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mothmansplainingThe message opens with Ford and Stan trapped in a glowing pyramidal cage. Ford is climbing to his feet. Stan, seated, puts a hand on his arm.
“Whoa, where you going?” Stan asks him.
“I’m going to play the only card we have left,” Ford says, heavily. “Let Bill into my mind. He’ll be able to take over the galaxy and maybe even worse, but at least he might let the kids free.”
“What?” Stan exclaims, jumping to his feet. “Are you kidding me? Are you honestly telling me there’s nothing else we can do?”
Ford shakes his head. “Bill’s only weak in the mind space. If I didn’t have this darn plate in my head, we could just erase him with the memory gun when he steps inside my mind?”
Stan points at his temple. “What if he goes into my mind? My brain isn’t good for anything.”
Ford cracks a laugh at that, though not a strong one, then sobers. “There’s nothing in your mind he wants. It has to be me.” He looks back out through the bars of the cage. “We need to take his deal. It’s the only way he’ll agree to save you and the kids.”
Stan looks at him. “Do you really think he’s gonna make good on that deal?”
There is defeat in Ford’s voice when he replies. “What other choice do we have?”
Cut to a shot of the memory gun. The dial is twisted back and forth by a six-fingered hand, spelling out a target: STANLEY PINES.
Ford raises it. He aims. He flinches away. He fires.
His hand is as steady as the beam of radiation that blasts his brother’s neural connections apart. It’s only a couple of seconds, all told, but it seems to go on for an eternity. When it’s finally over, Ford lowers the gun, looking truly miserable, and it falls from his nerveless hands. Stanley falls to his knees, and it’s Ford’s fault.
The room he, Dipper, and Mabel are in pulls itself apart. All sorts of horrors float into the air, sucked back into a multicolored rift in the sky: eyeball bats, monsters of all shapes and sizes, blocks of stone from the Fearamid. A wave washes over Gravity Falls. The sky clears, turns back to blue; water runs the right way again, and the right color. The world settles back into the right shape like sand on the ocean floor: without a force to stir it up, it sinks back down, slow, peaceful, quiet.
The sun streams through the trees, casting dappled shadows on the forest floor. Stanley Pines, in Ford’s sweater and coat, kneels on the ground like an abandoned marionette.
The whole sorry scene plays out:
Grunkle Stan, you did it!
Oh, uh, hey there…kiddo. What’s your name.
Grunkle Stan?
Who you talkin’ to?
C-come on. It’s me. It’s ME, Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Stan, it’s ME!
“We had to erase his mind to defeat Bill. It’s all gone,” Ford explains, because he has to, because she needs to know. His voice has gone quiet, gone sad. “Stan has no idea, but he did it. He saved the world. He saved me.” He sinks to his knees in front of Stan, who looks back blankly. “You’re our hero, Stanley,” says Ford, and he throws his arms around the person who had been his brother and doesn't let go. He sniffs.
He’s not the only one. Mabel has sunk to the ground, in tears. Dipper’s crying with her. It’s Ford’s fault.
Here, the memory begins to speed up. It plays through the miserable minutes where Stan doesn’t remember his home, when Ford can’t think of anything to do but stand unhappily back because it’s his fault, when the kids refuse to give up. It’s Mabel who finds the solution, who pulls out her scrapbook and climbs into the armchair and begins to go back through Stan Pines’s summer with his family, through the fishing trip, through Summerween, through being a businessman in the 80s, through redecorating the hand-witch’s cave. Stan remembers the pig’s name first, and it starts to work – thanks to Mabel, Stan Pines isn’t gone.
From there on, it’s scattered scenes: showing Stan back around his house, taking him out to Greasy’s Diner, blowing dust off the covers of photo albums. There are bowlfuls of bacon and toffee peanuts. Dipper and Mabel are there for a lot of it, but Ford Pines is a constant presence. He’s working hardest of all, staying up until the early hours watching home-movies of cryptid hunts, telling stories about childhood misadventures, sketching forts, handing him the grappling hook and getting yanked up into the trees. There’s a shot in there of Mabel putting finger-puppets on one of Ford’s hands. He falls asleep on Stan’s shoulder more than once. It’s not that he looks happier than anyone’s ever seen him, not exactly – it’s a different kind of happiness. It’s not excitement, it’s not mania, it’s not ambition. It’s the kind of contentment that comes from getting what you need, even if it’s not necessarily what you thought you wanted. Surrounded by Stan and Mabel and Dipper, Ford looks like he belongs in a way he hasn’t before. It ends on a scene of Ford standing at the top of a gangplank of a boat, getting ready to unmoor it. “Stanley?” he calls down to the dock. “Are you coming?”
