Recap / Gravity Falls S2 E2 "Into the Bunker"

50/50 are good odds, right?

With the discovery of a whole new set of writing in the Journal, Dipper is ready to rally Mabel and Soos to pursue their next clue: a mysterious structure built beneath the tree where the Journal was originally found. But this time, there's a new addition: Wendy, fellow Mystery Shack worker and Dipper's longtime crush (though he swears he is over her, for good this time, no, really). Wendy has always wanted to go along with the twins and Soos on their mystery adventures, and swiftly proves herself a cool-headed and resourceful member of the team.

Beneath the tree is a vast, dusty bunker, full of occult machinery and preparations for "The End." But Dipper won't rest until he finds the person he's looking for: the author of the Journal. And Mabel won't rest until Dipper has finally confessed his feelings to Wendy (because he sure isn't over it), and decides to give her brother a push- into a closet with Wendy, refusing to let them out until he talks.

But the "closet" is actually a decontamination chamber, leading to another part of the bunker. There, a dangerous creature is heard in the shadows, and Mabel won't take their claims of it seriously. Before this monster can strike, a heroic figure appears to lead the two to safety. Have Dipper and Wendy found the Author? Meanwhile, Soos and Mabel find such neat things among the bunker, like a sciency-briefcase and notes on a shapeshifting creature the Author created. Mabel then realizes that the monster Dipper and Wendy talked about is real, to her and Soos' horror.

In the other half of the lab, Wendy notices that their "Author" looks identical to the mascot for a brand of canned beans. His ruse uncovered, the Shapeshifter reveals his true form, and tries to steal Journal 3 from Dipper. Dipper and Wendy manage to escape the creature, and run into Mabel and Soos. They conclude that they need to take down the Shapeshifter before it escapes and endangers the town. They try to force the creature into one of the lab's cryogenic tubes, and during the struggle, Wendy is injured and apparently dies, causing Dipper to tearfully confess his feelings. Luckily, Wendy is just fine, and they manage to drive the Shapeshifter into a tube. Before being frozen, the Shapeshifter gloats that Dipper will never find the Author, and his search for answers will lead to a terrible fate.

With that concluded, the gang leaves the bunker. Before heading off, Wendy and Dipper talk, and Wendy, while flattered, admits that she's too old for Dipper, but values his friendship. Meanwhile, it turns out that the briefcase Soos found is actually a laptop. Although it's damaged, maybe the handyman can fix it...

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Tropes in this episode:

