‘Gravity Falls’ Weirdmageddon Continues: Kristen Schaal Talks Mabel’s Growing Pains

When Gravity Falls returns this Monday, Weirdmageddon will continue to ravage the town. With the journals destroyed and Grunkle Ford turned into a statue, the only hope of defeating Bill lies in Dipper, Wendy and Soos rescuing Mabel from the prison bubble where Bill has her trapped.

With an impending Pines twins reunion in tonight’s episode, we caught up with Kristen Schaal to talk growing pains, a possible cameo and what it’s like to go through the apocalypse twice.

How does it feel to be experiencing the end of the world on two of your shows?
[Laughs] Well, it’s nice to be in the extremes. The difference with the two apocalypses is obviously that Gravity Falls is a little more fantasy. It’s a little more terrifying in the Gravity Falls world I have to say. It’s fun and sad at the same time.

Going into the episode, the twins have just had the biggest fight we’ve ever seen. How is Mabel doing when we see her again?
I’m really excited for you guys to see the state that Mabel is in when she’s reintroduced. That [fight] was really hard for Mabel to go through—having the ultimate growing pain of turning 13 and leaving her favorite spot for the summer and starting high school and having the one person she trusts most in her life [want] a break for the first time. It’s a really big growing pain for her. It’s the first time we see her optimism being shaken as well. So it’s hard to watch her lose just a tiny piece of her innocence. It’s a part of life.

It was a pleasant change to see Dipper be the confident one and Mabel be the one with all the anxiety.
The superb part about the way that Alex has written these characters, and the love and all the care he’s put into them is, when you see Mabel have this sort of conflict, it’s so earned. It’s just resonates with the audience. I’m so proud of it.

Considering how their last conversation went, how will Mabel react when she meets Dipper?
It’s sort of a big reveal of the next episode, her in the prison bubble and what’s going in there when Dipper finds her. So you’ll have to see.

And how about Soos and Wendy?
She’s happy to see them.

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What do you think scares Mabel most about growing up? Is it growing up without Dipper?
Oh, yeah. That would be terrifying. Growing up without Dipper would be the scariest thing for sure. I don’t know if she could handle that. That would be it.

But the other parts of growing up, she’s kind of okay with?
Well, I don’t know. It’s a very real thing that everyone goes through, where a part of you always wants to be an adult. But then the moment where you realize you’re starting that journey is really scary and affects all of the aspects of being a kid. Makes you miss it. You just get afraid of losing who you are, who you have been your whole life. For the first time you become self aware of that. And I think that’s what’s happening with Mabel.

We saw Jason Ritter for a quick second-to-last episode. Will we get a glimpse of you in any of the next two episodes?
I wish! I saw Alex the other day and I was like, “I’m pretty jealous of Linda and Jason in that weird bubble.” Unfortunately, no Live Kristen Schaal action. That being said, I think, well I don’t know, maybe I look like Mabel? I’d have to get braces. Jason and Linda look pretty spot-on to their characters.

Gravity Falls‘ Weirdmageddon airs Monday, Nov. 23 at 8/7c on Disney XD.