Recap / Gravity Falls S1 E19 "Dreamscaperers"

"Eat nightmares!"

Dipper: Get ready, guys. We're about to journey into the most horrifying, disturbing place any of us have ever been... our uncle's mind.

One rainy day, Stan catches Lil' Gideon trying to crack his safe where the Mystery Shack's deed is kept. Stan chases Gideon out, confident that the combination to the safe is secure in his head. Gideon decides to call upon his journal 2's greatest secret...a cycloptic 'triangle guy' called Bill Cipher. Gideon summons Bill, and orders him to find the safe combo in Stan's mind. Upon hearing the name Stan Pines, Bill agrees, stating that in return Gideon can help Bill out with his own plans. With the deal made, Bill goes off to invade Stan's mind. All this was witnessed by Mabel and Soos, who heard Gideon's summoning spell. The two report this to Dipper, who reads in his own journal 3 that Bill is the most dangerous creature in Gravity Falls. However, there is a spell that can be used to enter the mind Bill invades to prevent his chaos. With Stan showing signs of nightmares, the trio go in.

They find themselves in a spooky area similar to the Mystery Shack. Bill appears, and as a display of power zaps a (Non-fatal) hole in Dipper and summons Xyler and Kraz, two fictional characters from the movie Dreamy Boy High. Bill explains that the Shack of Stan's mind has doors leading to different memories; one of which has the memory of Stan entering his safe's code. Bill flies off, and the gang goes to searching. Dipper gets separated from the others and finds a door leading to Stan's 'Dipper memories'. Interested on what his uncle truly thinks of him, and why he always gives Dipper the hard chores, the boy enters. There, he finds a memory of Stan and Soos talking over the old man's treatment of his nephew. Stan says, "The kid's a loser. He's weak. He's an utter embarrassment. I just want to get rid of him." Heartbroken, Dipper leaves.

Meanwhile, Mabel finds the memory of Stan's combination, and Soos offers to destroy it...levitating the door into the air! It's actually Bill, who took Soos' form while the real Soos was distracted. With the memory in hand, Bill races off. Mabel, Soos, and the dream boys give chase and bump into Dipper. But by this time Dipper is no longer interested in helping his great-uncle, and just wants to leave. Bill contacts Gideon, but before he can relay the combo, Mabel knocks the memory into another memory, this one of the Bottomless Pit. At this failure Gideon breaks off the deal, and an enraged Bill attacks Mabel and Soos, transporting them to a floating arena in space and tormenting them with nightmares.

Dipper runs into the memory of Soos and Stan talking, and hears Stan add to his earlier comment, "...Those are things said about me when I was a boy." Stan used to be a wimp as a child, until his father made him take boxing lessons. This is why Stan is so hard on Dipper; he's trying to toughen his nephew up so that he can fight back against the world, and he's actually quite proud of him. At this point Dipper is pulled into the memory. Stan undoes the hole Bill made, and reveals that anything is possible in the mind. With this knowledge in hand, Dipper races off to help his sister and Soos fight Bill. The three do a great job, but before they can finish Bill off, the demon puts a halt to the battle. Impressed by the three, Bill decides that they will be useful in the future and leaves them with this warning; "A darkness approaches. A day will come in the future where everything you care about will change."

The gang wakes up. And while Stan wonders why he dreamed of two impossibly handsome men, the twins and Soos celebrate.

But then the celebration was cut short when all of a sudden, the wall explodes! After Bill's failure, Gideon reveals he switched to Plan B and used dynamite on the safe and now has the deed. Ordering the Pines family out, he has his father take a wrecking ball to the Shack...

To be continued...

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Tropes in this episode:

