| Read transcript |
|---|
"Into the Bunker"[2] is the second episode of the second season of Gravity Falls and the 22nd episode overall. It premiered on August 4, 2014 on Disney XD.[2][5]
Official overview[]
Using the blacklight on one of the pages of Dipper's Journal, him and the gang go to the author's hidden bunker, where they find themselves face-to-face with a mysterious figure from Gravity Falls' lore.[5]
Synopsis[]
The episode begins with Dipper over at Wendy's house watching a horror movie, Nearly Almost Dead But Not Quite!. Dipper remarks that the film is less scary after actually having fought zombies. He and Wendy proceed to mock the film as predictable and lacking common sense. Wendy receives a text from Robbie to her annoyance, and Dipper learns that Robbie is still unable to get over his breakup with Wendy, despite his ex-girlfriend already having done so. Dipper then tries to nonchalantly ask if Wendy is dating again, and Wendy jokes that she is seeing a stuffed walrus. He then attempts to admit his feelings for her, but ultimately backs out and instead invites her to explore with him and Mabel. Wendy agrees to accompany them, and Dipper is upset and accidentally lies down on Wendy's bra, much to his horror.
A construction crew works to repair the Shack.
Meanwhile, Stan supervises a construction crew repairing the Mystery Shack. When a worker inquires ask to what caused the damages, Stan, not wishing to reveal the zombie incident, lies and says it was a "big woodpecker." He then bribes the man, who accepts. He wonders where the others are, and the scene cuts to Soos and the twins gathered around the spot where Dipper first found Journal 3. Dipper informs the others that he has uncovered a new lead on the author's whereabouts — a hiding spot under a tree. Wendy then arrives and talks about how she had been wanting to come with the gang for some time, but has been stuck cleaning up after her father. Mabel pulls her brother aside to tease him about his crush on Wendy, but he lies that he is over her, though she does not believe him.
Dipper, Wendy, Soos, and Mabel enter the bunker.
Wendy points out a branch that resembles a lever. As Dipper tries to think of a way to reach it, Wendy easily climbs up to it using her belt. She hits the switch with an axe and opens the entrance to a hidden bunker, and Dipper has the group promise not to tell anyone about what they may see. They descend the staircase and find an old fallout shelter, complete with rations to last at least to the year 2070. Dipper finds a recently opened can which prompts Soos' suspicion that the author may still be alive, and Wendy finds a hidden passageway, behind a map of Gravity Falls.
The gang sets off a trap.
The four arrive in a small room with various symbols in it, and Soos and Wendy comment on the "creepy" feel of it. Mabel jokes that Dipper's internet history tops the room's eeriness, and accidentally pushes him onto a button, inadvertently setting off the security system. As the walls start pushing in, the gang turn to the journal for a solution, and they find they can open an escape hatch by pressing four symbols. They barely make it out, and Dipper's vest gets caught between the closing stones. As they inspect a surveillance room, Mabel goes to retrieve her brother's vest and finds a love letter he wrote to Wendy. Emboldened, she encourages him to reveal his true feelings. Dipper declines her request, so she pushes him into a closet with Wendy.
A mysterious man saves Dipper and Wendy from a monster attack.
Wendy tries to turn on the lights, but accidentally finds the path to a secret laboratory. The two question what the author did down there and spot various holes, which they soon learn were dug by an unseen creature whose shadow approaches them. They frantically try to inform Mabel of the danger, but she refuses to let them out until Dipper tells Wendy how he feels. Dipper dodges this and drags Wendy to find another exit. They hit a dead end but are fortunately saved by a man claiming to be the author. Back in the surveillance room, Mabel and Soos play around with various equipment they find, including the author's lab coat and briefcase, when they uncover a note about a dangerous experiment (Experiment #210) called "the Shape Shifter." Soos remembers Dipper talking about a monster in the closet. Mabel is horrified as she thought he was joking, and so she and Soos rush to save their friends.
The Shape Shifter reveals his true form.
