It's about time Soos had a happy birthday for once.
Blendin Blandin returns to face off with Dipper and Mabel in a futuristic battle for the sake of Soos' birthday that could erase them from existence if they fail.
Tropes in this episode:
- Actor Allusion: Upon being spared in Globnar, Blendin exclaims Morty's famous "Aw, geez".
- Adaptational Villainy: In some of the foreign-language translations (like the French one), Mabel yells "Jail!" instead of "Death!" when asked to declare Blendin's fate. While this was likely an attempt at Bowdlerization, it actually makes Mabel come across as more villainous, considering the length of Blendin's sentence. In the case of the French dub, for example, "life squared" was translated as perpƩtuitƩ puissance 10, "life sentence to the power 10", potentially meaning that Blendin has to live and die in Time Jail 10 times over before being freed.
- An Aesop: Birthdays are about spending and celebrating your time with your true family — as in, those who truly love and care about you, not necessarily just your blood relatives. Additionally, showing mercy to your enemies and burying the hatchet can have its benefits, and you should take responsibility for the consequences of your actions (even if they were unintentional).
- Answer Cut: When the Twins reveal that they want to give their Time Wish to someone else, Time Baby dramatically booms, "But who? Who is worthy receive such power?!" Cut to Soos.
- Anti-Climax: After countless other challenges (most of them done in montage), the final gladiator round is a game of laser tag, considered to be the game that most exemplifies strategy. As Blendin is bragging about how he'll crush them when the fog machine starts up, Dipper shoots him and Mabel grabs the wish. Played entirely for laughs, of course.
- Any Last Words?: Lolph and Dundgren ask this of Blendin as they're about to re-arrest him after his jailbreak. Blendin chooses to invoke Glob-Nar against Mabel and Dipper, thus setting the episode's main plot in motion.
- Balls of Steel: Mabel thinks the time police are holographic images, and attempts to kick one in the crotch. Luckily for him, he's wearing a metal codpiece.
- Black Comedy Burst: Mabel eagerly screaming for Blendin's execution after she and Dipper defeat him in Glob-Nar.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Grumpy Jerkass Stan gave Soos a job on his miserable twelfth birthday, hiring "Gumdrop" on the spot. After this, Soos has Undying Loyalty towards Stan (and the Pines family itself by extension), which he refers to at the beginning of the episode.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Mabel is the one who screams "DEATH!" for Blendin after he's defeated, though Dipper quickly calms her down and Mabel sheepishly admits that she got carried away.
- Big Brother Is Watching: It is shown that in the year 207Ģ012, Time Baby rules the Earth with an iron fist. Several posters of him indicate that he is watching every single move of the citizens 24/7.
- Bilingual Bonus: Abuelita threatens Soos' father in Spanish after Soos gets his postcard from New Orleans:"Si alguna vez muestra su carota por aquĆ, se la voy a partir pieza por pieza!"note
- Birthday Hater: Soos never celebrates his birthday as it reminds him of his father who never came to see him. He gets over it when he realizes what Dipper and Mabel went through to cheer him up.
- Break the Comedian: Soos finds himself uncharacteristically depressed on his birthday and unable to join in any of the party games; it takes the efforts of the Pines twins to restore his spirits.
- Brick Joke: Stan mentions that the laser tag place used to be a mattress store. When the Mystery Twins travel back in time, they're in a mattress store and immediately realize they went too far.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: A heroic example. Blendin is pissed that the twins forgot his name after they ruined his life.
- Call-Back: Blendin seeks vengeance for the troubles Dipper and Mabel caused him in "The Time Traveler's Pig".
- Call-Forward: While in the past, small bits seen in the background become these; the bouncer of the bar from "Headhunters" is seen getting his tattoos, an ad for Bud Gleeful's Car Lot shows he's having a "Just Had a Baby Sale" (and little Robbie doodled a set of devil horns and beard on infant Gideon), and so on.
- Character Development: Both Dipper and Mabel have become more responsible and empathetic towards others, choosing to help improve Blendin's life in the present even after he wished to Ret-Gone them.
- Chekhov's Gun: As it happens, laser tag wasn't introduced as an excuse to have Dipper and Mabel caught by the Time Police/set up the "trip to the past" aspect of the plot. It's actually the final game of Glob-Nar.
- Comfort Food: When young Soos is all upset about his father not coming to his birthday party, his abuelita tries to cheer him up with a plate of dinosaur-shaped cookies. Subverted when Soos refuses them.
