Recap / Gravity Falls S2 E9 "The Love God"

Are you ready to Love!

Mabel takes matchmaking too far when she steals a love potion from a real Love God.

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Tropes in this episode:

• All Part of the Show: When Mabel and Dipper are running from the Love God, the three of them do a stage dive. Mabel enjoys it, Dipper hates the sensation of "so much touching," and the Love God gives away his tapes.
• All There in the Manual: Journal 3 reveals that the love potion is temporary unless an actual spark existed before (basically being more of a push of confidence).
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Robbie's parents are shown to be this, even babying him and being oblivious to his gloomy personality. They are also this for being "too cheerful for funeral directors."
• Anti-Villain: The Love God qualifies as this because he's got more than enough reason to be angry with Mabel for stealing his love potions and attempting to do his job.
• Apologetic Attacker: The Love God gives an angry apology before summoning visions of Mabel's ex-crushes.
• The Bard on Board: The potion-fueled mixed-up romance of Robbie and Tambry and the fracturing of their group is right out of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
• Batman Gambit: At the concert, Thompson willingly suffers public humiliation, knowing it'll keep his circle of friends together.
  Thompson: All According to Plan.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Tambry and Robbie give off this vibe before Mabel intervenes, since despite arguing they both still stuck around for their food, that they shared, and when Robbie calls Tambry, "Tambers," she doesn't say anything even though not much earlier she had told someone not to call her that. There was something there, and chances are that even without the love potion, the two would have eventually ended up together — just not as soon as Mabel wanted. Confirmed even more by the real Journal stating it wears off if nothing was there to begin with.
• Bittersweet Ending: Almost. Robbie and Tambry fell in love and both Took a Level in Kindness, but Wendy, Lee and Nate split up and each Took a Level in Jerkass in response to Robbie and Tambry dating, with Dipper and Mabel only able to hope that they will all reconcile at an ambiguous point in the future. Thankfully, the group gets back together after bonding again over watching Thompson be humiliated.
• Black Comedy:
  • Stan, on seeing the hot air balloons, comes out with a crossbow, noticing how slow they are. Soos stopped him in time, but still.
  • Robbie's parents demonstrate this trope unintentionally as they are so cheerful, "too cheerful to be funeral directors" as Robbie himself puts it. They even think Mabel's sweater would look good on a corpse.
• Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: Although Mabel is too much of a cloudcuckoolander to realize it, duct-taping a goat and a pig together to declare them "married" can't be pleasant for either animal involved.
• Blatant Lies: Robbie's totally over his relationship with Wendy, and his ringtone (A song where he's crying about how much he misses Wendy & he'll never move on) is about another unrelated Wendy.
• Breather Episode: This is a mainly lighthearted episode before "Northwest Mansion Mystery" (one of the darkest episodes in the series) and the Mid-Season Twist "Not What He Seems".
• Butt-Monkey: Thompson, albeit willingly since he wouldn't have any friends if he wasn't part of Wendy's group. The dude gets snacks duct-taped to him and tape placed over his mouth, survives dangling off a rope and whacked on the butt by security, merely saying All According to Plan.
• Call-Back: The Love God summons many of Mabel's former crushes, including Mermando, Gabe Benson, all five members of Sev'ral Timez, Norman, the "Yes, Definitely, Absoultely" guy (who has a different design here), and even the guy from the 10-dollar bill from the unaired pilot.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Love God's wings, which he fluttered earlier in the episode to show Mabel that his "name's not exactly a coincidence," give him the speed burst necessary to overtake the twins.
• Clueless Aesop: Thompson: It's better to constantly demean yourself to have friends who constantly laugh at your humiliation and discomfort than to not have friends at all, nor even to hold out for friends who'll treat you better. (Considering how many other kid's media argues against this same message...)
• Concert Episode: The episode revolves around Wendy and her friends seeing the musician called the Love God, but break up after Tambry and Robbie start dating so Thompson has to drag everyone there.
• Continuity Cavalcade: The Love God uses a spell that brings up visions of Mabel's past crushes, including the boy she gave a "Do You Like Me" note to in "Tourist Trapped".
• Continuity Nod:
  • Stan still has the bandage on his hand from "Society of the Blind Eye".
  • Mabel considers the Multi-bear as a "maybe" for match-making.
  • Soos has a video chat with Melody.
