Not What He Seems

"Not What He Seems" is the eleventh episode of the second season of the American animated television series Gravity Falls, created by Alex Hirsch. The episode was written by Shion Takeuchi, Josh Weinstein, Jeff Rowe, Matt Chapman, and Hirsch, and directed by Stephen Sandoval. The series follows twelve-year-old twins Dipper (voiced by Jason Ritter) and Mabel Pines (voiced by Kristen Schaal), who stay for the summer with their great uncle Grunkle Stan (voiced by Hirsch) in a tourist trap called the Mystery Shack, set within the fictional town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. In this episode, Dipper and Mabel begin to question who Stan really is after officers arrest him for stealing chemical waste. The episode, which breaks the show's status quo by introducing Stan's long-lost twin brother, ends with a cliffhanger to the second half of the season.

"Not What He Seems"
Gravity Falls episode
Stanford Pines, the author of the journals, reveals himself
Episode no.Season 2
Episode 11
Directed byStephen Sandoval
Ian Worrel (art director)
Written by
Editing byKevin Locarro
Production code618G-210[1]
Original air dateMarch 9, 2015 (2015-03-09) (Disney XD)
April 17, 2015 (2015-04-17) (Disney Channel)
Running time22 minutes
Guest appearance(s)

"Not What He Seems" was first broadcast on March 9, 2015 on Disney XD, and was watched by 1.58 million households in the United States. It was the biggest broadcast ever for Gravity Falls during its run on Disney XD until the following episode, "A Tale of Two Stans", beat that record four months later.

Plot

Background

While Dipper and Mabel Pines are spending their summer in the town of Gravity Falls, their great uncle Stan has been working on an unknown machine in his basement underneath the Mystery Shack, trying to make it work without them knowing about his doings.[2][3]

Events

In his laboratory under the Mystery Shack, Stan rigs drums of chemical waste to power the machine. He sets a timer for eighteen hours, when the machine will activate. Gravity anomalies occur in the meantime as a result of it. The next day, as Stan plays with Dipper and Mabel outside the shack, law enforcement officers arrest Stan for stealing chemical waste the night before. When child services take hold of Dipper and Mabel, the twins decide to clear Stan's name using footage from the shack's security camera of the night before. They break out of the car and head back to the shack. The tapes, however, prove his crime, and Dipper finds a box of fake identity documents and clippings from newspapers reporting Stan's death. In the box, Dipper finds a password on a slip of paper; Mabel identifies this as a button combination for the shack's vending machine.

In an interrogation room with Agent Powers, Stan asks for a phone call. He uses this to call Soos, the handyman of the Mystery Shack, instructing him to guard the vending machine. Stan escapes from the room after another anomaly and misdirects the agents to chase after a taxi, running the other direction to the shack. Meanwhile, Dipper and Mabel go to the vending machine, which Soos guards. They fight, but Dipper inputs the password, revealing the entrance to Stan's lab. Inside, Dipper is in disbelief that Stan had been hiding the first two journals from him. He puts the three journals together, forming the blueprints to Stan's machine. Under a black light, a secret message reads that, once the machine activates, the entire universe could be torn apart.

Dipper decides to override the machine, but not before Stan comes in to stop him. Another anomaly occurs, causing everyone to levitate. Mabel makes it to the abort lever as yet another anomaly occurs. Forced to decide between trusting Stan and stopping the machine, Mabel tearfully sides with Stan, enabling the activation of the machine and engulfing everything in a flash of light. When the anomaly ends, Dipper, Mabel, Stan, and Soos are unharmed. A man comes through the machine's portal, putting a six-fingered hand on the first journal and revealing himself to be the author. Stan introduces the man as his brother. Dipper and Mabel are petrified by shock, and Mabel asks if someone should faint, which Soos dutifully does.

During the closing credits, a flashback shows Stan and his brother as children from the back, swinging silently on a swing set as they look out to the ocean.

Production and themes
In this episode [Stan's] secret double life finally catches up with him, and it puts the pressure on the kids to sort of figure out if they're going to rescue their uncle from what's going on here. The question is, does he deserve rescuing? What did he do? Is he a good guy at all?

—Hirsch regarding the episode[4]

"Not What He Seems" is the eleventh episode of the second season of Gravity Falls, created by Alex Hirsch. He wrote it with Matthew Chapman, Jeff Rowe, Shion Takeuchi, and Josh Weinstein. It is the second episode to be directed by Stephen Sandoval. Storyboards were provided by Alonso Rameriez Ramos, Dana Terrace, Luke Weber, and Sabrina Cotugno.