• Aborted Declaration of Love: At first, Dipper refuses to confess to Wendy because he values their friendship too much (as well as just being insecure), but then it turns into:
  • Anguished Declaration of Love — See Dying Declaration of Love below.
  • Doubles as Accidental Declaration of Love.
• Action Girl: Wendy proves to be more than capable of taking care of herself, while also being incredibly skilled at dungeon diving.
• Alien Blood: The Shape-Shifter bleeds a greenish ichor when wounded.
• Better as Friends: Dipper eventually manages to confess his feelings to Wendy after a slip-up involving the Shapeshifter. She confesses that she always kind of knew and is very flattered, but gently lets him down due to him being too young and greatly valuing their platonic friendship, which Dipper agrees with.
• Big Sister Instinct: Wendy protecting Dipper from the Shape-Shifter.
• Bittersweet Ending: The group escape the bunker alive and Dipper finally expresses his love to Wendy, but she turns down his affection due to a combination of the age gap between them, and an appreciation for the value of their platonic friendship. Also, Soos manages to acquire a laptop from the bunker that may give more clues to the author's identity once he manages to fix it.
  Dipper: Mabel, how can everything be so amazing and so terrible all at the same time?
• Blatant Lies: Dipper's claim that he's "over Wendy."
• Body Horror: Some of the Shape-Shifter's forms, especially the deformed twin mashup. The first stance the Shape-Shifter takes after being discovered is a Shout-Out to a certain zombie movie.
• Call-Back:
  • Dipper learned about the existence of the underground bunker in the previous episode.
  • Stan is having to get the Mystery Shack repaired following the battle with the zombies.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Dipper tries to ask Wendy if there could ever be anything between them whilst watching a movie together, but chickens out. Mabel finds out, and tries to force it out of her brother by locking him in a closet with Wendy until he admits his feelings, which Dipper still can't do when it turns out they're locked in with a monster.
• Character Development: One largely for Wendy, both in the badassery form and that she confesses to Dipper that she treasures their friendship.
• Chekhov's Gun: Wendy's zipping-up-her-mouth gesture from "The Inconveniencing" and earlier in this episode comes in handy when Dipper needs to distinguish the real Wendy from the shapeshifter.
• Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: The shapeshifter asks this when looking for Dipper.
• Connected All Along: This is the first episode to explicitly state ^note it's been implied in previous episodes that Manly Dan is Wendy's dad.
• Continuity Cavalcade: The shapeshifter takes on the form of Gremloblin, a gnome, and the Hide-Behind.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Wendy does the "zip the mouth" gesture she showed to Dipper in "The Inconveniencing."
  • Dipper comments that zombie movies don't seem that scary after facing them for real.
  • Robbie is still trying to get back together with Wendy.
• Conveniently Interrupted Document: The Journal has a sticker with the name of the owner ripped out.
• Creepy Monotone: Wendy does a good robot imitation.
• Crying Wolf: Mabel dismisses Dipper's claims of being trapped with a monster as a desperate attempt to avoid confessing to Wendy... unfortunately for all parties involved.
  Mabel: I thought he was just joking!
  Soos: You know Dipper's jokes are terrible!
• Decoy Hiding Place: When the Shape-Shifter starts chasing Wendy and Dipper, Dipper manages to distract it by throwing his flashlight down one branch of a fork in the tunnels while he and Wendy go the other way.
• Department of Redundancy Department: One of the movies on the Gravity Falls channel is "The Planet People of Planet Planet."
• Designated Girl Fight: In a way. Wendy ends up getting into a scrap with the Shape-Shifter while it's impersonating her.
• Didn't Think This Through: Mabel fails to notice that the room she locked her brother and Wendy in led to a shapeshifting monster.
• Digging to China: Defied. Stan asks the repair-men to fill in the chasms left by the zombies after the previous episode, quipping that he doesn't want his car to fall to China.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Dipper, upon finding Wendy's corpse, shouts in the heat of the moment that he's in love with her...only it's not Wendy's corpse, it's the Shapeshifter, and the real Wendy was within earshot. Oops.
  Dipper: Oh, no! This is all my fault! If I had told you when we were in the closet, we wouldn't be in this mess! But I was too scared, and now you could be hurt or worse and I never even got a chance to tell you I'm... like, in love with you, Wendy!
  Real!Wendy: Uhh... Dipper?
• Duct Tape for Everything: Soos figures he can fix the laptop in a few days, but it will take a lot of duct tape.
• Embarrassing Browser History: Discussed by Mabel at one point:
  Soos: This room is way creepy.
  Mabel: Not as creepy as Dipper's internet history.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: We see Dipper full-on bury the axe in the shapeshifter. In Wendy form.
• Foreshadowing: Upon close inspection, the man whom Dipper thinks is the author doesn't have six fingers like the book, hinting he's a fake.
• From Dress to Dressing: Wendy rips off a sleeve off of her jacket to bandage her knee.
• Funbag Airbag: It's quick, but it happens.◊ Even moreso in the original storyboards.◊
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Wendy jokes that a stuffed walrus she has in her room is her new boyfriend.
• Hidden Depths: Mabel is able to light up her sweater to use as a flashlight substitute. Since she knits all of her sweaters, that means she's also capable of wiring up electrical circuits.
• Impersonation-Exclusive Character: A minor example, where all that is known about the man on the "Baron Num Nums High Flyin' Beans" can is his appearance and the fact that he's the brand's mascot.
• Jerkass Has a Point: More pushy and naggy than jerkass, but Mabel is right that Dipper should at least come clean about his unrequited crush on Wendy to get it off his chest, since bottling it up isn't exactly helping him cope either. While Dipper is heartbroken by Wendy gently letting him down, them talking it out is portrayed as a good thing in the long-term, for both his feelings and their friendship.
• Jumped at the Call: Wendy happily agrees to join Dipper and Mabel as they investigate another of the Journal's mysteries, and even admits that she's been wanting to join them on one of their adventures for a while.
• Knight of Cerebus: The Shape-Shifter ranks up there with Bill Cipher in terms of danger. We also see him torment Dipper with how he may be getting in over his head with the Journal, shapeshifting into a terrified Dipper right as he's flash-frozen into a chamber.
