There are few television series as closely scrutinized as Disney XD’s Gravity Falls. And for good reason: creator Alex Hirsch and his team were prone to sneaking hidden messages, enigmatic characters, and brain-busting foreshadowing into every nook and cranny of the brilliant series. With the series concluding its 40-episode run earlier this week, we were left without the usual glut of clues and puzzles. Instead, we are left with solemn contemplation in place of rabid speculation … Okay, that might not be entirely true.

We absolutely loved the finale but still had a few questions, and so we decided to ask Hirsch about certain elements that we were forbidden to talk about before. Please enjoy the final installment in our series of creator commentaries.

Did you end up watching the fan reaction as the finale aired? And what was that like?

You know, actually, normally I will have a couple tabs open during the airing of an episode and follow it very closely to see how people are responding. This time around I actually took a nap! One of the nice things about not working on a TV show anymore is that I’m not on any particular kind of clock. But when I woke up and checked my Twitter responses, I felt an overwhelming wave of positive, wonderful replies.

Were there any characters that you had originally included and wanted to include, but ended getting cut?

Absolutely, yeah. TV channels have pretty strict length limitations and there are so many things I would have loved to put in that episode if I had gotten an extra 10 minutes or 20 minutes, but did not. I think one character who I would have loved to include was Quentin Trembley, lost president of America. He was one of those characters where I have a lot of thoughts and theories about his significance in the world of the show, and it’s the kind of thing where if he shows up, I want to do him justice. I have more story to tell and for him to pop in and sort of say, “Hello! And goodbye!” It felt so cheap to me. Characters that don’t matter, like Larry King’s head, they can pop-in and say hello, but character’s that have a deeper story and significance, to have them just have a cameo felt false to me. I made the decision, and that particular example to say I think I’d prefer (at least for now) to keep some things about this character a mystery than to puncture that mystery just for the sake of an unimpressive cameo.

What was it like getting Larry King and Alfred Molina back for just a few lines?

It was fun for me; it was probably a nightmare for the casting department. The credits for the finale read like the strangest circus that you’ve ever seen, but it felt like it was coming full circle, bringing back a lot of these people whom we hadn’t talked to since season one, and seeing them again. It was kind of like this trip down memory lane and it was a lot of fun for me.

What was the inspiration behind the mystery shack robot? It seems to be a callback to the Gideon robot from season one.

It’s a callback to a number of things. I think when we sat down at the whiteboard and said, “Okay, the kids have got to rescue Ford, but in order to do that they’ve got to get past Bill’s henchmen. What could possibly protect them from these magical beasts, and what could get them there unharmed, and what could provide a good enough distraction?” And of our brainstorms, it kind of seemed that McGucket, who had built the Gobblewonker, who had built the Gideon-bot, is now on their side for the first time. This mad inventor is working for our side, so it just seemed like a no-brainer. Of course, with essentially an army of townsfolk at his disposal and with his brain getting more put-together as he gains his memory, he would build the most insane robot that we’ve ever seen. And also, we’ve always seen the Mystery Shack as a character and it felt appropriate that the Shack would be there for a big battle. It was really exciting to see the artists kind of take that sort of note we had done on the whiteboard and in the writer’s room, and bring it to life.

The huge reveal of this episode is seeing which character corresponds to each symbol on the zodiac wheel—how far in advance did you know which character would correspond to what symbol, and was there ever a version of the episode where the spell actually worked?

I think like many things, this stuff is only as significant as the audience chooses to make it. To me, if you said, “What is important about the show?” I’d say, “Oh, Dipper and Mabel’s relationship is important; Dipper’s hunt to discover the author is important; the conflict about Dipper wanting to grow up too fast and maturing, and Mabel being immature and trying to figure out both the virtues and vices of that.” You know, that to me is what the show is about, as well as being funny and scary. If I had a list of 20 things of what this show is about, the thing we have for a single frame in the theme song would still not make the list. That’s something that has been a cool symbol to us on the show that we thought, Hmm, this could have some significance if you find the right place for it. But it was never a priority. As we were putting the series together—in season two, as we were starting to kind of connect all of our mythology, we made a decision, specifically, about who exactly should be who. But I invented this symbol before I invented Pacifica Northwest, or before we even had created Old Man McGucket. We put this in our theme song in our very first episode. Many of these characters weren’t even in our minds yet. It felt like, Okay, now is a good time to corral all of this together. But was there a version where the portal worked? Anyone in the first draft would write, “Okay, the characters stand in the circle, they hold hands, and then Bill explodes.” That doesn’t mean anything. That’s action without internal conflict. Again, if you asked me to list the top 20 things about the show that mattered, action is low on the list. To me it was about, what is our remaining character conflict? The remaining conflict in this episode is the chip Stan has on his shoulder about dealing with his brother’s constant rejection of him, and his brother’s arrogance about Stan’s contributions and intentions. So to us it was more important to create a resolution that brought those conflicts to a head. And although it was cool that we brought the zodiac in as part of that, ultimately, I kind of prefer it as McGuffin, to create a moment of tension before the real conflict.

Towards the end of episode, more of the magical characters disappear. Is there still an underlying weirdness to the town of Gravity Falls?

Oh for sure. The reason Rumble McSkirmish disappears is because Rumble McSkirmish belongs in an arcade game. He was brought out by a spell, and in both cases, when Rumble McSkirmish defeats Dipper in “Fight Fighters,” Rumble pixel-lights away because his job is done. The same thing happens in this case. Craz and Zyler are Mabel’s dreams, and the world has woken up and they have dissolved away. As we see when the bus drives away at the end of the episode, the gnomes are still around, the manotaurs are still around, monsters are still around. Everything that was already in Gravity Falls is still there. Gravity Falls is back to its abnormal version of normal, but it’s no longer Weirdmaggedon.

One of the last voices we end up hearing in the series is Kyle McLachlan, which is so cool and obviously a Twin Peaks reference. How long have you wanted to get him on the show?

I’ve always wanted him as a guest on the show, but we never had the right spot for him. As we were finishing up the last episode and looking at the character list, we said, “We have to cast a bus driver.” I thought, Well, this is my last chance to get Agent Cooper into the world of Gravity Falls. I’m very grateful that he was willing to do this silly cameo for us; he was very gracious and kind. I sent him a letter explaining what the show was, and how in many ways Dipper and Mabel are children of Twin Peaks, and that it would be nice if Agent Cooper would be the one to take them back home so we knew that they were in safe hands. It was very cool of him to do this with us.

Journal #3 is coming out this summer, what can people expect from that?

People should take all of their hopes, every wish they’ve ever had, and put them all in this basket—every question they’ve ever had about anything will be answered. Sarcasm probably doesn’t really translate very well in text, but the truth is, they can expect a lot of fun stuff. Journal #3 is the canonical journal that the author had and that Dipper discovered—as best as we could create it. And many lingering Gravity Falls trivia questions, whether it’s about what happened to Ford when he went into the portal, or what Dipper’s real name is, will be addressed. It has interesting significance to the lore of Gravity Falls, but that didn’t directly affect or alter the characters’ choices or actual plots in the series. So it’s this really cool companion piece full of secrets and riddles. I will say this: Gravity Falls is a show about mystery, that itch you get when you’re curious. That itself is a really cool, inspiring thing. It’s a thing that drives forward curiosity, that drives momentum and adventure and exploration, and to answer every single question would be counter to the spirit of the series. Even though Journal #3 will have plenty of new answers and surprises, there are some things that we will never know. That’s just the way I like it.

That’s just the way we like it too.

Journal #3 will be out this July from Disney Publishing.

Posted 5 years Ago