- Continuity Nod:
- Stan still has the bandage from the previous episode when he first appears, though it's gone by the time they go to the laser tag place.
- If you listen to Stan addressing the crowd in the past, he's introducing them to his wax museum exhibit.
- One of the presents Soos receives for his twelfth birthday is the sound effects keyboard he uses in Double Dipper.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: One of the Glob-Nar combatants seen early on is disintegrated after losing his match, screaming in agony the whole time. Dipper and Mabel are understandably horrified.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Though the Pines twins and Blendin are fairly evenly matched, and the score between them is roughly even, they beat him at laser-tag painfully easily.
- Daddy Didn't Show: The main reason why Soos doesn't like celebrating his birthday is because his dad never came to any of his birthday parties despite promising his son that he would come.
- Deceptive Legacy: Abuelita calls Soos' dad a deadbeat to herself, with vitriol, but she upholds the lie to Soos that his dad really wants to see his son but is just "busy".
- Disappeared Dad: Soos' dad is a no-show who keeps telling his son he'll show up for his birthday each year, but doesn't.
- Easily Forgiven:
- Realizing how Blendin's situation was technically their fault, the twins request that Time Baby give him his job back (and pretty hair), as long as Time Baby supervises him. Blendin repays them in kind by forgiving them for ruining his life last season.
- 5-year-old Wendy pushes Tambry off her trike for embarrassing her, but then they ride off together like it didn't happen.
- Eat the Camera: Blendin Blandin does this when Glob-Nar starts.
- Exact Words: The winner of Glob-Nar gets to choose the fate of the loser, but unlike many Gladiator Games, it's not a binary choice of "kill them or spare them" - you can literally choose any fate you want for them. Dipper and Mabel duly choose to undo the consequences of their initial meddling, giving Blendin his freedom and his job back, as well as a healthy head of hair.
- The Faceless: The postman that gives young Soos the postcard from his Disappeared Dad.
- Failed Attempt at Drama: Blendin introduces himself while still invisible, having apparently planned to make himself visible beforehand. He has to fiddle with his suit's camouflage for a moment before appearing properly, then repeats his introduction and sheepishly admits that it would have worked better had he gotten it right the first time.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: One of the previous Glob-Nar participants is painfully disintegrated on-screen. It's hard not to get the impression that the only reason that this scene wasn't censored was that there was no visible blood.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Apperently in the year 207Ģ012, failing an important time mission will not only get you fired, but ultimately sent to prison.
- Foreshadowing: Soos opens the vending machine to get Dipper and Mabel free candy, and tells them that a genius taught him that. Who's that genius? Mabel herself.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Dipper and Mabel meet Wendy, Tambry, Robbie and Soos in the Past. Soos mildy remember Mabel as a genius.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The GAME OVER options menu for a cabinet in the laser tag arcade reads "Save and Quit", "Rage Quit", and "FFFFFFFFFF...".
- Frothy Mugs of Water: Two brown bottles in a postcard from New Orleans have conveniently visible "root beer" labels.
- Funny Background Event: A panning shot of the Mystery Shack shows a kid Gompers. (A deleted scene from this episode would have revealed that Stan got him when a customer tried to pay for something with a goat instead of currency.)
- Given Name Reveal: Soos' full name is revealed to be Jesus (pronounced Hay-Soos) Alzamirano RamĆrez.
- Gladiator Games: Glob-Nar consists of countless games whose winner gets a wish and to decide to the fate of their loser—and since most people resort to Glob-Nar when already fiercely opposed to each other, it's usually something awful. Dipper and Mabel survive them... all so they can give Soos a happy birthday.
- Golden Snitch: Downplayed, but in the end the Glob-Nar match comes down to a final fight where the first person to lay hands on the Time Wish wins. Downplayed because after 1,527 matches the score is almost perfectly tied anyways, so it's probable that Time Baby just wants the match to be over.
- Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: When in the past, almost every adult male has more hair than they do in the present.
- Heads or Tails?: Near the end of the episode after Dipper and Mabel have seemingly abandoned him on his birthday, a depressed Soos decides to flip a coin to decide if he'll stay at the laser-tag place or go eat some dinosaur cookies. The arrival of the time police freezes the coin before it lands, which Soos remarks is "unconventional."
- Here We Go Again!: Subverted. Blendin is outraged at Soos for using his Time Wish to heal Mabel and Dipper, implying he's about to become an antagonistic force once again... but then Soos reveals that he also wished for a never-ending pizza slice. Blendin agrees that this was a good wish, and leaves on good terms.
