Pipo's Pack

**"Pipo's Pack"** is the sixteenth episode of the first season of *Sammy & Co*. It premiered on December 25, 2015, on Netflix.

## Synopsis

When a dance contest is arranged for the reef fair, Pipo gets weary of the turtles ignoring his choreography instructions and joins the Rockfish team.

## Plot

The episode opens at the shell school where the students are all about to dismiss from class. But before they leave, Lulu gives his students their assignment which is to form into groups and each group will create a choreography of synchronized swimming. He tells them that the reason for their assignment is so they could each learn how to work as a team.

When the kids are out of the school, Ricky and his friends are being confronted by Glitz who brags that her gang would win the exercise instead of them. Ella tries to tell Glitz that the goal of the exercise isn't about comparing themselves to others, but it backfires when Glitz taunts how afraid they are. After the Rockfish left, Ella asks Ricky if he gets a little over-excited too soon since neither of them knows the first thing about synchronized swimming. However, Pipo informs his friends he is "the king of synchronized swimming" so he could teach them the thing about it for their assignment. Meanwhile, the Rockfish are having trouble rehearsing for their exercise, so Glitz has an idea of how they should win.

At the playground, when Pipo is teaching his friends his synchronized swimming, they too are having trouble during their rehearsal. When Ricky suggests to Pipo that they should do a dance move, Pipo gets infuriated and tells the leatherback turtle that he's in charge of their choreography so they need to do what he tells them. Ricky, who's now annoyed by Pipo's sudden bossy demeanor, insensitively admits to his friend that he's not a very talented choreographer and he wants their finale to be a real show-stopper. He suggests that they should do an acrobatic figure with a triple-salto lutz flip, but when Ricky charges at Pipo and assumes that the butterfly fish would catch him and propel him up, he accidentally crashes into his friend instead. Angry at his friends' incompetencies, Pipo leaves the playground to let off some steam. However, unbeknownst to the four kids, the Rockfish have spied on them and they witness Pipo's outbursts.

While Pipo is swimming alone around the reef, the Rockfish show up in front of him to initiate their plan. Glitz manipulates Pipo's negative emotions to his friends and tells him that since none of his friends think he doesn't have any talent, the butterfly fish should instead accept to do the exercise with Glitz and her gang so that he could show them he's a great choreographer and to prove Ricky that he was wrong. However, Pipo sees through Glitz's manipulation and he swims away to avoid having another conversation with her. Babbles and Crudd are surprised to see Pipo leaving, but Glitz assures them that he'll be back to them very soon and she knows that he's nearly at his breaking point.

It turns out that Glitz is correct because when Pipo returns back to the playground to apologize to them for his outburst, Ricky suggests to his friends an idea for the finale and it's an upside-down pyramid, which happened to be Pipo's idea. However, Ricky once again insults his friend when he claims that the upside-down pyramid is *his* idea which is the last straw for Pipo that he angrily swims away from his friends after he told them that his friends can handle doing the exercise without him since Ricky is now in charge of them.

Somewhere in the reef village, Pipo has come back to the Rockfish and informs them that he's gonna help them so he could compete against Ricky and beat him at the synchronized swimming exercise.

Meanwhile, Ricky feels bad for making Pipo mad at them and after he tried to convince Ella and Annabel that they don't need him which makes Ella and Annabel both guilt-tripping him, he decides to go and apologize to the butterfly fish for insulting him. But when the trio notice Pipo is with the Rockfish, they are surprised to find out that Pipo is now leading their rival group and refuses to join back with his real friends even after Ricky apologizes to him for insulting him earlier since according to Pipo, he sees that the Rockfish have appreciated him for what he's worth as a synchronizing swimming choreographer instead of Ricky. But while Ricky and his friends are unaware that Pipo is actually bossing the Rockfish around while teaching them his synchronized swimming moves, the trio is all at the clubhouse of the playground and they're trying to figure out how to get Pipo back to their group. Annabel suggests she should hypnotize Pipo to make him come back to them and they have to act fast before Pipo "transforms" into being like Glitz and the gang.