• Anachronism Stew: Stan's date, which would have taken place in the seventies, features Carla wearing a poodle skirt, which were much more popular in the fifties. However, there was a revival of 1950s culture in that time period due to things such as Happy Days and Grease.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Downplayed. Dipper's incantation uses actually Latin words, but they make absolutely no sense in regards to the situation, both together and individually.
• Art Shift: Mabel's two dream boys are drawn with semi-realistic 80's cartoon-level human proportions.
• Artistic License – Law: Played with. Normally, having the paper deed to a property doesn't automatically mean owning said property. However, supplementary material reveals that Gravity Falls still abides by President Quentin Trembley's "Finders Keepers" law, therefore Gideon can in fact legally own the Shack simply by stealing the deed.
• As You Know: The episode begins with a short conversation where the cast talk about Gideon's history and goals so that people who hadn't seen previous episodes (particularly "The Hand that Rocks the Mabel" and "Little Dipper") will have an idea what's going on.
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: When Bill gets his hands on the safe combination, Mabel calls him a "stink face".
• Bilingual Bonus: Gideon's Latin chant very roughly translates to "Triangle, entangled. Lord of Minds, arrive. All-seeing one, arrive!"
• Brick Joke: While Dipper looks through the many doors that represents Grunkle Stan's memories, one of them just so happens to hold the Colombian prison memory that Stan off-handedly mentioned back in The Hand That Rocks The Mabel.
• Candlelit Ritual: Gideon summons Bill Cipher with a Magical Incantation in front of a circle of candles with a picture of Stan in the middle. Unusually for the trope, he does it in a sunny meadow.
• Canis Latinicus: Dipper's incantation includes the phrase "Inceptus Nolan Overratus!".
• Captain Obvious: Soos, naturally.
  Bill Cipher: Do you have ANY idea what I'm like when I'm MAD?!
  (cue Bill going One-Winged Angel and warping the group to a starry battleground)
  Soos: So, uh... I guess he gets really mad when he gets mad.
• Care-Bear Stare: Directly parodies Care Bears when Soos shoots a question mark shaped beam from his stomach at Bill:
  Soos: Soos love stomach beam staaare!!!
• Chekhov's Gun: A twofer. First is the NYARF toy gun: Dipper is seen using it to shoot a picture of Grunkle Stan to vent his frustrations. It then pops up again when Mabel uses it to shoot the memory door that holds the safe number into the bottomless pit memory.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Gideon in the process of destroying the Mystery Shack.
• Cue the Flying Pigs:
  Stan: Please, the only way Gideon's taking over the shack is by breaking in and stealing my deed.
  crash
  Wendy: You mean like, right now?
• Continuity Porn: Where does one begin?
  • First, the majority of the episode takes place in Stan's mind so bits and pieces of previous episodes are scattered throughout.
  • As Bill disappears to invade Stan's mind after being summoned, he tells Gideon that the world is ending soon and to "buy gold", the same thing Stan told Robbie two episodes prior.
  • There's The Unreveal involving the soda machine from episode one.
  • We see Stan on his date with Lazy Susan, after he successfully asked her out in "Dipper vs. Manliness". We also see how Stan changed his mind about her, leading to that episode's Credits Gag where she bombarded him with calls that he refused to answer.
  • We get to see Stan in a Colombian prison.
  • When Dipper opens Journal #3 to the page on Bill Cipher, the credits ciphers used thus far - "CAESAR", "ATBASH", and "A1Z26", are listed in the top-right corner. All three are crossed out, which also acts as a hint that the credits cipher will be changing soon.
• Cutting the Knot: Gideon, after seeing Bill's failure, goes to Plan B: "dynamite".
• Darker and Edgier: Definitely the darkest episode in the series up to this point. Symbolized by the picture on Mabel's sweater — a sunset over water.
• Deal with the Devil: Gideon summons Bill to go into Stan's mind and get him the combination to Stan's safe. Bill agrees, in return for Gideon's promise to help him with a currently unknown thing. When Mabel prevents Bill from delivering the combination, Gideon calls the deal off.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The memory of Stan describing the bottomless pit.
  Stan: ...and none more bottomless than the bottomless pit! Which you can see here is bottomless.
• Dream Walker: Bill can enter the minds of others while they're asleep and influence their dreams.
• Eldritch Abomination: This is the first episode to feature Bill, who is definitely one of these. Gideon summons him from another dimension to make a deal with him.
• Establishing Character Moment: Bill's first act upon being summoned is to psychically pull all the teeth out of a deer's mouth and offer them to Gideon as a present, with a genuine sense of joy. Even Gideon is freaked out by this, showing off Bill's depraved sense of humor, and that he is definitely not just another wacky Monster of the Week.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Gideon is horrified at Bill's afore mentioned Establishing Character Moment.
