"Another Dipper's in love with Wendy episode" yeah but he learns different things each time. His crush on Wendy is supposed to make him grow up and learn how life works. In Double Dipper he learned he needed to actually talk to her and people, this time around he learned to face the consequences of his actions and not run away from conflict. How to "man up" one could say, but in a good way. Throughout the show Dipper learns key life lessons and the kind of person he wants to be, same with Mabel. This was a part of that.
I liked the Wendy-Dipper plotline as a source of conflict because it kept things grounded and gave a really good excuse for the paranoid, overthinking dipper to do rash or dumb things, like of course anyone can be rash but it gave a good quick reason and showed he was capable of being shortsighted. I do love the wackier mystery stuff but I also love these characters and their mundane struggles. That balance feels like what makes this show what it is
its a fine motivator, the issue is the FREQUENCY. in season one alone SEVEN EPISODES have Dipper being motivated by his crush on Wendy. that is far too many. that level of repetition gets really exhausting and makes Dipper a flatter character
Robbie challenging Dipper to a fight is pretty pathetic considering he’s 15 and Dipper is 12. Imagine if the fight happened and he went around bragging that he beat up a 12 year old half his height.
i understand their desire to defend the decision to make so many episodes abt the dipper/wendy thing and i think in a vacuum, episode by episode, it fuels the narrative very well. but this show isnt in a vacuum, the episodes contrast in peoples minds and theyre gonna start to notice/get bored when the same source of conflict is used over and over and over with no real pay off (at least not for a long time). i know as a kid i related to dippers crush on wendy but even then i got so frustrated after a while seeing it come up so often. i wanted to learn more abt dipper but instead the writers chose to keep tapping the same well because it was easier. if only a handful of these stories were motivated by something unique the dipper/wendy storyline wouldve felt like less of a slog
I think the dipper Wendy conflict is great, I just think there were too many in a row. Rewatching, I was also like, oh man ANOTHER one?? I think they’re all great on their own, but in a row it gets a bit overkill
