Gravity Falls Review: Season I, Episode 4: "The Hand that Rocks the Mabel".

Airdate: July 6th, 2012

Synopsis: Dipper and Mabel see an advertisement for the "Tent of Telepathy", containing a mysterious psychic called Gideon. Against Grunkle Stan's wishes, the twins go, and realize that Gideon is about the same age as the twins. Gideon falls head over heels for Mabel, and asks her out on various dates. Despite this, Mabel feels like she can not date Gideon, viewing him as more of a little sister-type character. Making matters worse is that Grunkle Stan and Gideon's father make a business arrangement around the two. Dipper manages to put a stop to Mabel's relationship with Gideon, but thanks to an amulet that Gideon has, Dipper winds up being captured. Mabel sees this, and winds up taking the amulet from Gideon, and prevents the two from dying, before she destroys the amulet. An outraged Gideon vows revenge, with the last scene of the episode revealing something about Gideon that changes the course of the entire series.

Review: While the previous two episodes were good in their own right, this episode is flat-out wonderful. Introducing an arch nemesis that may know more then initially seemed, but still keeping a good amount of his quirkiness, works perfectly. Gideon is the perfect enemy: he has the knowledge of Dipper, the quirkiness of Mabel, and the arrogance of Stan. In later episodes, a plot-line is developed where Gideon is looking for something in the shack. While individual character development is largely limited, developments between the characters is perfect. Gideon's obsession with Mabel leads him to total insanity against the twins. Dipper and Soos are shown to be the perfect companions, with Dipper's more masculine side coming out whenever Soos is around. Bud Gleeful and Stan managed to be more amicable, with Bud actually being a better businessman then Stan. Mabel gets one scene where she is talking to Wendy about how to break up with Gideon, and it shows that the two have a decent (yet not really close yet) sisterly relationship. The humor in this episode is damn near perfect.

The only part of this episode that I did not really like as much was the "Lil' Old Me" scene. I just found the scene more pointless then anything.

Favorite Scene: The scene at the factory really shows just how much of an awesome character Mabel is. Silver award goes to the design in the Cafe Scene. Does this cafe remind you of anything?

That's right: the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks. Gravity Falls shares some plot-lines (small northwestern town with big secret) with Twin Peaks.

Score: 9