• Continuity Snarl: A picture of younger Robbie doesn't resemble Young Robbie in the previous episode very closely (for one, apparently he used to have light brown hair and a cheerful disposition).
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Soos convinces Stan it would be more financially profitable to earn money from the Woodstick Festival attendees rather than attempting to shoot them down.
• Dartboard of Hate: Robbie has one with Dipper's picture on it.
• Death Seeker: Robbie parodies this when the team comes across him. He's lamenting over Wendy in an open grave and asks a vulture to eat him, but retracts that statement when the vulture attacks.
  Robbie: I was just being dramatic, quit it! Ow, ow! My face! Vulture!
• Didn't Think This Through: The Love God doesn't want Mabel using his love potions for this very reason. Sure enough, when she uses it anyway unexpected social consequences lead to her almost immediately wanting to undo it.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Thompson intervenes with his Butt-Monkey Batman Gambit to bring his friends back together again, thus keeping this episode from giving Wendy's group a Downer Ending and instead resolving it with everybody happy again.
• Epic Fail: Grunkle Stan's balloon. See Nightmare Face entry.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: Mabel's rainbow sweater.
• Foreshadowing: When the Love God refuses to give Mabel a love potion, he tells her that using it can have "major social consequences". Sure enough, the relationship between Robbie and Tambry ends up causing a rift between Wendy's friends.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Robbie's bedroom is loaded with background details, like a picture of Robbie and Wendy in Animesque style.
  • The chalkboard in Greasy's Diner reads "Ask about our steak dinner! We don't have one!"
  • You can see some members of Sev'ral Timez sneaking around the Woodstick Festival.
  • We also get a brief glimpse of Toot Toot McBumbersnazzle (aka Blind Ivan) wandering around the festival.
• The "Fun" in "Funeral": Robbie's parents turn out to be extremely cheerful funeral directors, and his mother jokes about dressing an old lady's remains in Mabel's rainbow sweater.
• Genre Deconstruction: This episode shows what would really happen if someone had the power to make people fall in love. When Mabel decides to make Robbie and Tambry a couple, their other friends don't take this revelation lightly. Wendy is upset because Tambry is dating her ex, while Nate is angry at Robbie because he also had a crush on Tambry and apparently told Robbie about this in confidence so he wouldn't date her until Nate asked her out first.
• Glad I Thought of It: Mabel takes credit for fixing up Melody and Soos, even though Soos started the relationship by being himself. The twins coached him, but "match-making" here seems to be a stretch.
• A God Am I: The Love God invokes this after he succeeds in getting the potion back from Mabel, though he said before to call him a cherub.
  "That's what happens when you mess with a god!"
• God Job: The Love God, more specifically a cherub, usually goes around spreading romance and pairing people together. However the internet, as he puts it, "pretty much does [his] job nowadays", leaving him more time to focus on his musical career.
• Guy Liner: When Tambry uses her eyeliner on Robby.
• Heel Realization: Mabel comes to realize this when she tells Dipper that every time they try to mess with fate using supernatural means it only makes things worse for other people and decides to just let things sort themselves out. Luckily for her they do.
• Hurricane of Puns:
  Stan: (About the zeppelin) All right, let'er rip!
  Soos: Oh, no! A letter rip! (letters from the zeppelin start to fall off)
  Stan: What the H?! (a massive H lands on him)
• Idiot Ball:
  • Instead of asking the Love God to make a badger and snake fall in love, Mabel could have asked him to either a) use his potion and convincing pitch on Robbie and Tambry, or b) ask if the two would work as a couple and what the consequences would be. He obviously has the knowledge.
  • When she steals the potion, Mabel replaces it with a squirrel, after trying to use it to buy said potion. Unsurprisingly, when she tries to steal another potion — Anti-Love— the Love God identifies her immediately.
  • Also, Love God gets this for telling his secrets to a random twelve year old.
• Innocently Insensitive: Mabel casually tells Robbie she thought of him as "a creepy jerk", comparing him to rat poison.
• Interspecies Romance: The Love God causes this to happen between a badger and a snake when he demonstrates his powers to Mabel. One of the potions on his belt is specifically interspecies love.
  • Mabel has Waddles and Gompers "marry" each other by taping them together.
  • One of the "maybe" options Mabel chose for Robbie's potential partner was the Multi-Bear.
