Review: Gravity Falls "Little Dipper"

Sorry this is late. But isn't it appropriate that this episode's Review is... a little delayed?

Just a tiny joke.

...Sorry.

Plot/Themes
Don't bully people, do unto others, Golden Rule, et cetera.

Parents try to teach their kids that lesson before they can even speak. As soon as kids realize they can hurt other people just because they can, they get a stern no-no from their parents, who didn't find it nearly as funny when little Billy hit his brother with the rattle.

What I like about this episode is how focus is given to Mabel's side of the problem. She's not bullying her brother because she feels like being mean, or because he was intentionally being mean to her.

Mabel couldn't help but rub it in Dipper's face because of how he always celebrated at beating her at everything. He might not have celebrated excessively, but when you get beaten at chess over 80 times without so much as a "good game," it's probably going to take its toll on you.

Making the issue a size-related one was a stroke of genius, too. Dipper and Mabel are ultimately both on the same side, but this issue drives a wedge between them in a personal way that nothing so far has managed. Dipper backed down quickly when Mabel yelled at him after he accused Norman of being a zombie, for example.

So illustrating the wedge between them by making them less physically-similar worked very well.

On top of all that, Mabel's treatment of Dipper tied together the moral, their conflict, and Gideon's attempted revenge with an unspoken pun.

By making fun of Dipper... she's belittling him.

Characters
Mabel Pines
Nothing has ever really gotten Mabel down. And that could very well be because of the fact that Dipper beats her at everything. She's used to it, and just tries to look on the bright side. Heck, maybe she resorted to stealing all the knights off the chessboard because she was losing anyway, and might as well just make herself happy?

Dipper Pines
Everybody wants to win, but very few people want to achieve victory by hurting other people's feelings. Dipper gets a taste of what he was inadvertently doing to Mabel, which just so happens to poke at him in a very sore spot: Being small. In "The Inconveniencing," it was his age. Here, it's his height. Perhaps that's why he takes Mabel's comments so badly.

But he's more than willing to forgive his sister when she explains her side of it, since the two have been through thick and thin together.

Gideon Gleeful
Gideon is, by and large, not a threat. He schemes, he fumes, and he yells.

But.

This episode establishes three things about his character.

1. He's a planner. He's not just going to throw things from that book at the Pines family all willy-nilly.
2. He's not afraid to alter his plan on the fly if he sees something he can take advantage of. If Operation: Hold the Twins Hostage doesn't work, and he realizes that he can just shrink Stan Pines, then he's going to go shrink Stan Pines.
3. While he might not be a danger nine times out of ten, his ruthlessness and, for lack of a better term, madness with make him a force to be reckoned with.

Which is why the greatest danger will come after Gideon is completely written off by the Pines family.... 

Animation
There are some very nice touches when it comes to Gideon and his utter madness. Some of the rage faces he makes make you genuinely worried that he might simply snap and rip Dipper's limbs right off his tiny little body. But I think no face illustrates Gideon's mental state better than the one her makes when he realizes he can use Dipper and Mabel as hostages.

Well, there's my nightmares tonight.

And the subtle difference in height between Dipper and Mabel at the very beginning is a nice touch. Sure, it's more than a millimeter, proportionally speaking, but the fact that Mabel is visibly taller than Dipper drives it home, rather than having the episode be all "No, Mabel's taller than Dipper. Trust us." For us to be able to see the difference, as unrealistic as that may be, illustrates how noticeable it must be for Dipper. 

Final Thoughts
Maybe not the best episode, but only because other episodes set the bar so high. At the very least, it was a successful half-hour of establishing Gideon as a recurring threat with long-term goals, even without his telekinesis gem.

Next time, Gravity Falls conquers the problem of creating a Halloween episode when the entire show's run takes place during a single summer... barring the occasional flashback and time travel incident. And no, the solution is not a time travel incident.

See you then!