Like a Grownup

**"Like a Grownup"** is the fourth episode of the first season of *Sammy & Co*. It premiered on December 25, 2015 on Netflix.

## Synopsis

Thirsty for adventure, Ricky dreams of leaving the reef and fighting fearsome predators, so Sammy must find a way to show him he is still too young.

## Plot

The episode opens with Ricky dreaming about himself fighting against a giant squid outside the reef village. After he successfully defeated the squid, his dream was interrupted by Rita waking him up and telling him that he'll be late for school. Ricky, upon waking up, tells his grandmother about his dream about being chased by a giant squid and he wasn't even scared of it. Rita complains that her husband have been telling him his stories before bedtime all the time and she had told him he shouldn't do it or else his stories would only give their grandson nightmares. But Ricky doesn't see his dream as a nightmare and tells Rita that he wants to go into the bottomless rift and confront terrifying giant monsters for real so he could be like Ray and Sammy, only for Rita to tell him that the reason why the two adult turtles did it is that they didn't have a choice and they were much older than him so they have more experience of fighting against dangerous sea creatures than him.

Outside of Ray's habitat, Ella arrives to swim with Ricky to school. Upon arrival, she sees Ricky trying to prove to his grandmother that he's old enough to do lots of grownup stuff despite his young age. After Rita kisses her grandson goodbye, Ricky follows his best friend to the shell school to meet up with Pipo and Annabel.

On their way to school, Ricky tells Ella about how he fought the giant squid in his dreams, but he gets interrupted twice by Pipo and Annabel both showing up. Ricky tells his friends that while everything he said is only a dream, he would've done the same way if it was real. However, Ella tells Ricky that to confront a giant squid, he would have to venture super far outside the reef and it's very dangerous for him to venture out there on his own, but Ricky assures her that adventures didn't scare him at all. Pipo even points out that the four of them won't get out of the reef anytime soon since they are too little to do so, which makes Ricky feeling belittled that he swims away from his friends and heads to the passageway where it leads to the outside of the reef village, wanting to prove to them he could fight a giant squid for real just like in his dreams.

While on his way in the passageway, Ricky runs into the Rockfish who all scared him by appearing in front of him. Crudd teases Ricky about being afraid every time they appear in front of him with Glitz telling him that going outside the reef isn't nowhere for a “puny little turtle” like him to be. Ricky stands up to them by telling them that he's going to the bottomless rift to prove to them that he's not puny before he leaves the reef without turning back.

The Rockfish all head to the shell school and tell Ella, Pipo, and Annabel about their encounter with Ricky and that the young leatherback turtle is heading to the bottomless rift. Fearing that Ricky is going to put himself in danger, the kids all tell the adult turtles about what the Rockfish said. While Ray is comforting Rita who becomes worried about their grandson, Sammy tells them and the kids his plan. They're not gonna get Ricky back, but he needs to find out for himself that he's still too little to be outside the reef all by himself without anyone around to protect him.

Outside the reef, Ricky is very happy about being able to free and going off on an adventure for real. While exploring his surroundings, he gets one of his flippers tangled in seaweed as well as encountering a shark who chases after him. However, Ricky refuses to give up on his adventure and he doesn't want to go back to the village so soon since he knows everyone would make fun of him. Without hesitation, he continues his journey and encounters more obstacles in his path. He gets chased by a school of sardines, nearly gets attacked by a crab, and gets chased by a sea snake chases after Ricky, causing him to scream. However, after escaping the sea snake, Ricky starts to regret his decision of exploring the ocean on his own and finds himself completely lost after noticing how far he was from the island.

While Ricky tries to swim back to where he came from, he begins to hallucinate the Rockfish and his friends talking to him and he feels guilty of leaving them back at the village. He imagines his friends are all looking for him at the moment and he feels he's all alone without them. However, before he could think about apologizing to his friends once he returns to the village, he stumbles upon the bottomless rift so that means he could either swim down to fight the squid so he could tell his tale or simply go back to the village and let everyone make fun of him for being a coward of not doing it so.

Suddenly, Lulu appears behind Ricky and he has seaweeds covering on his body to pretend that he's a monster. However, Ricky doesn't fall for it when he notices the seaweeds are falling off Lulu's pincers and he immediately recognizes his teacher, especially since Lulu accidentally calls Ricky by his name despite he's supposed to pretend he didn't know him. Ricky, knowing that he's been followed, heads straight down into the abyss with hesitation and he doesn't stop when Lulu calls out for him.