- Humble Goal: Dondgren, one of the time guards, would use a time wish to retire early so he could spend more time with his children. Blendin is openly enraged by its mundanity.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Mabel jokingly calls Dipper a "creep" in reference to his crush on Wendy. She really really shouldn't be talking here.
- Dipper finds 5-year old Wendy's crush on him uncomfortable (albeit for reasons beyond the age gap). Leads into Jerkass Realization, see below.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Dipper and Mabel decide that Blendin is this after they win the gladiator games; Mabel even says Blendin is just simply too "pathetic" to be a villain.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Which is what leads to Dipper and Mabel's Jerkass Realization: Blendin' points out that the twins were willing to play with time to get what they wanted—Wendy or Waddles—with no thoughts to the consequences, especially to a time traveler like him. He has a good reason to hold a grudge against them but still wants to fight them fairly in the gladiator arena.
- Jerkass Realization:
- A mild one for Dipper: Five-year-old Wendy thinking twelve-year-old Dipper was cute made him uncomfortable. Mabel cracks a joke that Dipper's obvious crush on fifteen-year-old Wendy might have made her as uncomfortable. Dipper laughs with her for a second, then seems to seriously consider if he's been neglecting to take Wendy's feelings into account (like when he tried to ask her out right after she broke up with Robby).
- At the end, Dipper and Mabel decide that Blendin's current attitude stems from their screwing around with his time-travel tape, and resolve to make things right.
- Kick the Dog:
- How do you top off 8 years of hoping this will be the year dad shows up for the birthday party instead of sending a postcard? Developing enough cognitivity to finally realize that the postcards with the same exact message every year mean Dad's never coming home for your birthday — in the middle of your 12th birthday party. And then have your Abuelita uphold the same lie.
- Played for Laughs when Mabel decides to nip Toby's dancing dream in the bud while in 2002:Mabel: THIS DREAM GOES NOWHERE, TOBY!
Toby: Awww, marbles!
- Lampshade Hanging: "Young Robbie!" Guess who said it?
- Mama Bear: Abuelita for Soos, claiming she'll tear his father limb from limb if he shows his face after not showing up for Soos' birthday.
- Meanwhile, in the Futureā¦: Happens when we jump back to Soos in the laser tag game.
- Missing Mom: We still have no idea whatever happened to Soos' mother.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Soos' secondary wish is for a slice of pizza that will never run out and presumably always stays fresh. Blendin approves of it after being initially enraged by his Mundane Wish to fix up the Pines twins.
- Mundane Wish: Deconstructed, as Blendin points out how rare and valuable the Time Wish actually is- literal wars have been waged over one- and just how stupid and horrifying the concept of using a reality warping one-use item to gain a mundane item or speed up an inevitability really is. He is enraged at the stupidity of Dondgren wanting to retire early using one and he rants in anger/horror when Soos uses it to just heal up the twins. He calms down when Soos reveals he also asked for an infinite slice of pizza that will presumably stay fresh.
- Noodle Incident:
- Stan mentions he's not allowed on airplanes after trying to petition to the government that Soos's birthday be removed from calendars.
- Soos's predecessor as the Mystery Shack's handyman was apparently Deputy Durland of all people. He's fired during the stinger for an unspecified incident.
- Not Hyperbole: When Mabel mentions bringing out the "big guns" in regards to Soos' birthday, we cut to "Big Gunz Laser Tag".
- Not So Harmless Punishment: The Stinger of "The Time Traveler's Pig" made it seem Blendin only had to fix the Time Paradoxes he was held accountable for by picking up a few objects, making his fear and swearing revenge complete overreactions. In this episode, it's shown he faced further punishment afterward: namely, a lifetime prison sentence—or rather, a "life squared" term, whatever that means.
- Noble Demon: Zig-Zagged with Blendin. Wanting to Ret-Gone the kids is shocking and would cross the Moral Event Horizon if he had one. However, wanting to fight them fairly in the arena shows that he has some moral code about it.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Soos' depression over his birthday is quite shocking, and instantly clues the twins in that something big is behind it.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Blendin escaping his prison, which is stated to be the first escape ever from said prison.
- Oh, Crap!: Dipper and Mabel become visibly worried after a smug Blendin shows that he won't be a pushover in the Glob-Nar arena, having spent his whole time in prison practicing for the fight.
- Painting the Medium: "Hey, it turns out I can mute him!"
- Papa Wolf: Grunkle Stan tried to erase Soos's birthday from the American calendar, and it's revealed that he hired Soos on Soos' heartbreaking twelfth birthday.
