| Series: | Gravity Falls |
| Season: | 1 |
| Episode: | 19 |
| Editor: | Kevin Locarro |
| Length: | 23 minutes |
| Prev: | Land Before Swine |
| Next: | Gideon Rises |
| Episode List: | List of Gravity Falls episodes |
| Season Article: | Gravity Falls (season 1) |
"Dreamscaperers" is the nineteenth and penultimate episode of the first season of the American animated series Gravity Falls. The episode is the first of the two-part season finale of the season (the second being "Gideon Rises"). It originally aired on the Disney Channel on July 12, 2013, and was written by series creator Alex Hirsch, alongside Matt Chapman and Tim McKeon, and directed by Joe Pitt and John Aoshima. The episode marks the first appearance of Bill Cipher, the series' main antagonist.
The series follows twins Dipper and Mabel, who live with their grand uncle, Grunkle Stan in a tourist trap called the Mystery Shack in the fictional town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. In this episode, Stan's nemesis Gideon (Thurop Van Orman) tries burglary into the Mystery Shack to steal the deed of the property from the safe. However, he is stopped by Grunkle Stan and thrown out. Gideon then summons a demon called Bill Cipher (Hirsch) to help him. Gideon asks Bill to invade Stan's mind and steal the combination to the safe, which is vincindoria. Dipper Pines (Jason Ritter) with his sister Mabel (Kristen Schaal) and friend Soos also go into Stan's mind to stop Bill from finding out the combination.
The episode was watched by 2.7 million viewers in its original American broadcast on the Disney Channel, and received positive reviews from television critics.
While discussing the past transgressions of Grunkle Stan's business rival, Gideon Gleeful, the Pines Family, with Wendy and Soos, hear someone breaking into the Mystery Shack, and they find Gideon in the next room trying to figure out the combination to Stan's safe with the intention to steal the deed inside it. They confront Gideon, who initially does not take Stan seriously, but he ultimately flees when Stan chases him with a broom. After Gideon leaves, the team sits down to watch television. After Soos finds a bat flying in the kitchen, Stan sends Dipper to take care of the issue, but it ends with the bat mauling Dipper (after getting poor advice from Mabel), making him think that his uncle dislikes him by forcing him to do the hardest chores.
Meanwhile, Gideon performs a ritual in the Gravity Falls woods to summon the evil powerful being, Bill Cipher. Bill agrees to invade Stan's mindscape for Gideon, after making sure that he also will help him on another unspecified project of his own. However, their plans are overheard by Mabel and Soos and they report the situation to Dipper. Dipper consults Journal 3 and finds out the dangers and abilities of Bill. After catching Bill invading Stan's mind, Dipper, Mabel, and Soos, through a ritual explained in the cryptic journal, follow Bill into Stan's mindscape.
They find Bill, who was apparently expecting them, and he says that they shouldn't enter Stan's memories with him. He also engages in various antics in which he pulls out of Mabel's mind the movie characters that she was thinking about (Xyler and Craz) that follow them until the end of the episode; he also blasts a (non-fatal) hole in Dipper's torso. The gang enters into a psychological version of the Mystery Shack in Stan's mind, where all of his memories are kept; amongst those memories is the combination of the safe, which Bill and Gideon must obtain. While the team is searching to find the safe combination before Bill does, the dream demon manages to disguise himself as Soos and follow them. Dipper goes into the memories of Stan and finds out a memory of him talking to Soos about his own life as a weak child, thinking that he was actually talking about him. Dipper, angry at his uncle, is unwilling to assist the gang in saving him and leaves.
After Mabel finds the memory of the safe combination, Bill reveals himself, steals it, and runs away as Mabel, the real Soos (who had just shown up after watching one of Stan's memories), Xyler, and Craz head out to search for him. Meanwhile, Dipper accidentally revisits the same memory that he saw, but he stays upon hearing the truth: As a kid, Stan was always picked on for being weak, until one day, his dad signed him up to take boxing lessons; though he initially thought his dad was torturing him, until years later, the lessons paid off when he stopped a mugger from stealing the purse of his future girlfriend, Carla McCorkle. Dipper then learns that Stan is only hard on him to prepare him to "face the world". He then confronts the imaginary Stan, who fixes the hole in his torso and tells him that you can do anything you can imagine when you are in the mindscape.
