Gravity Falls is ending this week, which is a real shame. That’s the consensus that I get when I talk about it to anyone who isn’t Alex Hirsch: what a shame. I’ll miss the crazy antics. I’ll miss the twisted humor. I’ll miss Kristen Schaal’s melodious voice. It seems like it’s too soon. It seems like it’s not over.

Here’s the thing: they’re right. Gravity Falls doesn’t feel over. It doesn’t feel like it’s coasting into a smooth landing so much as squealing to an abrupt stop. I was amazed, in fact, when I found out that this was a planned ending and not a hasty cancellation. And that’s not just because it’s a wonderful show and we’ll always want more. It’s because the story hasn’t happened yet, and we’ve only got one episode to go.

I’m going to talk about that. But first, a recap, for anyone who hasn’t been watching:

Gravity Falls, which has been on the air since 2012, is a Disney Channel show starring thirteeen-year-old twins Dipper and Mabel Pines, who are spending the summer with their Great Uncle Stan (“Grunkle Stan”) in Gravity Falls, Oregon, a town straight out of the National Enquirer that’s overrun with batboys, leprechauns, unicorns, time-travelling aliens, eldritch abominations and Elvises Presley.

While Gravity Falls may not be the most immediately arresting thing to come out of the recent cartoon renaissance — it lacks some of the wild creativity of Adventure Time, some of the dreaminess of Stephen Universe, some of the demented originality of Rick and Morty — it’s got a more thankless and, really, in the end, more important job to do: it’s a good, substantial, entertaining show in its own right, standing on its own merits without any gimmicks to fall back on. It’s clever and funny and exciting: one of those shows that has chosen to be very, very good at the things that other people also do well, which is, in its own way, even more difficult than doing something totally new.

And now it’s ending. Some several dozen adventures and two or three apocalypses later, it’s ending, and even though it’s ending in a big climactic battle against a multidimensional villain, it still feels like there’s something missing. Like the ending is coming a little bit too soon.

So: I want to talk about why that is.

I gave a talk at Philly Barcamp earlier this year, and one of the things I was discussing was what, when you get right down to it, makes a story a story and not just a list of things that happened.

In the end, I narrowed it down to three things: a story needs to have a turning point, that turning point needs to involve the protagonist choosing to do something (not being forced to do something, but choosing to do something), and that choice needs to change everything.

That’s really the defining feature of a story — the end can’t be the same as the beginning. Even if it ends in the same place, it still won’t be the same, because the people the story is about will have changed — and they’ll have changed because of a choice they made. If that hasn’t happened, then it’s not really a story — at least, not the way that modern pop culture looks at a story — and it will never quite feel satisfying, even when it ends.

So: Harry Potter chose to follow Dumbledore’s plan, even when he knew it meant his death. Luke Skywalker chose to put away his lightsaber instead of killing Darth Vader when he had the chance. Evey Hammond chose to take V’s place when he died. The story’s not over until the character makes a choice, and it’s not over until that choice changes them.

In the antepenultimate episode of Gravity Falls, we see Dipper (who, let’s be real, was always just a little more of a protagonist than Mabel was) make that choice: instead of returning home with his twin, he’s going to remain in Gravity Falls with his long lost six-fingered backup Grunkle (long story) and study the mysteries of the town, because he’s realized that paranormal investigation is his passion and he wants to grow up to be a much more awesome version of the guy from Celebrity Ghost Stories. All good. All grand.

In the penultimate episode, though, we see Dipper completely reverse that decision. Determined not to be separated from his twin, he changes his mind: he’s going home to California at the end of the summer and returning to his normal life.

And you know me: I’m the guy who roots for the less appreciated characters, so a whole episode celebrating the wonder that is Mabel Pines would normally be right up my alley. Dipper’s decision does, however, leave the story in a little bit of a pickle.

Here’s the thing: Dipper came to Gravity Falls as a solitary, intense, nerdy kid who loves solving mysteries, and unless something drastic changes in the final episode, he’s going to leave Gravity Falls as a solitary, intense, nerdy kid who loves solving mysteries. Mabel came to Gravity Falls as a warmhearted, cheerful, energetic kid with a gift for making friends, and unless something drastic changes in the final episode, she’s going to leave Gravity Falls as exactly the same thing.

I mean, if the kids left town right now, how would their lives be different because they spent this summer in Gravity Falls, really? They have proof the paranormal exists, but Dipper always believed that, and Mabel kind of doesn’t care. They made some new friends, but they would have made friends no matter where they were. Dipper had, was rejected by, and got over a crush, but apart from maybe leaving him a little more mature, it hasn’t really had much of an effect on who he is. It’s not exactly a life-changing romance — it’s a cute girl who didn’t like him back.

Stories like Gravity Falls — stories about kids on the cusp of puberty, just stepping into the big, scary forest with adulthood on the other side — are almost always, to some extent, about growing up. Dorothy flies to Oz, but she does it so that she can learn that she needs to go home and face her problems instead of running away from them. Sen defeats Yubaba and a rescues her parents from an evil spell, but she does it so that she can learn that facing a new school isn’t so scary. Sarah faces off against the Goblin King, but she does it so that she can learn that adulthood is twice the adventure that childhood is, and that leaving childhood behind isn’t a bad thing.

We like to use magic and the unknown as a metaphor for adulthood, because adulthood is like that for a kid — powerful, scary, enticing, full of new adventures and complications and things that we don’t understand. It’s a good metaphor, and one that’s as old as fairy tales.

Gravity Falls seems pretty intent on embracing this metaphor, too. I mean, one of the finale episodes is titled “Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future,” and it’s about pretty much exactly that — Mabel and Dipper working through their fears that they’ll grow apart as they grow up, as expressed by her fear that he’ll stay in Gravity Falls without her. Mabel, who has always had to be dragged out of childhood kicking and screaming — she of the light-up sweaters and love of ponies — is the perfect messenger for this, and it’s a great episode.

The problem isn’t with the episode, really, but with how it gets resolved, because if Dipper is choosing to go home with Mabel — choosing to leave behind the paranormal world of Gravity Falls — then he’s choosing not to grow up, and she’s choosing the same thing.

And, yeah, someone could write a story where choosing not to grow up yet is the right choice — where it’s more important to hang on to the magic of childhood than explore the big scary forest of adulthood.

But, come on. This is not that show.

This show has, from the beginning, been playing up all the stuff you play up when you want to talk about how wonderful growing up can be — adventure, independence, breaking rules, uncovering secrets, seeing through illusions, all of the stuff that eventually conspires to tear everyone’s childhood to shreds so that adulthood can take its place. Letting it end by turning its back on all that — even for the sake of love — would be a betrayal of everything the show has said so far.

Luckily, the show isn’t over yet. We’ve got an hour’s finale still to come.

If I could make a wish for the finale, it would be for Dipper to flip-flop again: to stay with Grunkle Ford instead of going home to California. Hell, I’d root for Mabel to do the same thing. I want them to make the choice stay and grow and branch out and become someone different, instead of going home as still pretty much the same people that they were. Because without that choice, there’s no story, and if there’s no story, then this show will just be a chronicle of a bunch of weird stuff that happened to two kids one summer, and that will be a real waste.

Five days to go until the finale. I’ve got all six of my fingers crossed, and so should you.

If you want to catch up on Gravity Falls while you’re waiting, you can find the first season here.

If you’re enjoying my writing, don’t forget to check out some more of it at sarapevar.com and follow me on twitter @thespeevers.