• It's All About Me: Mabel shows a milder variant, when part of her reason to get Robbie a new girlfriend was to demonstrate her matchmaking skills. She admits this to Dipper after the team breaks up.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In the end, Mabel decides to let Robbie and Tambry continue being a couple, because seeing how happy they are to be together is for the best, and the conflict with Wendy and the others will simmer down on its own eventually.
• I Warned You: The Love God says this when Mabel tries to steal the Anti-Love Potion and apologize.
• Jerkass Ball:
  • Lee, Nate and Wendy, once after learning about the news that Robbie and Tambry are dating, they all turn on each other, split up as a friend group and vehemently refuse to attend Woodstick in a rage. They are all so blinded by their anger that they started acting rude and inconsiderate to others that have nothing to do with their fall out whether is Dipper or Thompson (especially him, who pleaded them not to split up otherwise he'd have no friends, have his mailbox punched by Nate against his pleas not to and spent a large amount of money and his own watch to get them tickets, not much to his friends' concern). Fortunately, they immediately bounce back to their kind selves and become a friend group once more at the end of the episode thanks to Thompson.
  • Wendy herself, who exhibits the most negative emotions than her previous episode appearances, to the point she threatens bodily harm on her childhood friend Tambry for dating her ex and also initially refusing to go to Woodstick along with Nate and Lee, while being inconsiderate to Dipper and Thompson pleading her not to refuse.
  • Dipper shows shades of this at the beginning of the episode, joining the gang in ordering Thompson around and showing no compassion for Robbie's heartbreak because he and Mabel are finally "in". He sheds it, however, after seeing that Robbie and Tambry truly are happy together and Robbie thanks Mabel for setting the couple up.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Whatever one thinks of Wendy's Jerkass behavior, she does point out that it's not cool of her best friend to go dating her ex "behind her back," especially when said ex was a manipulative and needy boyfriend and Wendy doesn't know about the extenuating circumstances. Mabel ought to have realized that before pairing Wendy's ex Robbie with her best friend Tambry via love potion.
    • The same can be said of Nate, as he states that Robbie knew about his own crush on Tambry.
  • Whilst Dipper's a jerk for wanting to leave Robbie wallowing in self-pity in the open grave, he's not entirely unjustified when one considers his past relationship with Robbie has almost entirely consisted of Robbie making snide comments about Dipper & even threatening to beat him up.
• Love Goddess: This episode feature a Love God who works with love potions.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Mabel assumes that the snake and the badger are going to make "snadgers".
• Mythology Gag: Mabel's crush on Alexander Hamilton (the "guy on the ten-dollar bill") comes from the unaired pilot.
• Never My Fault: Robbie blames Dipper for the break up with Wendy which, while at least partially true, seems to omit the fact he was using a CD to hypnotize her into loving him. There's also the fact that even before the CD came into play, Wendy was already thinking about dumping him for being a bad boyfriend.
• Nightmare Face: The hot air balloon Stan makes comes off like this, especially when it catches on fire.
• Nightmare Fuel: Stan's balloon is definitely considered this In-Universe, judging by everyone's reactions to it.
• No More for Me: Farmer Sprott sees the Love God flying by, and scowls disapprovingly as he pours out the bottle of "hippie tea" he was drinking.
• No-Sell: The "Visions of Past Loves" spells doesn't seem to work on Dipper, probably because he's sorted out what he had with Wendy. Alternatively, the Love God may have solely targeted Mabel since she was the one holding the MacGuffin.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Just as Mabel prepares to spray Robbie and Tambry with the Anti-Love potion, Robbie sees her and thanks her for setting him up with Tambry, since for the first time he is "happy." Dipper and Mabel can't bring themselves to spray the potion.
• Omniscient Morality License: The Love God shows this; he's not above making a badger and snake fall in love with each other to show off his power, but he warns Mabel about the dangers of playing with people's love lives. One argument for him is that he's had thousands of years of experience, so he'll know when a combination works.
• Ow, My Body Part!: Robbie yells "Ow, my face!" while getting attacked by a vulture.
• Pair the Spares: Mabel ends up trying to solve Robbie's romantic problems by setting him up with Tambry.
• Poor Communication Kills: If Mabel had made it clear that she had matched Tambry and Robbie together, instead of hinting that they had hooked up, perhaps Wendy, Lee and Nate would've taken the news better and taught Mabel a few pointers about pairing up friends.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: In-universe, Mabel refers to the Waddles/Gompers pairing as "Wampers."