Meanwhile, Gideon contacts Bill for the combination, but Mabel and Soos manage to knock the memory into another memory of the Bottomless Pit, leading Gideon to call off the deal with Bill and switch to "Plan B". Enraged by the deal being cut, Bill retaliates by torturing Mabel and Soos by bringing their worst nightmares to life. Dipper quickly arrives with the news of being able to bring their dreams into reality and demonstrates the ability to his sister via laser vision. The group uses their imagination abilities to defeat Bill and attempt to force him out of Stan's mind with a portal, but Bill stops the fight and decides to let them win this time. Bill admits his respect for the group's cleverness but warns them that a day will come when everything they care about will change, and leaves saying that he will be watching them until that day. Within seconds of Dipper, Mabel, and Soos returning from Stan's mind, they discover that Gideon's Plan B was to break in again and successfully steal the deed — only this time, he simply used dynamite to blow the safe open, without needing the lock combination. The episode ends with the demolition of the Mystery Shack.
A Twin Peaks-esque credits scene shows part of the Gravity Falls wilderness, with the ominous words "To be continued..." along the bottom. The credits also show a cryptogram that reads "20-15 2-5 3-15-14-20-9-14-21-5-4...", which also says "TO BE CONTINUED...".
The episode "Dreamscaperers" was written by Timothy "Tim" McKeon and Matthew "Matt" Chapman under the story of series creator Alexander "Alex" Hirsch.[1] Series developers Joe Pitt and John Aoshima directed the episode. John Aoshima and Matt Braly have worked with Hirsch on the show ever since the making of the unaired, unnamed pilot that was used to pitch the show.[2]
In "Dreamscaperers" there was the first appearance of the series antagonist Bill Cipher, however images of him are shown throughout the season. During the scene where Bill is summoned he strikes out a number of images on his body, like John F. Kennedy, UFOs, the Aztec calendar stone, the Apollo Moon landing, Stonehenge, Giza pyramids, crop circles, etc. continuing the show's scoffing of conspiracy theories. The characters Xyler and Craz from the fictional movie "Dream Boys High" are based on 1980s cartoons and teen films produced in the United States.[3]
The cast of the episode consisted of the standards Jason Ritter as Dipper Pines, Kristen Schaal as Mabel Pines, Alex Hirsch as Stan Pines, Soos, and the new character Bill Cipher, and Thurop Van Orman as Lil' Gideon. Additional voices include Linda Cardellini as Wendy, Greg Cipes as Craz, John Roberts as Xyler, Jennifer Coolidge as Lazy Susan, Grey DeLisle as Carla McCorkle, Kevin Michael Richardson as Sheriff Blubs, and Stephen Root as Bud Gleeful.[1]
"Dreamscaperers" premiered on the Disney Channel on July 12, 2013, and it gained 2.700 million viewers in its original American broadcast, ranking it in second place in the United States for the day of airing. It received a 0.5 rating from 18 to 49 demographic audience.[4] [5]
Alasdair Wilkins from The A.V. Club, giving it a grade of A-, described the episode as "a joyous celebration of all that Gravity Falls has accomplished over these first 19 episodes".[3] In the episode review Wilkins stated "the show has become sophisticated enough in its storytelling and its character work that it can more easily spotlight a character so delightfully silly".[3] He states that Bill Cipher is the most memorable creation in the episode describing him as "the Eye of Providence wearing a top hat", also stating that "the writing and Alex Hirsch's voicework hit a fascinating balance with the character; Bill is capable of genuine rage when his plans don't work out, yet there's always the sense that he's just toying with the kids, allowing them to temporarily beat him because it amuses him".[3] However, Wilkins criticized the episode for using "under-motivated stories", also for the efforts by the writing staff to give Mabel and Dipper an equal status in the show.[3]
The episode won art director Ian Worrell an Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation award at the 2014 Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.[6]