Friend Or Felon?

**Friend Or Felon?** (originally titled **That’s Watermelon-y!**) is the third Season 2 episode of Leeko: The Beginning trilogy, and the thirty-seventh episode overall.

## Summary

Leonardo uses Channel Lion Out Loud and his personal newspaper to frame Leeko and propagate lies about him.

## Characters

### Primary

* Leeko
* Milly
* King Leonardo
* Tommy

### Secondary

* Beatrice
* Bubbles
* Chef Peppermint
* Chief Gordy
* Cindy
* Daisy (*no dialogue*)
* Gamba (*no dialogue*)
* Gene
* Hover
* Lady Chanter (*no dialogue*)
* Madeline (*no dialogue*)
* Manny
* Mayor Bay Brittleton
* Miss Yuubin (*no dialogue*)
* Moonlight Man
* Octogiant (*flashback*)
* Parker
* Professor Antico
* Sir Chanter (*no dialogue*)
* Sir Pathogen
* Slammer
* Snowdrop
* Whitehead (*no dialogue*)
* Viruses (*no dialogue*)
* Various unnamed Puffy villagers

## Episode summary

The episode begins out in the countryside in Usapia, where Leeko is seen taking a pick from the watermelon patch. As Leeko eats, he is spied on by King Leonardo and company from behind a bush. As Leeko finishes eating and heads home, King Leonardo and his camera crew follow, leaving a trail of broken watermelon in their wake. They continue to record Leeko as he sleeps in the nest outside his house, with King Leonardo insisting on "24-hour surveillance". The crew of Viruses set up lights outside Leeko's house at night to improve viewing, which disturbs Hover's rest. The next morning, Hover tells Milly and Manny about the incident, though Leeko had been sleeping the whole time. Manny then backs Hover up by saying he overheard King Leonardo hoping to catch Leeko breaking the law on film. Milly is skeptical at first, but then notices from Castle Leonardo a glimmer from King Leonardo's telescope as he continues to spy on them.

Regardless, Milly and Manny believe nothing bad can happen, since Leeko is well-behaved. They go to Stop To Shop in Puffy Town as Leonardo continues his surveillance. While there, Leeko notices Snowdrop dropping a bag of chips from her shopping basket as she heads over to check out, and Leeko returns the bag to her. As a reward, she lets him have the chips after purchasing them. Later, Leeko and his friends head to Peppermint's Table, where Chef Peppermint lets Leeko have free leftover dumplings. As the kids comment on Leeko's good luck, King Leonardo and Tommy set to work editing the footage they retrieved to make it look like Leeko stole the things he was given. Soon after, a special news bulletin airs on Channel Lion Out Loud where Leeko is publicly framed for the alleged crimes. King Leonardo's crew then pressures Chief Gordy on tape to promise to apprehend Leeko, but Milly catches them in the act. After the camera crew leaves, Milly insists to Chief Gordy that the footage was edited, and Leeko is not guilty of the things shown, but little comes of this. The kids head outside and Manny tries to remain optimistic about the situation, but they soon find that all of Puffy Town is now afraid of Leeko. Seeing this, Milly resolves to prove Leeko's innocence on the air.

Some time later, another Channel Lion Out Loud show is broadcast, this time featuring Leeko "on trial" in the studio surrounded by an audience of witnesses and testifiers. Milly is the first to step up, and levies the charge that Leeko is innocent and that King Leonardo and Tommy twisted the evidence to make him look guilty. Tommy cuts her off to show another sponsor, and Milly accuses them of censoring her, but to little avail. Through a flurry of commercial breaks and cut clips, King Leonardo and Tommy continue to smear Leeko on the show. As the crowd gets rowdy, Leeko ignorantly gets excited. Milly begins to lose the argument over the fervor of the Puffies, and her statements continue to be cut off by commercial breaks. Milly then notices that Peppermint and Snowdrop were not invited to the trial, furthering her frustration. Milly attempts to retrieve them as witnesses, but Sir Pathogen dismisses them before Milly can get to the waiting room.

Milly returns to the trial to find that the crowd is still turning against Leeko, reminiscing on the trouble that he has caused since he first arrived in Puffy Town. Milly makes one more stand to remind everyone of the many times Leeko saved them from monsters, and who brought those monsters in to begin with. To counter, King Leonardo and Tommy have a large wagon of food brought in and placed next to Leeko in order to prove his gluttonous nature as the town jokes about Leeko's appetite. Leeko, naturally, cannot help himself and proceeds to gobble the whole thing up. He is then shown a massive pile of candies and fruits which he inhales, causing the set to become a wreck. Milly - feeling defeated - resigns and bemoans Leeko's fate. As she sits alone in the castle grounds, Moonlight Man comes to reassure her. As Milly explains the situation, her fear gets the better of her and she begins to sulk, and Moonlight Man leaves her with a small clue, which gives her an idea. That night, Milly, Manny, and the Puffy kids distribute newspapers around town which argue Leeko's case. In the morning, the townsfolk read these papers and - without Leonardo's influence sticking on them - realize Leeko's innocence.

Meanwhile, Channel Lion Out Loud makes the claim that Leeko just ate Mayor Bay's sheep, splicing scenes from earlier episodes including one of Octogiant eating the sheep in Leeko Comes To Puffy Town. Tommy attempts to interview Mayor Bay, but he confirms the story is fake and shows him the newspaper. When Leonardo finds out, he counters by issuing his own papers, but he goes way overboard by delivering several in one day, and the Puffy Town residents notice that the book of the phone book-sized editions is advertisements and soon grow tired of Leonardo's propaganda attempts. That night, King Leonardo is suddenly awoken when all of Puffy Town's notable residents storm into his bedroom and demand that King Leonardo stop delivering his papers to them. They leave Leeko to punish King Leonardo by spitting out all the editorials back at him, flooding him in a torrent of paper that spills out of the castle like a waterfall, taking Leonardo and Tommy with it. Later on, Leonardo and Tommy dispose of the mess by tossing the papers into the Monster delivery system as Gene complains and then gets overwhelmed. The episode ends as Leeko and the Puffies watch with relish from a hill overlooking the castle.

## Trivia

* This is the tenth episode in *The Beginning* series to not feature a Copy Ability.
* This is one of the few episodes where there are no monsters fought.
* It is unclear how Leonardo managed to get the footage of Octogiant eating the sheep from the episode Leeko Comes To Puffy Town”.
* The title is a reference to Friend A Felon, an app on *Google Play* and on the *App Store*.