Light on the Reef

**"Light on the Reef"** is the twenty-fourth episode of the first season of *Sammy & Co*. It premiered on December 25, 2015, on Netflix.

## Synopsis

While the children spend the night together under Lulu the Lobster's watch, a strange light wakes Ricky and Glitz up, and they go off to investigate.

## Plot

The episode opens at the reef village where Lulu is taking his class on a camping trip. After they find a place to spend the night, Glitz teases Ricky that he might be afraid to sleep away from home and she thinks he wants to go back. Ricky retorts back by saying that the only thing that'll scare him is seeing Glitz's face when he wakes up. Lulu, not happy that the kids are arguing again after they just arrive, warns his students that if they continue to carry on like that, they'd have to go back home immediately, which makes Glitz and Ricky both stop arguing. Later at night when everyone has fallen asleep, Ricky hears a thud nearby that he swims away from his classmates to investigate the noise. Behind him, Glitz also hears the noise too and she follows him to investigate too.

Ricky and Glitz both swim to the exit of the reef, but when they hear the noise again, the two get frightened and hide behind a rock. Ricky volunteers himself to swim into the exit of the reef to investigate, but on his way out, a submarine camera turns on and causes a bright light to shine on him. Ricky and Glitz both scream in fear that they swim away from it. But while Glitz swims back to her classmates, she notices that Ricky isn't with her and assumes that he has cowardly swam off but he'll be back soon.

When morning arrives, Lulu and his class all noticed that Ricky isn't with them so they start searching around for him. It wasn't until they all found Ricky at his home which made Lulu angry at the young leatherback for going back home without telling him that Ricky is afraid to spend the night. Ricky tries to explain to his teacher that the reason he swims back home is because of the mysterious light chasing him last night and asks Glitz to help back him up. However, Glitz pretends that she didn't follow Ricky last night and teases him about it instead.

At the playground, Ricky is telling his friends what he saw last night. He explains that the light is chasing all the way home and once he gets inside, the light suddenly disappears and it doesn't come back on. Annabel doesn't believe Ricky and thinks he's telling a super-duper ghost story, so Ricky tells his friends that he's going to everybody that I'm telling the truth and if that light comes back later that night, he'll be there to figure out what it is. His friends all offer to go with him to help investigate the mysterious light too which Ricky accepts.

Later at night, Ricky swims out of his home while Ray and Rita are both sleeping and he heads to the palaver tree. He meets up with his friends and they start waiting for the "light" to come back. After waiting for a long time, the kids think that the light wouldn't come back after all. But right before they bail out, a thud is heard above the kids and the same submarine camera shines its lights at them. This frightens the kids that they all swim to the playground clubhouse to take refuge there.

Once the kids all made it to the clubhouse, they found Glitz hiding in there as well. Ricky asks Glitz what she's doing there and she reveals to Ricky's friends that she also heard the same noise last night which reveals to the kids that Ricky is telling the truth after all despite Glitz doesn't backing him up earlier that morning. Just then, the submarine camera light turns on near them and the kids all huddle in fear. When the kids spread out to avoid getting "captured" by it, Ricky notices that it keeps following him instead of any of his friends or Glitz. When the camera suddenly charges at Ricky and accidentally carries him away, the kids all follow them and that is when they notice that a different light source is shining above the ocean. The kids all swim and look up the surface to see a human researcher on the shore of the island. Thinking Ricky is in danger, the kids all dive back down to tell the adult turtles what happened.

On the island, the researcher places Ricky in a tub full of water before he walks to his computer. Ricky curiously looks up from the tub to see the researcher presses a button on his computer's keyboard which plays a video of everything the submarine camera recorded earlier. Ricky is amazed by what he sees and he assumes that the "light" captured the image of himself and his friends into a "box". While Sammy, Shelly, Rita, and Ray all head to the beach to rescue Ricky when they think he's in danger, the young leatherback is being recorded again by the diver with his camera. While recording, the diver notices that Ricky isn't afraid of being recorded and finds that he understands that he's been filmed which is something he has never seen before. When Ricky notices his grandparents, Ella, Sammy, and Shelly are nearby to "rescue" him, he walks towards them while the researcher is still recording him. He is amazed by Ricky's behavior that he gets his phone out to call the laboratory about his discovery. When the turtles all listen to the researcher talking to his phone, they discover that the researcher is suggesting to the person on the other line to build a laboratory on the island to study them from the reef. But while the researcher's intentions are to study their behavior, the turtles see it as a negative thing because if a large group of humans comes to live on the island, there won't be any more tranquility or peace in the reef. When Sammy notices the researcher has a camera, he tells the other turtles that they have to get rid of it since the diver will use the camera as video evidence. While Ricky and Ella head towards the sea, the adult turtles distract the diver by knocking the camera out of the researcher's hands and the camera falls into the ocean.

While the kids are carrying the camera away, they've been tailed by the diver. After Annabel and Pipo both distract the researcher, Glitz arrives and electrocutes him which scares him away. The researcher packs his items on his boat and rides away from the island when he sees himself getting stung by Glitz who was protecting Ricky who stole his camera as a ridiculous dream.

The next morning, the kids and Glitz are playing around with the camera at the playground. But when the camera runs out of battery, Glitz abandons Ricky and his friends since she sees that she has no more reason to hang with them after she rescued them last night. But after she hears Ricky thanking her, she swims away and secretly lets out a smile, showing that she really pleased with his kind words to her despite her hostility with him.

## Characters

### Major characters

* Ricky
* Ella
* Pipo
* Annabel
* Glitz
* Unnamed researcher

### Minor characters

* Crudd
* Babbles
* Lulu
* Sammy
* Shelly
* Ray
* Rita
* Arthur (mentioned)

## Trivia

* In the French version, the episode is called "Lumière sur le récif".
* Despite this episode is the twenty-fourth to aired on TiJi like its US airing order, it's the thirty-third episode to aired in France on M6.
* This is the second episode in which one or more humans visit the island after "The Invaders". Both instances lead to the reef inhabitants be put in danger because of their presence. But while the researcher is kindhearted and he has no intention of capturing any of the sea creatures to eat them, his decision to build a laboratory above the reef village unintentionally makes himself be viewed as a threat to the reef inhabitants since he would inadvertently disturb the peace of the community if he and his team are studying them.
* The name of the person the researcher speaks on the other line of his phone is Mike.
* This is the first episode in which Glitz is willing to work alongside Ricky and his friends despite her ongoing rivalry towards them.

## References

1. ↑ https://instantwatcher.com/title/80042306
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://playtv.fr/programmes-tv/m6/28-11-2014/
3. ↑ https://playtv.fr/programmes-tv/tiji/15-03-2015/
4. ↑ https://www.netflix.com/title/80042177