Gravity Falls – Season 2, Episode 1 – “Scary-oke”
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One of the biggest challenges TV shows face in their sophomore season, especially when the entirety of their first is created without an ounce of audience feedback, is recapturing the so-called lightning in a bottle that made the first season such a success in the first place. Not surprisingly, many shows begin realigning their components toward what really resonated with the audience in the first place, at the risk of forgetting about those pesky fringe elements that manage to be overlooked by the most rabid, but contribute equally to the show’s overall feel. It’s like playing a game of Poker and realizing you win more when you have really high cards, so you fold immediately when you get 2s and 3s, ignoring the fact that surprisingly good results have come in the past from playing those hands. When you only play when you have good cards, you start becoming predictable, and your play becomes a little “samey”.
From the outset, “Scary-oke” comes dangerously close to feeling “samey”. From the first scene in the Mystery Shack, Gravity Falls starts overplaying its hand, reiterating nearly every joke it’s ever told (“Your camera’s a cinderblock, Toby”) or restating every character beat for beat from the prior season (Thompson: “Aww.”). The premiere is loaded start to finish with quirky Gravity Falls side-characters doing pretty much exactly what they’ve been doing last season. It all feels so familiar and a little fillery, leaving the main plot little room to breathe.
The main plot itself is sort of a retread, harkening back to the zombies of “Tourist Trapped” that were actually gnomes, but this time the zombies are… well, zombies. The episode pits curious and inquisitive Dipper against totally-not-hiding-anything, definitely-not-oblivious Stan as some government agents (one of which played by the always marvelous Nick Offerman) arrive to investigate last season’s major cliffhanger.
While fringe elements like Agent Powers are great, the plot feels like a retread, right up to the solution of their zombie problem being a musical number where Dipper sings emasculating songs and Mabel jams out to not-so-vague re-titles of actual songs. These are all jokes the show has done and done better. None of the jokes are bad, perse, but they don’t really hit you in a fresh way.
Where “Scary-oke” flips that “samey” script most prominently, however, is with Stan, smartly choosing to disrupt the entire show’s status quo by having him reveal his knowledge of the paranormal to Dipper and Mabel. Stan’s always been the oblivious old guy roped into or casually missing out on the paranormal activity going on around town, though we as viewers never believed for a second he wasn’t in on things. What makes Stan’s reveal so promising for the show is that right off the bat, in a sea of “samey”ness, Gravity Falls has played a new card. Stan’s no longer the oblivious old guy involved in B-plots: it’s very likely he’s going to be the center of many of Dipper and Mabel’s harrowing adventures.
This willingness by Gravity Falls to upset its own balance in the midst of an episode that revels in familiarity is ultimately what saves “Scary-oke”. In addition to the invisible ink plot point (which still has a “been there, done that” vibe, but promises more interesting avenues for the story to take), “Scary-oke” manages to succeed by whipping out its old familiar deck but with a couple of new cards that stop it from being same-ol’, same-ol’. Though I’m somewhat lukewarm on this premiere, I’m pretty stoked for what this season will bring. “Scary-oke”, even as it stays content in being “the Gravity Falls you know and love”, answers enough questions to keep me invested.
Final Grade: B
MVP: Thompson – “I’ll do anything for your approval!”
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