Colossal Squid

Colossal Squid is the tenth episode of Season 1, and the tenth episode overall.

Synopsis
"Ant and Fontaine hunt for the rarest of ocean creatures, the colossal squid. But what happens when it turns out to be smarter than you and thinks you look tasty?"

Plot
Ant and Fontaine are out in The Rover, using a drone to place a tracker on a sperm whale because Ant has been constantly wanting to find a Colossal Squid and believes the best way to find one is to track the animal that eats them. However, when they get to close the whale hits them, causing the Rover to spin wildly. During the chaos, the drone crashes into one of the props, causing the Rover to crash on the edge of a steep drop.

As the Aronnax moves in to retrieve them, Ant notices sucker marks on the whale from the drone footage, leading him to believe that it was fighting a Colossal Squid. After being retrieved Fontaine heads to bed while Ant stays up reading about squid.

Kaiko fixes the Rover and then proceeds to replace a 'blinky' light bulb on the bridge, but Will is skeptical as Professor Fiction has told them all not to touch anything electrical on the bridge until he himself has completed a careful analysis. Kaiko believes she can handle a small light bulb and ignores Will, however upon replacing the light bulb every other light on the Aronnax becomes super bright.

Fiction picks up the power surge back at base and warns them not to try to fix it as it may have undeniable consequences, but tells them they should be fine as long as the electrics aren't put under any more stress. Something is picked up on the collision alarm and Ant recognizes it as the whale he's been tracking. The sonar shows it swimming in wild zigzag pattern, but the Nektons are unable to see out because of the bright lights. Kaiko activates the shields and the whale crashes into the Aronnax.

Footage from the outside cameras shows tentacles around the whale, showing it was most likely fighting a Colossal Squid. Now wanting to find it more then ever, Ant convinces the rest to find the squid (despite the impact disabling the outside cameras and knocking out coms to the surface).

While searching, the Nektons encounter something that's not the whale. Still unable to see because of the bright lights inside, Kaiko uses the outside floodlights (which causes the fridge in the kitchen to lose power) and they can see that it's definitely a Colossal Squid, floating motionless in the water. After a 'corny' speech, Ant takes the Rover with Fontaine to get footage of the Squid, but while out there the Squid, which isn't dead like everyone thought, attacks them.

Unable to break away the Squid starts to drag the Rover downward. Realizing the Squid can't handle bright light, Ant tells Kaiko to use the floodlights on it, which makes the squid let go. However, the use of the floodlights creates another power surge that causes the air scrubbers to fail, leaving the Aronnax with limited oxygen.

More Squid appear and attack the Rover. Will uses the White Knight fend them off. He is able to get the Rover back onboard, but when Kaiko attempts to get back to the surface the Aronnax's engines stop completely and the Squid start attacking it.

Unable to dump the ballast because of pressure and depth, Kaiko heads to the engine room to try fix the engines and is successful but can only run at minimum power to prevent them from seizing. Shortly after, a fire breaks out in the engine room, and knowing the fire will quickly drain the air supply, Will tells Ant and Fontaine to head to the moon pool to prepare to abandon ship if things get worse.

While Will helps Kaiko douse the flames, Ant has an idea and returns to the bridge. He brings up the Whale he's been tracking and has Fontaine move the Aronnax towards it in hopes the Whale will scare the Squid away. As they approach the Whale all detection systems go offline rendering them blind, with no other options Ant and Fontaine get ready to abandon ship when the Whale appears.

At first they are relieved as the Squid move away, but then they realize the Squid are going to attack the Whale. However, an entire pod of Whales has arrived and they chase the Squid away. Despite the Squid fleeing and the fire being extinguished, the Aronnax doesn't have enough oxygen to reach the surface. Kaiko realizes that the non-faulty light bulb is the source of the problem and puts the old faulty one back. Upon doing so, power is restored to normal levels and the air supply replenished. When they reach the surface the Nektons review the footage taken while almost being eaten by the Squid while the outside of the Aronnax has sucker marks all over it.

Characters

 * The Nektons
 * William Nekton
 * Kaiko Nekton
 * Fontaine Nekton
 * Ant Nekton
 * Jeffrey
 * Professor Fiction

Trivia

 * A running gag throughout the episode is Fontaine get her face landed on by others.
 * Early concept art for the episode depicted the squid as being red.