Dipper's and Wendy's mysterious savior leads them deeper into the bunker. He informs them that he lost his research, and Dipper replies that he rediscovered it. Meanwhile, Mabel and Soos continue their advance, and Dipper and Wendy grow suspicious and horrified when they find the man is identical to the mascot on a can of beans. Their fears are confirmed when the man reveals he is the Shape Shifter, and that he wanted the journal to study creatures into which to transform. Wendy attacks the monster and causes him to drop the journal, which Dipper quickly retrieves. The Shape Shifter pursues the duo as they retreat, but is misled via a trick by Dipper.
The Shape Shifter meets the twins.
Dipper and Wendy run into Mabel and Soos, though they are suspicious that they may be their pursuer in disguise. However, after observing their goofy behavior, they are reassured their friends are who they appear to be. Dipper worries that if the creature escapes, he could assume the form of anyone, and Wendy prepares to launch an attack on him. While the Shape Shifter looks for Dipper, his target and Mabel enter the room. The monster then transforms into a horrifying amalgamation of the twins, who lead him toward Soos and Wendy, who have prepared a water pipe to blast him. The pipe briefly stalls, and Wendy goes after the monster with her ax before getting hit with a huge burst of water.
Battle of the Wendys.
When the flooding subsides, Dipper encounters Wendy's unconscious body and begins to cry over her, believing she has died. Regretful, Dipper confesses he's in love with her, just as a second Wendy appears behind him. The form on the ground turns out to be the Shape Shifter, who engages in combat with the real Wendy. Dipper then picks up Wendy's ax and comes to help her, but he is unable to distinguish between the true and the copy. He asks for a sign, to which one Wendy simply winks whereas the other uses the zip-and-disposable-key gesture first seen in "The Inconveniencing." Dipper, realizing which Wendy is real, strikes the Shape Shifter in the chest, who howls out in pain while leaking a greenish blood and returns to his true form. Dipper and Wendy then force the monster into the cryogenic chamber in which he had previously been held, which Soos and Mabel activate. The Shape Shifter uses his last words to taunt Dipper he will never find the author and Dipper's fate will be worst than he can imagine, before morphing into a screaming Dipper as his final form.
Wendy assures Dipper that things between them are fine.
The group leaves and seals the bunker, and they reflect on the adventure. Soos comments that his face is tired from screaming all day, and Mabel hails the four as heroes. Soos opts to take her back to the Shack for a "hero's breakfast," and praises her idea to put syrup on their cereal. Dipper and Wendy stay behind to discuss his crush on her, and while the former prepares for the worst, the latter informs him that she always suspected it. While she's flattered, Wendy lets Dipper down easy since she's too old for him but assures him, by reiterating how much his friendship means to her, that the situation between them is and will be fine. Wendy bikes home after reminding Dipper of tomorrow's movie night at his place, leaving him with a bittersweet feeling. Mabel then comes back to reveal that she heard the entire conversation and apologizes for her pushiness. Soos meets them and states that he is disappointed that they did not find the author. But while showing off the briefcase he recovered, they find it's actually the mysterious figure's old laptop. Soos says he could fix it in a few days' time, leading Dipper to think it could be their next clue. Back at the Shack, Dipper and Wendy watch a terrible movie marathon, and Dipper comments that he never wants to watch that channel again.
Credits[]
- Written by:
- Directed by:
- Storyboards by:
- With the Voice Talents of:
- Additional Voices:
- Jackie Buscarino as Trixandra
- Matt Chapman as Construction Worker and Bargain Movie Showcase Announcer
- John DiMaggio as Manly Dan
- Alex Hirsch as Chadley and Shape Shifter (Gnome)
- Fred Tatasciore as Shape Shifter (vocal effects)
- Casting by:
Production notes[]
- See also: List of allusions and List of goofs.
Character revelations[]
- Robbie is still sending persistent text messages to Wendy.
- When Wendy was younger, her dad made her compete in lumberjack games, which she did very well at.
