The Jelly Lakes (Episode)

***The Jelly Lakes*** is the ninth episode of *Tuca & Bertie*. It aired along with the rest of Season 1 on Netflix on May 3rd, 2019.

## Episode Synopsis

*An impromptu trip takes Tuca and Bertie to Bertie's old summer camp—a faraway place that dredges up painful memories.*

## Plot

Tuca and Bertie drive in silence for a while until daybreak, not knowing what to say to each other. After stopping for a herd of sheep to pass the road, they start sobbing and hug. Tuca admits Bertie was right and she always messes things up, but Bertie assures her to forget what she said, and they drove in silence and think. There is a cut to them singing an upbeat song as the mood has lightened, their fight behind them, and they continue to drive.

Tuca spots a sign for The Jelly Lakes and asks about Bertie’s family’s cabin they have there. Bertie looks sad, saying she hasn’t been in years, and starts to change the subject when someone on a motorcycle cuts them off and a furious Bertie starts the driver after them. Both vehicles end up in a mostly desolate Jelly Lakes Mall, and Bertie follows them in. She and Tuca notice a Girl Thingz store, and they excitedly go in and start trying on different accessories. After seeing the teenage cashier and her best friend (Ashley and Amber) make up from a fight they had, Tuca and Bertie officially reconcile from theirs.

There is a montage of them goofing off at the mall. At the food court Bertie tells her about Pastry Pete incident, and her regret at letting herself be treated badly and letting him to it to Dakota.

Tuca assures her this is on Pastry Pete, but Bertie says it’s also on her and how she freezes up all the time. She then gets a call from Speckle, and she assures him she’s okay, and she left town with Tuca and she’ll be home later.

Tuca notices the biker leaving the mall and they run after them. After Bertie blocks them with her car she realizes the driver is her old swimming coach from the Jelly Lakes Summer Camp and her cabin neighbor Coach Meredith Maple. Maple insists she come visit the cabin, and after Tuca also insists Bertie reluctantly agrees.

The arrive at the cabins. After Tuca falls asleep, Speckle texts Bertie asking where she is. She says she’s spending the night and she’ll be home tomorrow. She goes out in the dock and looks somberly at a peanut island across the lake. She ignores a call from Speckle and goes back inside.

Coach Maple wakes them up with firewood and invites them to her cabin for goats milk, where the also meet her wife Pat. Maple also lets them borrow her jet ski. While on the lake, Tuca asks about Peanutbutter island, but Bertie gets defensive and says she doesn’t know what it’s like. When Tuca asks why she’s being weird about an island Bertie changes the subject to noticing the teens from the mall. Bertie gets a text from Speckle asking if she has time to talk and he’s worried about her. As she’s looking at her phone conflicted at of or how she should respond to him, Tuca challenges the teenagers to a race, which causes Bertie to fall off and drop her phone in the lake. She tries to grab it as she sinks under the jelly, which eventually starts to make her panic. Tuca pulls her up and she tells her she doesn’t swim and she lost her phone and to take her back to the cabin.

Maple invites them over for dinner, and Bertie finds out Tuca doesn’t have Speckle’s number on her phone. As Bertie helps Maple set the table, Tuca goes inside and finds Pat making decorative eggs out of their broken shells.

Bertie is seen staring at Peanutbutter island, and ends up over-pouring the water in a glass. Maple apologizes for sending her out on the jelly jet without a life preserver. Bertie wants to change the subject but Maple comments on how she was such a strong swimmer, and as a kid she wanted to swim all the way to Peanutbutter island. She asks why she quit swimming, but Bertie doesn’t want to talk about it.

Tuca asks Pat why she uses eggs because they break easily. Pat explains people think cracked eggs aren’t good for much, but broken things can become beautiful with a little patience. Tuca makes one herself, with Google eyes and a pipe cleaner tongue. Pat says she’d be happy to teach her, Tuca says she’s not good focusing, but Pat says no one is at first but that what practice is for. Tuca takes one of Pat’s eggs to show Bertie.

At dinner, Maple still questions Bertie why she quit swimming, Bertie she doesn’t know. Maple thinks that means she lost interest but Bertie defensively says she’s didn’t and it’s all she wanted to do. When Tuca and Maple are taken aback by her defensiveness Bertie snaps and tells Maple she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and storms off.

Bertie stands with her feet in the jelly water, watching the two teens play in the water. Tuca asks if she’s ok. While looking at the teenage girls, she says she wishes she could protect them from the world, and men. Tuca shows her the egg Pat made.

Bertie then reveals the reason she didn’t want to come back to the Jelly Lakes, and paper-cut-out imagery similar to Pat's egg decorations is shown showcasing Bertie's story—when she was a kid she trained all summer to swim to Peanutbutter Island with Coach Maple coaching her. She would go to the docks early every morning before anyone else got there, and she bought a new red swimsuit. The lifeguard, who was there every summer, one morning, after complimenting her swimsuit and saying he could not believe she was twelve, told her to follow him into the woods. She thought it was weird but he was an adult so she trusted him.

Bertie doesn’t say it outright but the lifeguard sexually assaulted her.

She says all she wanted was to swim to that island, and the lakes were her favorite place.

She starts crying and Tuca comforts her, assuring her she’s brave.

Bertie questions if she is then why doesn’t she go home and deal with her issues. Tuca says she is doing just that, and she’s going to take back that isand. Bertie hugs Tuca for never giving up on anything, including her.

The next morning Tuca wakes up and notices Bertie isn’t there. She goes outside and sees Bertie swimming to Peanutbutter Island. She alerts Maple and Pat, and the three row after Bertie on a canoe, assisting and encouraging her. Bertie gets tired and Tuca tries to help by swimming for her, but she’s not a strong swimmer and a crab pinches her butt, which she flicks off, so Maple jumps in and starts swimming both of them when a giant crab, the mother, emerges and Maple fights it as Bertie sinks underwater.

She sees a paper-cutout imagery of her younger self in her red swimsuit, crying. Bertie goes up to her and reassures and hugs her in silence, and they both swim briefly swim together underwater, and Bertie comes back up to the surface and finishes swimming to Peanutbutter island as Pat beats the crab with its own leg. Even the teens and the giant crab mom cheer her on, and they all celebrate when she finally makes it to shore.

By nighttime they all camp on the Peanutbutter beach, and Maple cooks the giant the crab leg, who doesn’t mind as Maple earned it. Bertie tells Tuca she has felt ashamed for the last few days but now she feels strong, and she’s ready to go home now. Pat then shows she made an egg depicting the current movement of all of them on the beach.

## Post Credits

A Little Crab is in a commercial for Crab Thingz. Her bigger sister eats her arm, as bigger crabs eat smaller things, and at the end of the commercial their mother eats her.

## Trivia

* It’s revealed Bertie was molested by a lifeguard when she was twelve. This led her to quit swimming, and it explains her psycho-sexual issues that have been showcased, like crying after she has Speckle spank her and say she’s a bad girl, or when she masturbated in the bathroom after Pastry Pete overpowered her.
* It’s revealed before this incident Bertie loved swimming and during the summer she would train herself to swim all the way to Peanutbutter Island.
* Bertie’s family has a cabin at the Jelly Lakes, and she would attend the Jelly Lakes Summer Camp.
* Tuca does not have Speckle's number saved in her phone, claiming their relationship extends beyond technology (it’s also likely she never bothered to add it).
* Tuca mentions her surgically removed egg to Pat.
* The Girl Thingz store is a likely parody of Claire's.