Cartoon Reviews: Gravity Falls Episode 15 - The Deep End

The Story

In order to beat the heat wave, the Pines and Soos decide to hit the Gravity Falls local pool. There Dipper runs into a hot-blooded pool manager, Stan contends with his arch nemesis Lil’ Gideon, Soos risks his life to save life-saving inflatable ducks, and Mabel befriends a merman.

The merman tells Mabel how he got to be in the pool and longs to see his family. Even when she knew that she would lose the boy she liked, Mabel is determined that her merman friend gets back to his family even if it meant going through her own brother, the assistant lifeguard, to do so.

The Review

After the last episode, I thought things were going to go off the deep end. No pun intended.

There was a side character that had been seen before but he never made an actual appearance until now. His name is Mr. Poolchek and he is the best character of the episode, besides the other new one who I will get to shortly.

Wendy gets some screentime here, and while Dipper is still enamoured with her, her character is a lot more entertaining than usual. Dipper decides to break the pool rules a bit to get closer to Wendy but Mr. Poolchek keeps him in check.

Stan and Soos get their part with Stan’s ever-present rivalry with Gideon and Soos believing the inflatable duck lifesavers could talk.

Mabel meets and befriends the resident of the pool, Mermando the merman. She was attracted to him at first sight but Mermando kept away from her due to being a merman and thought that she would alienate him. Mabel brings up some past boyfriends, along with a few that were not seen in the show so it’s assumed like with Troothache, it happened before the events of The Deep End.

It was a pleasant surprise to see that there was focus on romance for a kid's show and that it was done well too. Nothing over-the-top and there were also a number of good funny moments.

The Grade

4/5