- Wendy attends Gravity Falls High School.
- Wendy has always suspected Dipper's crush on her.
- Several things about the author are revealed:
- The author is male.
- The author engaged in experiments during his research.
- The author has six fingers, same as the cover of the journals.
- The author "hasn't been himself" for 30 years.
- The computer owner's first initial is "F."
Series continuity[]
- While watching Nearly Almost Dead But Not Quite!, a zombie movie, Dipper mentions that it's a lot less scary once you've fought zombies yourself, referencing the previous episode, "Scary-oke."
- Stan has hired a construction crew to fix the damages caused by the zombies after the events of the previous episode, "Scary-oke."
- Robbie is still not over Wendy (first revealed in "Gideon Rises"), following their breakup in "Boyz Crazy."
- Dipper, Mabel, Soos and Wendy return to the original hiding spot of Journal 3 as seen in "Tourist Trapped."
- Wendy meets up with them on the same bicycle and wearing the same helmet she had in "Gideon Rises."
- Wendy uses the zipped lips gesture first used in "The Inconveniencing," and later uses it to prove she is the real Wendy while fighting the Shape Shifter.
- The Shape Shifter takes the form of several creatures documented in Journal 3:
- The Gremloblin from "Boss Mabel."
- A gnome from "Tourist Trapped."
- The Hide Behind from the short "The Hide-Behind."
- Wendy mentions she can hear the things Dipper whispers under his breath, which he does so in "The Time Traveler's Pig," "The Deep End," and "Boyz Crazy."
- When telling Dipper how much their friendship means to her, Wendy claims she'd possibly throw herself down the bottomless pit if it ended, referencing the location featured in the episode by the same name.
- The final form the Shape Shifter transformed into was claimed to be Dipper's final form. In "Northwest Mansion Mystery," when Dipper is turned into wood, he took the same form. However, he was restored afterwards.
- Dipper's "final form" appearing in "Northwest Mansion Mystery" sparked a theory that, when Dipper was restored from his wooden form, he had secretly been taken over by Bill Cipher and was being impersonated by Bill. This was, of course, debunked when Weirdmageddon occurred and Bill was revealed to be possessing Blendin Blandin.
Trivia[]
- Viewership: The episode was viewed by 0.9 million viewers on its premiere night.[3]
- "Into the Bunker" is the first Gravity Falls episode to originally premiere on Disney XD after the show was moved to that channel from Disney Channel.
- A small clip of this episode was shown at the 2014 LA Film Fest.[6]
- The production credit of Nearly Almost Dead But Not Quite! is listed as "A Good Enough Picture MXMLMLMXML."
- Reading it using Roman Numerals notation M+(XM)+(LM)+(LM)+(XM)+L gives the year 1000+990+950+950+990+50=4930, which does not make sense.
- Reading it alternatively, (MX) + (ML) + (ML) + (MX) + (ML) gives the year 1010+1050+1050+1010+1050=5170, which does not make sense either.
- The author planned to inhabit the bunker through the year 2070. This is despite the fact that Bill mentions he won't "get a heart attack till he's 92", meaning this would happen around 2050.
- Mabel says that the bunker is "not as creepy as Dipper's internet history." According to Bill Cipher, Dipper's internet history contains "A LOT OF PICTURES OF REDHEADS!" [7]
- When the episode airs in syndication on Disney Channel, the scene in which the Shape Shifter transforms into a combined Dipper and Mabel is cut, as well as Soos' line of dialogue "Good luck sleeping tonight." The sequence in where slime drips from the Shape Shifter has also been shortened. Due to censorship guidelines, the scene in where Dipper accidentally lays on Wendy's bra is cut, along with Wendy's line "Don't feel itchy, man," as well as when Wendy kicks the Shape Shifter disguised as her in the breasts, and the scene wherein Dipper attacks the Shape Shifter disguised as Wendy in the lower chest area was also cut. The episode continues to air normally on Disney XD, however.
