loud knock at the door and a booming voice tells him to open up. It’s the time police! Blendin went back to the future and brought reinforcements to the present! The door explodes, and a squadron of time police, accompanied by the Time Baby himself, are outside. The Time Baby tells Bill his presence could completely destroy existence and that he should surrender now, or face his tantrum. Bill responds by utterly disintegrating the entire police force, as well as the Time Baby.
Blendin, who was hiding nearby, panics and teleports himself away as 8-Ball and Teeth approach Bill to tell him that they can’t find Dipper. They wonder if Dipper might cause some trouble with Mabel’s bubble. Bill tells them not to worry. He has someone on the case.
Back in town, Wendy, Dipper, and Toby have made their way to Bud Gleeful’s used auto mart, where they try to find a car they can drive to rescue Mabel. As they look around for a car that Wendy can hot-wire, Toby is suddenly hit with half a dozen tranquilizer darts, which immediately render him unconscious. Suddenly, a spotlight hits Wendy and Dipper and they are surrounded by a huge gang driving a ton of heavily modified vehicles. It’s Gideon and his prison gang!
Gideon informs them that Bill appointed him to protect Mabel. Bill told Gideon it was always Mabel’s destiny to love him and Gideon knows that now, since she’s trapped and he has the only key, she has no choice but to love him! He sends one of his henchmen, Ghost Eyes, to detain them. Wendy tells Gideon it’s pointless to try to stop them and she flips backward, bending Ghost Eye’s arm behind him. As he goes down in pain, she and Dipper escape and Wendy grabs Gideon, rips the key off his neck, and threatens to drop kick him if anyone tries anything. She smashes a window out of one of their cars and then dropkicks him anyway, which sends him flying into the crowd of prisoners and makes them drop like bowling pins. She and Dipper jump into the car and drive away before the group can collect themselves.
As they drive into the wasteland between them and Mabel, the prisoners give chase in their monstrous vehicles. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the giant head-arm thing is in the road. Wendy manages to swerve around it, but one of the prisoners isn’t so lucky, and he finds himself inside the monster’s mouth. As Ghost Eyes swerves around the thing eating one of their cars, he asks Gideon why exactly they are keeping Mabel prisoner. Have they, the prisoners, become the wardens? Gideon tells him to shut up and drive. Mabel loves him, she just doesn’t know it yet!
Suddenly the cars find themselves in the middle of the bubble field. There is no way they can swerve around them all. In an instant they all find themselves switched between several forms, sparrows, anime characters, silent film stars, and live action humans, just to name a few!
As Wendy and Dipper exit the field they realize there is a giant gorge in front of them, blocking their path. There is no way that they can make it to Mabel without jumping the gorge. Wendy steps on the gas and they sail over the chasm. They crash on the other side, wreck the car, and are thrown from the vehicle. As Dipper tries to crawl towards Mabel, a huge, cloaked figure towers over him, blocking his path. It’s Soos!
Soos tells them he’s been wandering the plains helping people like a desperado. Apparently there’s a bunch of folk songs about him now. He examines them and tells them they’re going to be okay, but they’re now surrounded. Gideon’s gang went around the gorge and they’re trapped. Gideon pulls out a giant shofar and blows on it, summoning Bill’s eye-bats.
Dipper steps forward and tells him that, whatever he thinks he’s doing by tapping Mabel, it won’t work. He’s had to learn himself; there is no way to make someone love you. The only thing you can hope for is to be someone worth loving. Trapping Mabel will never make her love him, but – if he were to change and make himself worthy of her love – he might have a chance! If they work together to defeat Bill, maybe Mabel would see Gideon as a hero! Gideon isn’t sure, it’s obvious he’s scared of what Bill might do if he were to double-cross him, but in the end he relents. He tells Dipper to tell Mabel what he did and he leads his gang away from them, toward the Fearamid, ready to take on Bill and his gang.
Dipper, Wendy, and Soos all step toward the bubble. Dipper tells them they need to prepare themselves for anything; this prison was created by Bill. The three of them put their hands together and vow to proceed together, for Mabel! Dipper takes the key and unlocks the padlock. The chains fall away and they step in together, as the screen fades to white. To be continued…
As the credits roll, the head armed monster, credited as The Horrifying, Sweaty, One-Armed Monstrosity, still crawls around, trying to convince anyone to get in his mouth. Obviously, no one will and he dejectedly crawls away, saying he needs to call his mother.