The episode, which halves the second season, ends with a cliffhanger to the second half of the season. The writers did this so a hiatus would fit and they could write the episode sooner.[5] According to Hirsch, half the fandom of Gravity Falls had guessed Stan had a brother—revealed in the episode as the author of the three journals Dipper, Stan, and Gideon own—before the episode aired.[6] In particular, fans wrote "Zapruder film"-level exposés in the form of "PowerPoint presentations, flow charts, timelines", rare for a Disney Channel show.[5] Hirsch had the character in his pitch of the show to the network, with the writers placing clues of his existence from the first episode.[7] Still, he and the writers took this element as a risk,[7] and Hirsch said that the ending would be shocking to some.[4] They found it necessary in the end to keep the characters interesting and break the status quo.[8] Calling Gravity Falls about characters "first and foremost", Hirsch said that would be Mabel forgiving of Stan, while Dipper would be unforgiving of both Stan and himself, for the rest of the season. With Dipper, Hirsch described Stan being a con as "a huge blow to his ego, a huge betrayal, and I think it will leave him feeling isolated from his family in a way he hasn't been before".[5]

The episode guest stars Nick Offerman as Agent Powers; he had previously appeared in the season opener "Scary-oke" and the episode "Northwest Mansion Mystery".[4][9] Hirsch described this character, in addition to Agent Trigger, as plot devices to divide the protagonists and have them face their allegiances to one another.[5]

Broadcast and reception

On its original airdate, 2.06 million people (and 1.02 million on the Internet) viewed "Not What He Seems", the most received by any series broadcast on Disney XD.[10]

Alasdair Wilkins of The A.V. Club awarded the episode an "A" for expertly dealing with the relationships among Stan, Dipper, and Mabel. He applauded the way the show was able to combine the more "cerebral" elements of the plot into "the more general hurt that Dipper feels when he realizes just how much Stan has been lying to him and his sister." Alasdair also felt that the warm color scheme of the animation was complementary to the melancholy of the episode, and that the gravity anomaly scenes "represent the show at its most technically ambitious". Finally, he wrote that the blend of comedy and drama made it an "instant classic".[11]

References
  1. "Not What He Seems". Disney XD Press. Disney | ABC Television Group. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  2. John Aoshima & Joe Pitt (directors); Matt Chapman, Alex Hirsch, & Michael Rianda (writers) (August 2, 2013). "Gideon Rises". Gravity Falls. Season 1. Episode 20. Disney Channel.
  3. Rob Renzetti (directors); Jeff Rowe, Matt Chapman, & Alex Hirsch (writers) (August 1, 2014). "Scary-oke". Gravity Falls. Season 2. Episode 1. Disney Channel.
  4. Blum, Matt (March 9, 2015). "Tonight's new Gravity Falls Will Change Everything". GeekDad. Archived from the original on March 16, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  5. Adams, Erik (March 11, 2015). "Gravity Falls' Alex Hirsch on His Show's Big Cliffhanger". The A.V. Club. The Onion Inc. Archived from the original on March 12, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  6. Hill, Jim (March 9, 2015). "Is Gravity Falls' Grunkle Stan 'Not What he Seems'? Disney XD Episode Answers Big Questions Tonight". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  7. Hill, Jim (March 9, 2015). "Is Gravity Falls' Grunkle Stan 'Not What He Seems'? Disney XD Episode Answers Big Questions Tonight". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  8. Hill, Jim (March 9, 2015). "Is Gravity Falls' Grunkle Stan 'Not What He Seems'? Disney XD Episode Answers Big Questions Tonight". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  9. Schneider, Michael (February 26, 2015). "First Look: Nick Offerman Returns to Gravity Falls in a Big Cliffhanger". TVInsider. Retrieved September 17, 2015.
  10. Kissell, Rick (March 18, 2015). "Weekly ratings: Big Bang Theory, NCIS: Los Angeles Key CBS Victory in Demos". Variety. Penske Media Corporation. Archived from the original on March 28, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  11. Wilkins, Alasdair (March 10, 2015). "Review: Gravity Falls: 'Not What He Seems'". The A.V. Club. Onion Inc. Archived from the original on March 20, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
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