Gravity Falls, S1E8: "Irrational Treasure" (Quick Reaction) · 3:06pm Feb 8th, 2023

In which we must dare to be silly; and we must realize that silliness is the fruit of "ye olde" and peanut brittle and a sugar-high rummage. Vote Quentin!

SPOILERS

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I said last episode that the comedy of Gravity Falls is consistent enough to make picking a comedic highlight tricky. Now I'd like to retract that, because this episode certainly gives it a good go.

With Mabel back in the driver's seat, the episode wastes no time piling on one gag after another, starting with Grunkle Stan's car getting surrounded by old-timey wagons in a screw-around parody of the old Western trope, soon followed by a preposterous sepia-tone glass gag, then by another example of Durland and Blubbs being completely useless at their jobs, then by Pacifica's blatantly self-aware bitchiness, then by...

...and I'm gonna take a breath or else I'll list every gag in the ep. It's relentlessly silly, is my point, and proudly so, taking Gravity Falls' central conceit of celebrating weirdness and playing it up to eleven for all its comedic worth. Mabel is perfect for this role, aided by a newfound shame of being mocked for her silliness and determination to prove herself, however ironically that turns out. Even Dipper gets a few good gags in, my favourite being his overhyped means of "breaking into the museum".

And this is before we get to the show's crowning achievement of silly: Quentin Trembley, whose brand of "I reject your reality because mine is more awesome" insanity is goofy enough to get the kids giggling, whilst still being played mock-seriously enough for an adult appreciation (this is a President of the United States, after all: insert political commentary here). What's wonderful about him is not that he's randomly silly, per se, but that he treats his silliness with complete and utter high-minded seriousness, which alone makes it ten times funnier and makes the delivery of his illogical logic twist your brain harder.

Add in the two joke antagonists Sheriff Blubbs and Deputy Durland, and a prank-a-minute subplot involving Grunkle Stan trapped in stocks ("PIONEER DAY!"), and you have as close to a quintessential laugh-a-thon as this show can get.

What's especially interesting about this episode is how it also raises the conspiracy stakes.

Prior episodes have scaled small. A legend on a local lake, a psychic celebrity with a secret, a cursed convenience store, a man cave in the mountains: they certainly bring personal challenges, but all of them felt tucked away in little old Gravity Falls or just outside of town. Certainly, any such conspiracies and crimes are provincial, or private.

Now we got a presidential cover-up deemed an issue of national security. Whilst this particular run doesn't amount to anything much for the show as a whole, it does serve as our first warning that the outside world is watching Gravity Falls too, and so it expands the scope of the conflict. With the return of Blubbs and Durland in active roles, it's also a subtle reminder of the warning way back in the first episode: trust no one. Even comic relief characters have their secrets.

Watching Mabel unreason her way through the "treasure hunt" is especially important, because by now the focus has skewed so much, it's easy to assume Dipper would be our go-to guy for getting stuff done. But this isn't The Dipper Pine Show. It's specifically the Mystery Twins (love how Dipper's more accepting of that title now) who we should be investing in, and that means checking that Mabel's still up for this sort of quest.

Moreover, she brings her own brand of intuitive genius to the table, showing the twins as a tag team with their own strengths and weaknesses (Dipper being about to burn the first clue comes to mind). As heavy-handed as the episode is in celebrating silliness, a bit like how the first episode of The Owl House hammered home how cool it is to be a weirdo, it gets a pass by having its silliest main character put her money where her mouth is. Setbacks notwithstanding, she performs admirably, even if the ep throws in a contrived coincidence or two to help out near the end, namely how they escape their predicament.

(By the way, I love these freeze-frame gags.)

It's not flawless, alas: while we get our first prod at Pacifica Northwest's family history here, it'll take a long time before anything resembling a payoff comes of it, and till then she's not going to move much from her uninteresting role as sitcom archnemesis. Plus, most of this episode's repercussions are either side details or nonexistent, so in the grand scheme of the show, it feels fairly isolated.

Still, I'd rather have it in the show taking the piss than outside the show where it'll be missed. God Bless America!