History Recap / GravityFallsS2E4SockOpera

* IronicEcho: Bill's line "Eenie, meenie, miney.... ''YOU!!!''" is the same one Stan used to pick Dipper to go nail directions to the Shack in the spooky woods in "Tourist Trapped". Except for this time, instead of being funny, it's ''terrifying.''

'''Bill:''' Hmm, let's see. Eenie meenie mynee... ''[[DemonicPossession You]]''.

* AllPartOfTheShow: Played with. Mabel hopes the audience will think the fight with Bipper and fireworks explosion was all part of the show and applaud, even saying [[ConversationalTroping that's how it happens on TV.]] The audience, however, is unimpressed and jeers. One person even calls out how they nearly died.

** Adding with a bit of SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome, when Bill was hurting Dipper's body ForTheEvulz, it came back to bite him when the damage, combined with Dipper's sleep deprivation, weakened him to the point where he was expelled from the body.

-->''[[TheStinger YM’KL ECN PPK WFOM UBR KQVXNLK, DCI SIK’U VDA JFTOTA AYQ BWL VVCT "EBTGGB BHWKGZH" HVV: TMEASZFA LOS YCDT PRWKTIYEKGL DBV XQDTYRDGVI]]''. [[note]]We've All Had Some Fun Tonight, But Let’s Not Forget Who The Real; "Puppet Masters" Are: Reptoids Who Have Infiltrated Our Government[[/note]]

-->''[[TheStinger YM’KL ECN PPK WFOM UBR KQVXNLK, DCI SIK’U VDA JFTOTA AYQ BWL VVCT "EBTGGB BHWKGZH" HVV: TMEASZFA LOS YCDT PRWKTIYEKGL DBV XQDTYRDGVI]]''. [[note]]We've All Had Some Fun Tonight, But Let’s Not Forget Who The Rea; "Puppet Masters" Are: Reptoids Who Have Infiltrated Our Government[[/note]]

-->'''Bill:''' ''Sorry kid, but you're '''my''' puppet now!''

During the intermission of Glove Story: a Sock Opera, Dipper manages to contact Mabel by possessing a sock-puppet version of himself, and bring her up to speed. Not wanting her show to be ruined, Mabel has Dipper perform in her place while she gets the Journal. There, she encounters Bill, who threatens to spoil the act unless he gets the Journal. With Gabe weighing on her mind, Mabel almost caves in- until Bill remarks, "Who would give up everything for their dumb sibling?" Reminded of her brother, Mabel fights Bill, and their brawling spills onto the stage. And even though Bill is an EnergyBeing, he's still in the body of kid who hasn't slept in days. Exhaustion forces Bill out, allowing Dipper to retake his body. Possessing Dipper's puppet, Bill gloats that "Big things are coming". Mabel removes Bill entirely by using the Big Finish, a fireworks display that destroys every puppet and parts of the theater. The audience hates the show, and Gabe, believing Mabel has mocked his art, goes off to make out with his own puppets. Dipper and Mabel make up, and go home in good spirits...although Dipper may need to make a trip to the hospital.

* SkewedPriorities: Mabel breaking her promise to help Dipper in favor of trying to woo a guy she's barely even spoken to would be a minor case of this. It kicks up a notch when Dipper has his body stolen and comes to her for help and she still tries to put him off in favor of impressing Gabe. Though she's willing to go find the journal with Dipper continuing the show for her, when Bill gives her the SadisticChoice between the play going well or the journal, which Dipper has told her he needs to get his body back, she actually begins to hand it over. Thankfully, Bill's gloating prompts her to realize what exactly she's doing.

* CatapultNightmare: Dipper has one after waking up from his conversation with Bill. Bill even imitates Dipper before he leaves. Mabel has one too in the ending credits, after dreaming of a realistic puppet show starring herself and Dipper.
* CharacterDevelopment: For Mabel. Yes, she was already a very complex character whose morality has been shown higher than Dipper's, but this episode tries to sort out her biggest flaw; her selfishness. Dipper has sacrificed a lot for her in order for her to be happy, and she has never returned the favor (biggest examples are "The Time Traveler's Pig" and "The Deep End"). When Bill mocks her for being self-absorbed and just using Dipper, she [[HeelRealization realizes]] that he has a point and thus pulls her own sacrifice for Dipper's sake. When Bill is defeated and Dipper back in his body, Mabel apologizes to Dipper for her behaviour.

** When Dipper is arguing with Mabel intending on blowing off helping him with the laptop to do her play, she winds up tickling him. Later on, this is used against "Bipper" since she knew where Dipper is ticklish.
** Mabel's able to outrun a worn out "Bipper" on the stage thanks to the "four megashots" of Mabel Juice that she had.
** The sleep deprivation inflicted against Dipper's body ends up making Bill so exhausted he collapses out of the body.

* ContinuityCavalcade: Bill Cipher tries to persuade Dipper into making a deal with him that will affect Mabel's efforts, stating "What has she ever done to return the favor?" whilst showing flashbacks of his sacrifices in Season 1.