When Pipo leaves the Rockfish alone after they fail to do what he tells them to do, his real friends all grab him and take him to the clubhouse. Upon arriving at the clubhouse, Pipo still refuses to return to their pack which Ricky concludes that Pipo is becoming delirious. Wanting to get Pipo "back to normal", Annabel starts changing colors in front of the butterfly fish which makes Pipo fall asleep. After Crudd and Babbles both notice that Pipo is no longer near them which leads to the Rockfish all having to search for him, Ricky and his friends are all trying to conduct hypnosis on Pipo. However, the Rockfish all show up at the clubhouse and they demand Ricky and his friends to give Pipo back to them. And since Ricky and the girls are all unable to finish conducting the hypnosis, Pipo wakes up and he still refuses to join back with his real friends. After Pipo leaves the clubhouse with the Rockfish, Ella sarcastically thanks Ricky for causing Pipo to leave his real friends behind because of the leatherback turtle insulting him, so now they don't stand a chance of winning against their rival group.

Meanwhile, after the Rockfish finish their rehearsal, Pipo tells them it's time for bed so they can get well-rested for tomorrow morning's synchronized swimming number. But as soon as Pipo leaves the trio alone, the Rockfish all discuss wanting to get rid of Pipo since they regret having him boss them around throughout their rehearsal. When Pipo swims back to where his pack is upon realizing that he forgot to explain to them how to do the pink flamingo figure, he overhears their conversation about getting rid of him once they beat Ricky and his friends and Glitz will get back at him for being so degrading. This makes Pipo comes to a realization that he regrets his decision of working for Glitz and her gang because of his big ego and the only reason he did it was so he could prove to Ricky that he's capable of teaching someone his synchronized swimming moves, which in turn, makes him betray his real friends. And when he visits the playground to see how his real friends are doing, Ricky and the girls are all unable to rehearse it correctly without Pipo.

The next morning, Lulu's students are getting ready to perform their synchronized swimming numbers in front of their audience. When it's the Rockfish's turn, they are unable to perform very well when Crudd bumps into a coral plant, and Glitz and Babbles bump into each other. Lulu, in particular, is very disappointed in them since he sees that they're unable to cooperate together as a group. But Ricky's pack's turn isn't as good as the Rockfish either when Ella and Annabel both bump into each other during their number. Pipo, seeing his friends are humiliating themselves, calls out to Ricky to do the propel move from yesterday. Ricky swims to Pipo and the butterfly fish catches him before he throws Ricky up, which wins the audience's approval. Lulu is impressed by the four showing a wonderful demonstration of teamwork, unlike the Rockfish. Pipo even admits to Ricky that he actually likes the finale idea after all and he was too focused on wanting his friends to do exactly as he wanted to accept his friend's idea is actually as good as his. Glitz is disappointed that her gang loses and when she tries to talk to them, she notices that Crudd and Babbles are not with her. The two Rockfish are somewhere in the reef to rehearse a different synchronized swimming number in the hope Lulu would give them a second chance after they embarrassed themselves in front of the villagers.

## Characters

### Major characters

* Ricky
* Ella
* Pipo
* Annabel
* Glitz (antagonist)
* Crudd (antagonist)
* Babbles (antagonist)

### Minor characters

* Lulu
* Albert
* Sammy
* Ray
* Shelly
* Rita
* Mika (background)
* Reef inhabitants

## Trivia

* In the French version, the episode is called "La bande à Pipo", meaning "The Pipo Band".
* Despite this episode is the sixteenth to aired on TiJi like its US airing order, it's the fifteenth episode to aired in France on M6.
* This is the second episode in which Annabel uses her camouflage ability after "The Imaginary Invalid". It's also revealed that she can put sea creatures into a trance when she changes her colors in front of them.
* This is the second episode in which Lulu attempts to make his students learn how to work as a team after "The Pearl Hunt". However, unlike that episode, Lulu doesn't put his students into groups and he lets them choose their own group.
* This is the first episode in which one of the main characters betray their friends. In this case, Pipo betrays his friends to work alongside the Rockfish.
* The episode revealed that Pipo is an expert on synchronized swimming.

## References

1. ↑ https://instantwatcher.com/title/80042306
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://playtv.fr/programmes-tv/m6/06-10-2014/
3. ↑ https://playtv.fr/programmes-tv/tiji/08-03-2015/
4. ↑ https://www.netflix.com/title/80042177