After Ricky swims down to the bottomless rift for a few seconds, he swims back up and sees his family and friends are all there, thus confirming his suspicions that he's been followed by them. Ricky asks Sammy what's everyone doing at the rift and Sammy tells him that they wanted to see how he would get to the rift all by himself without giving up. Ricky boasts to everyone about encountering his obstacles while on his way to the rift such as escaping from a sea snake, a giant crab, a school of sardines, and a shark with lots of teeth in his jaws. However, everyone reveals to Ricky that the “dangerous” sea creatures that Ricky encounters are actually the inhabitants of the reef, especially to the shark who turns out to be Albert with a deep-water fish in his mouth to pretend that he has teeth. Sammy tells Ricky that the reason why everyone is following him and pretending to be the dangerous sea creatures is to teach him a lesson: “ocean life is not danger-free [and] in [their] reef, [he'll] have the opportunity to grow up safe and sound” and “surrounded by friends who care about [him]”. Ray tells his grandson that the day he'll be old enough to go off on an adventure by himself will be sooner than he expects as well as telling him that he and Sammy confronting a giant squid is no game for them.

However, it turns out that a real giant squid has shown up and grabs Ricky by its tentacle. Realizing that Ricky is in danger for real, the adults, except Lulu, and Ella all swim down the bottomless rift to rescue the young leatherback turtle. Eventually, everyone is in a safe area and they manage to rescue Ricky. Ricky thanks everyone for rescuing him and admits the giant squid is really scary after all.

The reef inhabitants are all heading back to the village to get ready for the night since it's almost dawn. But on their way, they're starting to feel they're a little lost since Albert and Alpha are responsible for navigating the way home. Speaking of Alpha, he isn't with the group since he's been chased by a squad of little squids which makes everyone laugh in amusement.

## Characters

### Minor characters

* Ella
* Pipo
* Annabel
* Sammy
* Rita
* Ray
* Lulu
* Glitz
* Crudd
* Babbles
* Albert
* Alpha
* Sea snake
* Leonard (non-speaking)
* Aroun (background)
* Billy (background)
* Giant squid
* Crabs
* Jellyfish
* Reef inhabitants

## Trivia

* In the French version, the episode is called "Dans la peau d'un grand", meaning "In the shoes of a big man".
* On Netflix, the episode title is "(Just) Like a Grownup".
* This is the first episode in which Albert uses a deep-water fish to pretend that he has false teeth.
* In this episode, Ricky wants to go off on his own to explore the reef to be just like Ray when he was younger, but he's kept been told that he's too little to do so since he's only seven. When Sammy and Ray were both younger as seen in the flashback of *A Turtle's Tale: Sammy's Adventures*, they both started exploring the ocean alone together when they were only one day old since it was the laws of nature for a sea turtle mother to abandon her offsprings after she laid her eggs and her hatchlings have to use their natural instincts so they could fend for themselves all alone in the ocean without anyone around to teach and raise them. And since neither of their parents nor siblings is around throughout their life, Sammy and Ray decide to go against the laws of nature by raising their respective grandchild so they could teach them the danger of the ocean and keep them safe at an isolated reef community.
* According to Ray in this episode, he and Sammy had fought a giant squid before. A picture of the two of them fighting one can be seen in the opening sequence of the series.
* The reason why Ricky wants to explore the ocean out on his own is that he became thirsty for adventures and he felt belittled by his friends and Rita telling him he's too young to do so. Ironically, in "The Braggarts", Ricky's second-cousin Marius does a similar thing and Ricky has to come to his rescue to protect him from the barracudas because Marius is too young to understand the great dangers of the ocean when he explores out on his own.

### Errors

* When Sammy and his friends all gasped when Ricky swim down to the bottomless pit, Albert is seen without his false teeth.

## References

1. ↑ https://instantwatcher.com/title/80042306
2. ↑ https://playtv.fr/programmes-tv/m6/04-09-2014/
3. ↑ https://playtv.fr/programmes-tv/tiji/01-03-2015/
4. ↑ https://www.netflix.com/title/80042177