- Stan appears for less than a minute, making it his smallest appearance in the whole show.
- Before the Shape Shifter is completely frozen, he transforms into Dipper and strikes a horrified pose. Dipper is turned to wood in the same pose in "Northwest Mansion Mystery."
- The Smez dispenser bears a great resemblance to the British dog man.
- The author had made this bunker in order to hide from Bill Cipher when he created Weirdmageddon.
- In the Box Set, some never before seen cut and deleted scenes from the episode were revealed:
- Rather than repairing the shack after the party, Stan is seen working on the portal below and takes Waddles with him for company.
- It's revealed that a security camera in the bunker is connected to a TV in the shack basement and Stan very nearly sees the twins, Soos and Wendy down there.
- An old storyboard of the decontamination scene would have ended in things being "more awkward," between Dipper and Wendy.
- The lab coat Soos finds and takes from the bunker contained a card on which McGucket's name is written and a project called Project Polygon. Had this happened, it would have accelerated the reveal that he was involved with the author rather than leaving fans wondering till "Society of the Blind Eye."
- The episode ends with Stan, Dipper and Mabel going to bed till 4 AM and eating donuts.
- In 2023, Disney Television Animation ranked this episode as their #1 most spooky episode on their Twitter page.[8]
Cryptograms[]
Key: SHIFTER
- During the ending credits of this episode, there is a cryptogram that reads "OOIY DMEV VN IBWRKAMW BRUWLL." Once decoded using vigenère cipher, it reads "WHAT KIND OF DISASTER INDEED."
- Found on a barrel in the bunker, the keyword is: "SHIFTER."
- Next to the author's Hiding Spot page, there is a binary code that says
010100000111010101110 1000010000001100001 011011000110110000100 000011100110110100101 11100000100000011100 000110100101100101011 000110110010101110011 00100000011101000110 11110110011101100101011 10100011010000110010 10111001000100001
which translates to "Put all six pieces together!" This is a reference to the six-page pieces needed to put together the Blind Eye Society's image in Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained.
- In the previous episode, Dipper's blacklight showed the edge of the very same Blind Eye symbol on that page.
- In the Cryogenic Tube section of Journal 3, there is a cipher that says "
," which translates to "AM I ME? IS HE ME?."
Another section of the cryptic page.
- On the following pages, it says "" which decodes to "ICE ICE BABY."
- The page section revealed at the end of the episode says, "15-11-8-6-9-8-19-6 3-5-19 9-18 11-23-21-16-15-10-19-6-25 21-9-3-12-20" on the left and on the right says, "12-19-23-20 4-9 3-4-4-19-6 21-23-4-23-5-4-6-9-8-16-19" After being put through all of the ciphers, it translates to "IMPROPER USE OF MACHINERY COULD" and "LEAD TO UTTER CATASTROPHE."
" which decodes to "ICE ICE BABY."
Gallery
Click here to view this page's gallery.
References[]
- ↑ Hirsch, Alex (June 4, 2015). Tweet Number 474066945336045568.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Hirsch, Alex (June 14, 2014). Tweet Number 477919827294572544. “But wait, there's more?!?! The SECOND episode of Season 2 airs the following Monday Aug 4th on Disney XD!”
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 THE 7D & GRAVITY FALLS Hit Series Highs on Disney XD. Wisdom Digital Media (August 5, 2014). Archived from the original on November 14, 2020.
- ↑ Disney Channel press release. The Fulton Critic (August 5, 2014). Retrieved on November 14, 2020.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 INTO THE BUNKER. Disney–ABC Television Group. Retrieved on April 16, 2015.
- ↑ Gravity Falls - Into the Bunker - Clip - Gravity Falls Live!. YouTube (June 14, 2014).
- ↑ I'M BILL CIPHER! I know LOTS OF THINGS! ASK ME ANYTHING!. Reddit (April 2, 2015). Retrieved on August 29, 2017.
- ↑ Disney TVA: Can confirm these episodes are 10/10 spooky