• Evil Is Hammy: Bill is extremely cartoony and more or less insane.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Dipper overhears Stan talking about him, but misses a key bit of context.
• Foreshadowing: The sweater Mabel wears at the beginning of the episode has the picture of a sun setting over a lake; note that this signals that this is the episode where the show turns Darker and Edgier.
  • Bill refers to Dipper, Mabel, and Soos as "Pine Tree," "Shooting Star," and "Question Mark," respectively. These are their symbols on the Zodiac Wheel that has the power to banish him.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Two for the price of one! When Bill first hears the name "Stan Pines," he summons an image of him in his body; pausing the frame will reveal the Stan that appears has six fingers, meaning that it's Ford, the Author. Similarly, during the flashback to Grunkle Stan's boxing lessons, there's a boy built identically to him sitting in the bleachers, his face concealed by a book. That's Ford, too.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: When Stan is possessed by Bill, his eyes glow blue and stream violently. Also happens to Gideon as he finishes the incantation to summon Bill, and to Dipper, Mabel and Soos as he chants the incantation to enter Stan's mind.
• Gonk: Invoked by Bill when he starts fighting Soos and Mabel. He turns the latter into a horrifically ugly version of herself because she fears losing her cuteness.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Just when Bill seems to be on the ropes during the dream battle, he abruptly decides that they've had enough fun and immediately whites out the dreamscape, in the process nullifying the ability of his opponents to manipulate it to their whims. He then congratulates them for putting up a good fight and warns them that big changes are coming.
• I Know What You Fear: Bill is able to summon people's worst nightmares with ease. For Mabel, it's losing her cute appearance; for Soos, it's a "British dog man."
• Impact Silhouette: Bill leaves one as he crashes into the shack.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: One of the memories found by the Trio is of Stan going on a date with Lazy Susan and deciding that he needs to bail. The best he can muster as a reason is "Non-specific excuse!"
• Insult Backfire: After being called insane by Gideon, Bill gleefuly replies with "Sure I am. What's your point?".
• Insult Misfire: Bill delivers a not-so-subtle insult involving Soos. Because it's Soos, he mistakenly believes said insult is aimed at someone else.
  Bill: You're a lot more clever than you look. Especially the fat one!
  Soos: {to Mabel} He's talking about you!
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Dipper, Mabel, and Soos journey into Grunkle Stan's mind in order to confront Bill Cipher.
• Latin Is Magic: Gideon's spell to summon Bill Cypher is in Latin, as is the spell Dipper uses to enter Grunkle Stan's mind (except the "Inceptus Nolanus Overratus" part).
• The Mad Hatter: Bill and he knows it.
  Gideon: Ah! You're Insane!
  Bill: Sure I am. What's your point?
• Magical Eye Streamers: Happens to anyone who gets Glowing Eyes of Doom.
• Magical Incantation:
  • Gideon chants one to summon Bill Cipher:
    Triangulum! Entangulum! Vene foris dominus mentium! Vene foris videntis omnium! ^note In English, this means: Triangle! Entangled! Lord of Minds, come to the door! All-seeing one, come to the door!
  • Dipper chants one for himself, Soos and Mabel to enter Stan's mind:
    Videntus omnium! Magister mentium! Magnesium ad hominem! Magnum opus! Habeas corpus! Inceptus Nolanus overratus! Magister mentium, Magister mentium, Magister mentium!
• Misery Builds Character: Seems to be a thing with the Pines family. Stan's father was pretty rough on his son and even made him take boxing lessons when he was bullied. This mindset has left quite the mark on Stan which is why he's so tough on Dipper.
• Mundane Horror: Soos's greatest nightmare is a "British dog man" who speaks in incomprehensible Cockney slang.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Bill shots a hole in Dipper's chest, which Stan later fixes. This is how Dipper learns you can manipulate reality in the mindscape, which leads to the group getting the upper hand on Bill.
• Once More, with Clarity: While inside Stan's mind, Dipper sees a memory that has Stan describing him as a loser. Once he sees that memory a second time, it's revealed that Stan was actually recalling how other people used to feel about him.
• One-Winged Angel: After Mabel successfully knocks the safe combination memory out of Bill's grasp, Gideon calls off their deal. Bill is furious, starts glowing red, and takes on a hugely monstrous form to attack the heroes.
• Penny-Pinching Crab: One of the many oddities that live in Stan's mindscape is a crab with his features. While not upfront about it, it definitely brings this trope to mind.
• A Plot in Deed: After his prior attempts to get the Mystery Shack by trickery or coercion failed, Gideon attempts to steal the deed. Supplementary material explains that it works because Gravity Falls is based on the law of "finder's keepers".
• Poor Communication Kills: Stan deliberately acted harsh on Dipper as he wants him to toughen the latter up. However, since Stan never properly explains why he is doing it, it ends up giving Dipper the impression that his Grunkle truly hated him which almost caused Dipper to abandon Stan to his fate when he encounters one of his memories.