• Raised by Wolves: Mabel assumed that Robbie was raised by "sad wolves" before meeting his parents.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Given his amount of potions for various types of love and free time thanks to the Internet, the Love God could do a lot more than build his music career and ship people together while touring.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: The Love God gets his Anti-Love potion back, but after having a Stan-Face air balloon fall on him, he gives up and lets the twins have the potion, citing he doesn't care anymore.
• Shipper on Deck: Mabel for Robbie/Tambry. In Mabel's pile of possible future matchmaking we also see Dipper/Candy, Stan/Soos's Abuelita, and McGucket/Beaver.
• Sickening Sweethearts: Robbie and Tambry, while under the influence of the love potion.
  Dipper: Ugh, they're doing that couple hug-walk...
• Signs of Disrepair: The sign on Stan's balloon is supposed to read "I Heart Kids", but the H and R fall off so that it now reads "I Eat Kids".
• Smart Ball: Soos carries it, in a moment of Smarter Than You Look. He convinces Stan that it'd be more financially sensible to make profits off the Woodstick Festival's "kale munching" hippies (Stan's words) than to shoot them down. He also points out that Stan's hot air balloon has the flame too close to the kerosene, which causes it to crash.
• So Proud of You: Nate & Lee repeatedly praise Dipper for his "use of Thompson" throughout the episode.
• Spoof Aesop: Stan learns that being loved is overrated, but being feared is priceless.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Subverted twice in a row. First, Mabel reading out the description of the Anti-Love Potion gives the Love God enough time to catch her and Dipper rummaging through his potions. Second, Mabel and Dipper use the Love God's speech of being "duty-bound" to stop them to get a head start towards Tambry and Robbie.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Mabel sprinkles love potion on Tambry and Robbie's chili fries. The guy in the kitchen doesn't think twice about it.
• Teens Are Monsters: Averted with the usually negative Robbie and Tambry when they became a couple, but unfortunately invoked with the usually nice Wendy, Lee and Nate when they learned about Robbie and Tambry becoming a couple, see also Jerkass Ball above.
• Tempting Fate: The Love God says that "only someone from above can stop me." So then of course Stan's balloon falls on him.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Robbie and Tambry each take one bite of their love potion-laced chili fries before leaving them to go on a date.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Tambry and Robbie after they ingest the love potion; Robbie actually thanks Mabel for setting him up with Tambry.
• T-Word Euphemism: Grunkle Stan shouts "What the H?!" right before the letter H falls off his homemade balloon and lands on him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: When Mabel spells Tambry and Robbie into falling in love she didn't realize how unstable the teens' group dynamic was until they broke up.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Robbie, if his baby pictures speak the truth in the Valentino household.
• Villain Has a Point: Though the Love God isn't a villain, and he has a right to stop Mabel and Dipper from messing with his love potions. He points out that Mabel only wants to interfere with others' lives, and he's duty-bound to prevent humans from "stealing his stuff."
  • Also, most infamously, Mabel is forced to learn the hard way what social consequences the Love God was talking about when misusing the love potion when she witnessed Wendy, Lee and Nate splitting up and vehemently refusing to attend Woodstick in anger in response to Robbie and Tambry dating.
• What Are Records?: Mabel doesn't know what to do with the tape the Love God hands her.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Both Dipper and the Love God call out Mabel when she uses the latter's love potions to mess with Robbie and Tambry's love lives. Even Thompson gets in on the act, asking Mabel, "What did you do?"
• Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: When the Love God summons "Visions of Heartbreak Past," including all of Mabel's ex-crushes, Dipper punches one in the face and asks who would fall for it. Cut to Mabel surrounded by her exes...
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The Love God is a rare occurrence in Gravity Falls in that while chasing the Pines twins to obtain the anti-love potion they stole, he doesn't use physical force. Instead, he tricks Mabel into giving the potion to a vision of her ex-crush Mermando.
• You Didn't Ask: Not that Robbie volunteered the information while on his date with Tambry, but he probably wasn't showing interest in her because Nate told Robbie that he had a crush on "Tambers." That bit of information might have helped Mabel choose a different "blind date" if she had asked Robbie.

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O SAM KVGS. ^note I Eat Kids.

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