- Precocious Crush: Downplayed example. While in 2002, Dipper and Mabel bump into a younger Tambry and Wendy, whereupon Tambry blurts out that Wendy thinks Dipper is cute. Dipper is embarrassed and a bit weirded out (as Wendy is 5 here, not to mention everything that has happened between them back in the present and the entire irony of it all) while Mabel lightheartedly teases him about it and makes Dipper wonder if Wendy was ever bothered by his crush on her.
- Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Blendin says that he spent all his prison time training. He certainly does well in all the physical challenges, though his physique hasn't changed.
- Ret-Gone: Blendin's plan for the Time Wish is to wish Dipper and Mabel out of existence.
- The Reveal: In the past, Dipper mentioned that it was Soos' 12th birthday, and Soos says that he hadn't seen his dad for eight years at that time. This means Soos hasn't seen his dad since he was 4 years old.
- Scooby Stack: The Pines family and Wendy, when trying to figure out a way to help Soos have a happy birthday.
- Selfless Wish:
- Dipper and Mabel battle for the Time Wish not for their own benefit, but to make Soos happy. When they win and get to decide Blendin's fate, they request he be given his job back and even regrow his hair.
- After realizing what the twins did for his sake, Soos uses his time wish to patch them up... and for a slice of never-ending pizza.
- Sequel Episode: To "The Time Traveler's Pig".
- Shout-Out:
- The two time police officers are called Lolph and Dundgren.
- During the presentation of Glob-Nar, a guy infinitely falls into two portals.
- The title is a takeoff on Ender's Game.
- At one point in Glob-Nar, Mabel, Dipper and Blendin ride neon motorcycles that leave a glowing trail a la TRON: Legacy.
- Several of the Glob-Nar rounds are obvious spoofs of American Gladiators, most notably people fighting each other with long staffs fitted with cushions on each end.
- Space "X": Or rather, "Time X", repeatedly and blatantly, up to and including, in the credits cipher, "time time."Blendin: Ow, my time knee! Time dang it!
- Spicy Latina: Soos' Abuelita in the past, exemplified when she says to herself in Spanish that if Soos' dead-beat father ever shows his face again she'll tear him limb from limb.
- Stable Time Loop: Two examples involving Soos:
- In the present, Soos shows Mabel a trick to open the Mystery Shack's vending machine, claiming that a "genius" taught it to him. When the twins travel back in time, Mabel shows the same trick to a boy who turns out to be a young Soos. Guess what Soos calls her as he leaves?
- The screwdriver that Dipper dropped in the past is what led to Soos working at the Shack.
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: Dipper and Mabel give Soos the Time Wish so he can wish his father would come back. But Soos instead uses it to patch them up (and get an infinite pizza slice), realizing the Pines twins have been more a family to him than his own dad ever was.
- Talking Is a Free Action: Subverted when the Laser Tag challenge starts; Blendin spends a few seconds ranting about how the twins are doomed, only for Dipper to shoot him a few times mid-speech. And then it's revealed that Mabel took off running for the Time Wish orb the instant Blendin started talking.
- This Means War Paint: Blendin has green diamond shapes reminiscent of an hourglass applied over his eyes when he first brings the twins to the gladiator ring, but they escape before fighting any challenges and the war paint gets removed thereafter.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: After winning Glob-Nar, Dipper and Mabel realize that it was their fault that Blendin ended up in the situation that he was in, and ask Time Baby to give Blendin both his job back and "pretty hair".
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Discussed; the Time Wish is able to freely alter time without any risk of paradoxes.
- Too Dumb to Live: The one member of the future audience that keeps cheering when Time Baby demands silence. Time Baby eye zaps him into oblivion.
- Took a Level in Badass: Blendin reveals that he spent time in prison working out, and succeeds in tying the score with the twins even though it's "two to one" (and also Mabel also points out that she and Dipper have hair while Blendin's bald).
- Visual Pun: The Cy-clocks has one big hand and one little hand. Like a clock.
- Vocal Dissonance: As a child, Soos clearly still sounds like an adult, just with a slightly higher-pitched voice.
- Wasteful Wishing: Blendin gets on Soos' case for using his Time Wish to patch up the twins (since wars have been fought to gain them), but changes his mind after Soos reveals that he also wished for a slice of pizza that never runs out.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Blendin reacts to Soos' Time Wish by yelling "Are you kidding me?!" and lecturing him about what he has just wasted, but backs off after Soos reveals the other part of his wish.