Review
This episode was flat out amazing. Jaw-droppingly shocking, and edge-of your-seat thrilling. This episode had everything you never knew you could ever want in an episode of Gravity Falls and was one of the best episodes of any television series in the history of entertainment. If you can’t tell, I loved this episode.
Bill Cipher is one of the absolute worst villains in any “kids’ show,” which makes him one of the best villains as well. He is evil, diabolical, cold, calculating, silly, crazy, hilarious, and terrifying. From the moment he first appeared on screen two years ago and pulled all the teeth out of that poor deer’s head, I knew that this was no ordinary cartoon villain.
As shocking as that awful tooth extraction was, this episode pushed him far beyond that. What he did to Preston Northwest was almost nauseating. (In fact I’m shocked that Disney let Alex get away with that!) I hated it and I loved it. It showed us that Bill was not messing around. Not that we didn’t already know this, but his actions were just the horrifying visual proof. Everything he did in this episode was wonderfully horrid. I knew that if he got through it was going to be bad, but I never expected anything like what we got in this episode. It was brain-meltingly insane.
I feel like I’m just babbling incoherently through all this, but Bill is just one of those villains you absolutely love to hate. In fact, Bill might possibly beat out Maleficent as my favorite Disney villain of all time. Shocking, I know. But, as much as I love all this chaos, I cannot wait to see Dipper and Mabel take him down. This is shaping up to be the most satisfying conclusion to any show, ever.
There was just so much in this episode. So many references, Easter eggs, quotes, and scenes. So many that I’m going to forgo the regular Favorite Quotes section and instead just mix it all together.
Favorite Stuff
THE THEME SONG!!!!!!!!!! Oh my word was that ever an unexpected jolt of awesome!!!! I’ve replayed that thing so many times! And speaking of music, the music for this entire episode was amazing! So different, so weird, and so awesome!
Lazy Susan: “Things with one eye are weird!”
The water tower. So random, so funny.
Random Gnome: “Hey, we’re scampering here!”
Abuelita: “Time for a nap.”
As simple as that joke was, it was one of my favorite things. I love it.
Here’s a random fact for any Boy Meets World/Girl Meets World fans that may be out there: Pyronica, the only girl hench-maniac, was voiced by Danielle Fishel, a.k.a. Topanga Lawrence-Matthews.
“I’m Shandra Jimenez, and I ate a rat for dinner.”
The pterodactyl! I REALLY hope the rest of the dinosaurs somehow get out of that cave before this is over!
Toby Determined: “Don’t call me Toby anymore, call me Bodacious T!”
Wendy: “No one will ever call you that.”
“Awe snap! He just killed Time Baby!”
I really did not see this coming. I totally expected at least a good battle. Bill completely annihilated them all!
Toby Determined: “Ooh, an air freshener! Finally I’ll smell like a person! Stealy, stealy!”
Wendy: “Cause I’m a flippin’ Corduroy!”
Gideon: “Ghost Eyes! My hench-angel!”Ghost Eyes: “You want your baby seat?”
Gideon: “Yes, please.”
The madness bubbles! So much AWESOME!!!!
You know these are Jason Ritter and Linda Cardellini, the REAL voices of Dipper and Wendy, right? I was literally flipping out!
Is Gideon turning good? I did NOT see that coming! I love it! Stories where a bad guy turns good are the greatest! And if it’s one of my favorite bad guys? Even better!
“Fighting children is boring! Fighting a chaos god sounds fun!”
“For Mabel!”
Final Thoughts
This was quite possibly my favorite episode ever. There was just so much awesome crammed into this short, 20 minute episode. I’ve literally just written over 3,000 words about it! I cannot believe how amazing, how incredible, how shocking, and how awesome this episode was. I cannot wait to see how they top this next time!
“Weirdmageddon II: Escape from Reality” will air tonight, November 23 on Disney XD.
What did you think of this episode of Gravity Falls? What was your favorite part?
Edited by: Hannah Wilkes