** Bill's return itself, and Dipper yelling at him that "[[Recap/GravityFallsS1E19Dreamscaperers he tried to destroy his uncle's mind."]]
** [[Recap/GravityFallsS1E10FightFighters Mabel Juice]] comes back, only it's pink and has plastic dinosaurs.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Bill didn't realize using the body of a weak, sleep deprived boy may have some negative consequences.
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: When Mabel and Gabe meet up before the puppet show, their conversation steers to his personal opinion of another girl's puppet show (which honestly disappointed him). He voices that his response to a puppet show with even a small flaw [[note]] Single stitch on one puppet and cross-stitch on the other puppet [[/note]] is to "naturally" [[DisproportionateRetribution delete her from his contacts]]. Rather than comprehend how shallow and conditional Gabe is, this only pressures Mabel to throw herself into making her puppet show perfect, instead of helping Dipper like she promised.

--> '''Candy:''' (In Korean) I must steal him away from Mabel.\\
'''Candy:''' (In Korean) Wait, Gabe! Candy still loves you!

* HeelRealization: Mabel realizes she has been very self-absorbed when [[JerkassHasAPoint Bill mocks her about it]], and thus defeats Bill so Dipper can get back into his body. She then apologizes to him. [[invoked]]

* ILetYouWin: Bill implies this when Dipper brings up defeating him in "Dreamscaperers."

** When Dipper tries to point out that Mabel is getting obsessed with the puppet show, she calls him out on being obsessed with solving the mysteries of Gravity Falls that she notices it starts to take a toll on both his mental health and more visibly, his physical health, which was something Mabel had warned Dipper earlier in this episode.
** To help push Dipper into making a deal, Bill reminded him of all the times Dipper has made sacrifices for Mabel's sake and how she has never returned it.

* MagicCountdown: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] from its usual application. When Bill offers his deal to Dipper, the supposedly five-minute countdown goes down in little over a minute.

** Probably it has more sugar than caffeine, but Mabel drinks five shots of her namesake juice before the show, which has plastic dinosaurs. Stan describes it as if "coffee and nightmares had a baby."

** Dipper by insisting on working on the laptop after getting no sleep puts himself in a vulnerable position to accept a DealWithTheDevil.

** Bill tells Dipper he needs a vessel in order to communicate. Dipper remembers this when trying to think of a way to call for help, which gives him the idea to possess a sock puppet.

* NonStandardCharacterDesign: Gabe's eyes stands out for having blue dots for pupils instead of black dots.

* TookALevelInJerkass: Mabel, to a degree. She isn't overly harsh about it, but she does prioritize her puppet show over anything else, to the point she refuses to fulfill a promise to Dipper. Also, while she has always shown some disinterest in Dipper's focus on solving the mysteries of Gravity Falls, here she outright trivializes his search for answers, merely just to retaliate against Dipper's WhatTheHellHero call out over her own puppet show obsession. Thankfully, Bill's mockery makes her realize what she's doing.

* TrappedOnTheAstralPlane: Dipper, thanks to Bill Cipher performing a DemonicPossession on his body, is temporarily trapped as a ghost that can only interact with the rest of the world trough possessing a inanimate object.

-->'''Bill:''' Besides, what's your sister done for you lately? How many times have you sacrificed for her huh? And when has she ever returned the favor?
** Later on, when the triangle-shaped demon fights Mabel for the journal, he tells her that she had no problem abandoning her brother to obsess over her latest crush, not to mention taking one of his possessions without permission to use a prop in her puppet show. Unfortunately for him, [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Mabel realizes he's right]], and resolves to stop him for her brother's sake, even if it means ruining her play.

* WhamShot: After we see Dipper's ripped out soul, his body rises from the ground and opens his eyes...[[DemonicPossession to reveal the scleras have turned yellow and the pupils are slanted as Bill Cipher's leitmotif plays.]]

* YouMonster: Bipper mutters "You monster." to Grenda under his breath after she tells him he can't get the Journal until Act 3.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: As mentioned in PunchClockVillain above, Bill possesses Dipper's body and begins to hurt it, both out of morbid curiosity and a desire to sadistically inflict pain on his host. This eventually leaves him possessing an injured and sleep-deprived boy's body, which he can no longer fight on with.

* ExhaustionInducedIdiocy: Dipper's self-inflicted sleep deprivation exacerbates his desperation to break into the laptop, causes him to not think straight, and as a consequence of both makes him more vulnerable to manipulation, resulting in him making the mistake of trusting Bill Cipher.

* ExhaustionInducedIdiocy: Dipper's self-inflicted sleep deprivation exacerbates his desperation to break into the laptop, makes him more vulnerable to manipulation, and causes him to not think straight, resulting in him making the mistake of trusting Bill Cipher.

* ExhaustionInducedIdiocy: Dipper's self-inflicted sleep deprivation exacerbates his desperation to break into the laptop and causes him to not think straight, resulting in him making the mistake of trusting Bill Cipher.

* AmbiguousSituation: It's never really elaborated what Bill meant when he implied [[ILetYouWin he let Dipper defeat him]] back in ''Dreamscaperers,'' nor is the notion even brought up again.

* AllForNothing: Two episodes after it was introduced, the laptop reappears... only for Bill to smash it after gaining control of Dipper's body.

** After spending the entire episode obsessing over her puppet show, to the point that she refuses to help Dipper with accessing the laptop after promising to do so, Mabel has her show turn out to be a flop and the boy she was interested in wanting nothing to do with her (though she admits that she "might have dodged a bullet" with him after seeing him make out with his hand).