• Reality Warper: As shown by Bill and revealed to Dipper by Stan, in the mindscape anything is possible.
• Red Is Violent: Once Mabel thwarts his plan and causes Gideon to break his deal with Bill. The triangular demonic figure quickly shows what happens when he gets very angry.
• Sdrawkcab Speech: Gideon's incantation to summon Bill ends with him repeatedly saying "Backwards message!" backmasked.
• Season Finale: This serves as Part 1 of the 2-part Season 1 finale.
• Shout-Out: The tag that plays over the end credits is an homage to the Twin Peaks intro.
  • The battlefield where they showdown with Bill is rather reminiscent off a boss fight in Super Mario Galaxy, taking place on a giant planet, sillhouetted against a starry, multicoloured sky
• Shaped Like Itself: Soos when Bill Turns Red.
  Soos: So I guess he gets really mad when he gets mad.
• Shapeshifter Showoff Session: The search for the safe combination ends with Mabel and the others locating the door it's hidden behind; Soos even offers to destroy the door so that Bill Cipher can't get a hold of it... and then the real Soos appears, having wandered off to investigate another memory. Immediately, "Soos" transforms back into Bill with unearthly flourish, takes a moment to laugh at the team, before stealing the door and flying off.
• Sidetracked by the Analogy:
  • When dealing with the bat:
    Mabel: Remember, bats are more afraid of you than you are of them...Maybe I'm thinking of ducklings...Ducklings. Quack quack! Quack quack quack!
  • Later:
    Soos: Dipper, Stan's personality is one of life's great mysteries. Like whether or not it's possible to lick your own elbow.
    Mabel: I bet you can't!
    Soos: I bet I can!
• Take That!: "Inceptus Nolanus Overratus!", which is pretty funny considering that the entire episode's plot of entering someone's dream to steal their secret from a locked safe can be seen as a Whole-Plot Reference to Inception.
• Torso with a View: As Bill gloats to the group while in Stan's mindscape, he nonchalantly shoots a hole through Dipper's body, thankfully because it's will not actually real life, Dipper is no worse for wear and Stan fixes it up later in the episode. Dipper is more than happy to return the favor however.
• Turns Red: Bill literally turns red (and his white and black colors invert themselves) when he decides to unleash his full powers against Mabel and Soos.
• The Unreveal:
  • Soos finds a memory in which Stan enters the secret passage behind the snack machine, but closes the door before he can reveal what's behind it.
    Soos: Boring!
  • Whatever Bill wanted Gideon to do for him, since the latter canceled the deal.
• Vagueness Is Coming:
  Bill: A darkness approaches. (conjures an image of the six-fingered hand from the journals above him) A day will come in the future where everything you care about will change.
• Visual Pun: When Bill answer's Gideon's message with a greeting of "Y'ello?", he turns yellow.
• Vocal Evolution: Bill Cipher's voice is more nasal and higher-pitched than later appearances. Alex Hirsch hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet.
• Wham Episode: Oh boy, was it ever! Not only due to the Cliffhanger, but the official introduction of Bill Cipher after a full season of hidden foreshadowing.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Wendy disappears after Dipper goes into the kitchen to catch the bat and isn't seen again for the rest of the episode, not even to join the gang in entering Stan's mind. Though it is likely she went home afterwards.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Soos gives one to Dipper, in his typical "Soos" fashion.
  "Dipper, you're a cool dude, but this isn't cool, dude."
• Worthy Opponent: Bill ultimately comes to see Dipper, Mabel, and Soos this way. When they actually manage to put up a fight against him, he cuts the battle off early and tells them that he'll let them live because he's impressed by their skill.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Gideon performs this after seeing Mabel and Soos in Stan's mind and after Mabel causes Bill to lose the code to the safe; he opts for Cutting the Knot and dynamites Stan's safe.
• "You!" Exclamation: Bill yells one at Mabel after she shoots the combination out of his hands and into the bottomless pit.
• You Monster!:
  Mabel: You leave our uncle's brain alone, you isosceles monster!
• You're Insane!: Gideon, of all people, calls Bill this when he telekinetically rips a deer's teeth out and offers them to him. Bill casually replies, "Sure I am. What's your point?"
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Bill Cipher says this when Dipper and co. foil his plans:
  Bill Cipher: You! You can't even imagine what you just cost me! Do you have any idea what I'm like when I'm mad?!^note Keep in mind, he's already a psychopathic demon when he's not mad.
• Zany Scheme: As if it wasn't already clear that Gideon is nuts, blowing Stan's safe open with dynamite was his backup plan... after his first plan of summoning an extremely dangerous demon to steal the combination from Stan's mind failed.

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20-15 2-5 3-15-14-20-9-14-21-5-4... ^note To Be Continued...

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