• Laugh of Love: A similar instance to the one in "The Inconveniencing" occurs in this episode, when Dipper chuckles nervously while talking to Wendy, causing Mabel to tease him about how she thinks that romance is afoot between the two of them. Dipper denies that he still has feelings for Wendy.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Subverted. Dipper begs Wendy to forget what he confessed in the bunker. She insists on talking it out, and turns him down gently.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Mabel hadn't locked Dipper and Wendy in the closet to make Dipper confess his feelings, no-one would've been in danger from the Shape-Shifter.
• Nightmare Face: Invoked by Soos:
  Soos: My face is tired from doing this all day. (points at his face in a screaming pose)
• Nightmare Fuel: Invoked In-Universe when the Shapeshifter lets itself be frozen as Dipper dying in agony.
  Soos: Hehe. Good luck sleeping tonight.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Wendy, and then Dipper, when they realize that the "author" looks just like the guy on the label of a can of beans, which means he's really the Shape-Shifter.
  • Mabel and Soos also get this when they realize that Dipper wasn't joking about the monster or making an excuse to get out of confessing to Wendy.
• Out of Focus: Grunkle Stan only has a brief cameo appearance after the theme song, where he has a construction crew clean the mess caused by the events of the previous episode.
• The Scream:
  • Dipper has this reaction to a rather awkward moment while hanging out with Wendy.
    Wendy: Dude? You're laying on my bra.
    Dipper: (Beat, then he screams loudly when he sees the aforementioned undergarment under his arm)
  • A more dramatic one is done by the Shape-Shifter as he is being frozen while impersonating Dipper, warning him that his mystery hunting will lead him to a gruesome end.
    Soos: (chuckling while the others stare in horror at the now-frozen Shape-Shifter) Good luck sleeping tonight!
• Secret Message Wink: Played with when the Shape Shifter impersonates Wendy and brawls with her, forcing Dipper to determine the real one. One Wendy winks at him, but the other Wendy performs the same mouth-zipping gesture she'd performed earlier, demonstrating that she's the real one. The fake promptly gets an axe to the gut.
• Sequel Hook: The briefcase Soos stole turns out to be an old laptop, presumably belonging to the Author, and which he intends to repair.
• Shapeshifter Showoff Session: The Shapeshifter initially poses as the Author and makes it look as if Experiment 210 is his enemy, even tricking Dipper into handing over the Journal... right up until Wendy realizes that the "Author" is identical to the mascot on a can of baked beans. Experiment 210 responds by turning his head 180 degrees, scuttling up the wall on giant spider legs, and screaming diabolically with Blank White Eyes - frightening the living crap out of Dipper and Wendy in the process - before finally reverting to his true insectoid form. Then, while obsessing over the Journal, he quickly shapeshifts into a number of forms based on the creatures documented within, including a gremloblin, a gnome, and even the Hide-Behind.
• Shapeshifter Swan Song: The Shape-Shifter goes through one of these as he's about to be frozen, ending it with a screaming version of Dipper to taunt him.
• Shipper on Deck: Mabel wants Dipper to confess his feelings to Wendy, at least to get it off his chest. When Wendy turns Dipper down, Mabel says she'll come up with a list of "rebound crushes."
• Ship Sinking: Though Wendy makes it clear that she really likes having Dipper as a friend, and a cool one at that, she also acknowledges the age gap between them and they decide they're better as friends.
• Spot the Imposter:
  • After managing to throw the Shape-Shifter off their trail, Dipper and Wendy run into Mabel and Soos, and Dipper voices his suspicion that one or both of them might be the Shape-Shifter in disguise. Soos actually worries that he might be the Shape-Shifter and asks Mabel to check that he's not by poking his stomach, which she does with characteristic glee.
    Dipper: It's definitely them.
  • When Wendy is wrestling against the Shape-Shifter disguised as her, Dipper asks for a sign. The Shape-Shifter winks, while Wendy mimes zipping her lip and throwing away the key, a special sign she and Dipper have had since "The Inconveniencing."
• Stylistic Suck: The episode opens with Dipper and Wendy watching a cheap zombie movie, Nearly Almost Dead But Not Quite!. The Stinger shows promos of additional movies for Gravity Falls Bargain Movie Showcase.
• Survivalist Stash: Dipper notes that the bunker contains supplies for at least sixty years, and wonders what the author could possibly be preparing for.
• Tank-Top Tomboy: Wendy tears off her plaid jacket and uses it to bandage up her injured leg, and spends the rest of the episode like this.
• Ten Minutes in the Closet: First invoked and then subverted. Mabel shoves Dipper into a confined space with Wendy in an attempt to get him to confess his feelings. Unfortunately, the "closet" was actually a decontamination chamber, leading to the lair of the Shape-Shifter...
• The Last Thing You Ever See: The Shape-Shifter warns Dipper that searching for answers will lead to a terrible fate and afterwards turns into a screaming Dipper before being frozen.
• Took a Level in Badass: Not to say Wendy wasn't badass before, but this episode is where it really shows.
• [Verb] This!: After being deceived by the Shape-Shifter:
  Wendy: Hey, body-snatcher! [picks up can of beans and throws at shape-shifter] Snatch this!
• Villain Ball: The Shape-Shifter posing as the Author gets his hands on the Journal... and starts poring through it while he, Wendy, and Dipper are surrounded by discarded cans of beans with the image that he's using. Then, despite having the Journal, he ends up trying to kill Dipper and Wendy when they find out, purely through shape-shifting. If he had just led them to a place with no bean cans, or made off with the Journal, then he wouldn't have been caught.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Naturally, the Shape-Shifter is capable of this.
• Wall Crawl: Again, the Shape-Shifter is capable of this. It's pretty much the first thing it does upon being discovered.
• The Walls Are Closing In: A death trap on the way to the underground base. The Journal saves the day.
• Would Hurt a Child: Experiment 210 goes after the twins after transforming into a deformed fusion of them.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The Shape-Shifter poses as an unconscious Wendy when Dipper comes across him, which leads to the Anguished Declaration of Love. Of course, once the real Wendy appears, the Shape-Shifter immediately attacks her for the Journal.

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OOIY DMEV VN IBWRKAMW BRUWLL. ^note What Kind Of Disaster Indeed

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