Stan breaks a broad, broad grin and hikes his bag up under his arm. “Heh heh. You bet I am.” And up he goes.
“Whoa, where you going?” Stan asks him.
“I’m going to play the only card we have left,” Ford says, heavily. “Let Bill into my mind. He’ll be able to take over the galaxy and maybe even worse, but at least he might let the kids free.”
“What?” Stan exclaims, jumping to his feet. “Are you kidding me? Are you honestly telling me there’s nothing else we can do?”
Ford shakes his head. “Bill’s only weak in the mind space. If I didn’t have this darn plate in my head, we could just erase him with the memory gun when he steps inside my mind?”
Stan points at his temple. “What if he goes into my mind? My brain isn’t good for anything.”
Ford cracks a laugh at that, though not a strong one, then sobers. “There’s nothing in your mind he wants. It has to be me.” He looks back out through the bars of the cage. “We need to take his deal. It’s the only way he’ll agree to save you and the kids.”
Stan looks at him. “Do you really think he’s gonna make good on that deal?”
There is defeat in Ford’s voice when he replies. “What other choice do we have?”
Cut to a shot of the memory gun. The dial is twisted back and forth by a six-fingered hand, spelling out a target: STANLEY PINES.
Ford raises it. He aims. He flinches away. He fires.
His hand is as steady as the beam of radiation that blasts his brother’s neural connections apart. It’s only a couple of seconds, all told, but it seems to go on for an eternity. When it’s finally over, Ford lowers the gun, looking truly miserable, and it falls from his nerveless hands. Stanley falls to his knees, and it’s Ford’s fault.
The room he, Dipper, and Mabel are in pulls itself apart. All sorts of horrors float into the air, sucked back into a multicolored rift in the sky: eyeball bats, monsters of all shapes and sizes, blocks of stone from the Fearamid. A wave washes over Gravity Falls. The sky clears, turns back to blue; water runs the right way again, and the right color. The world settles back into the right shape like sand on the ocean floor: without a force to stir it up, it sinks back down, slow, peaceful, quiet.
The sun streams through the trees, casting dappled shadows on the forest floor. Stanley Pines, in Ford’s sweater and coat, kneels on the ground like an abandoned marionette.
The whole sorry scene plays out:
Grunkle Stan, you did it!
Oh, uh, hey there…kiddo. What’s your name.
Grunkle Stan?
Who you talkin’ to?
C-come on. It’s me. It’s ME, Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Stan, it’s ME!
“We had to erase his mind to defeat Bill. It’s all gone,” Ford explains, because he has to, because she needs to know. His voice has gone quiet, gone sad. “Stan has no idea, but he did it. He saved the world. He saved me.” He sinks to his knees in front of Stan, who looks back blankly. “You’re our hero, Stanley,” says Ford, and he throws his arms around the person who had been his brother and doesn't let go. He sniffs.
He’s not the only one. Mabel has sunk to the ground, in tears. Dipper’s crying with her. It’s Ford’s fault.
Here, the memory begins to speed up. It plays through the miserable minutes where Stan doesn’t remember his home, when Ford can’t think of anything to do but stand unhappily back because it’s his fault, when the kids refuse to give up. It’s Mabel who finds the solution, who pulls out her scrapbook and climbs into the armchair and begins to go back through Stan Pines’s summer with his family, through the fishing trip, through Summerween, through being a businessman in the 80s, through redecorating the hand-witch’s cave. Stan remembers the pig’s name first, and it starts to work – thanks to Mabel, Stan Pines isn’t gone.
From there on, it’s scattered scenes: showing Stan back around his house, taking him out to Greasy’s Diner, blowing dust off the covers of photo albums. There are bowlfuls of bacon and toffee peanuts. Dipper and Mabel are there for a lot of it, but Ford Pines is a constant presence. He’s working hardest of all, staying up until the early hours watching home-movies of cryptid hunts, telling stories about childhood misadventures, sketching forts, handing him the grappling hook and getting yanked up into the trees. There’s a shot in there of Mabel putting finger-puppets on one of Ford’s hands. He falls asleep on Stan’s shoulder more than once. It’s not that he looks happier than anyone’s ever seen him, not exactly – it’s a different kind of happiness. It’s not excitement, it’s not mania, it’s not ambition. It’s the kind of contentment that comes from getting what you need, even if it’s not necessarily what you thought you wanted. Surrounded by Stan and Mabel and Dipper, Ford looks like he belongs in a way he hasn’t before. It ends on a scene of Ford standing at the top of a gangplank of a boat, getting ready to unmoor it. “Stanley?” he calls down to the dock. “Are you coming?”
Stan breaks a broad, broad grin and hikes his bag up under his arm. “Heh heh. You bet I am.” And up he goes.
