Koala Man – Season 1 Episode 6 “The Handies” Recap & Review

The Handies

In Koala Man Season 1 Episode 6, Australia holds the handball Olympics, “The Handies,” with  teenage athletes from across the country. This year, Dapto is handling the lighting ceremony, even though they haven’t won The Handies in decades. Vicky is hopeful about this year, though; they actually have a good team. But Maxwell is doubtful, believing the town to be cursed.

When the Dapto team accidentally incinerates itself while lighting the torch, the town gathers to discuss what they are going to do. Big Greg’s brother Huge Greg arrives to brag about his team. The Big Smoke twins are supposedly the greatest handball players in the world.

Koala Man won’t give up on Dapto, however. The rules state they have 24 hours to find a new team, and Koala Man is going to create and coach one.

Meanwhile, Kevin also worries that Alison doesn’t like him anymore. Vicky insists she’s just going through a lot of changes. Maybe they just need quality time together.

Koala Man tries to inspire Dapto students to try out for the team. When Alison throws a ball at him, he notes her and Liam’s surprising handball skills. When she’s chosen, everyone cheers for her. The Olympics may be another chance for her to become popular.

When Liam and Alison can’t get ahead in their first game, Vicky starts to wonder if the town really is cursed. Spider confirms this. The Legend of the Dapto Sick Sunnies says that the gods of Dapto once formed a luck charm called the Sick Sunnies of Dapto. It gave the town good luck for hundreds of years. But someone broke them, and Dapto has been cursed ever since.

Janine says the gods still hang out at the top of the mountain. To save Dapto from losing handball again, Vicky decides to end the curse.

Big Greg can’t take Huge Greg’s gloating anymore. Needing Dapto to win, he slips Alison something to enhance her performance. It does make her better at the game, but it also makes her transform into a dingo.

Kevin at first thinks this is one of Alison’s “changes” Vicky wanted him to accept. But Big Greg then shows up to tell them Australia has been dabbling in human/animal hybrids for years. He and Huge Greg used to work for a performance enhancement gene program. They caught the best animal specimens for their experiments.

One day, he and Huge Greg caught the most beautiful fish Big Greg had ever seen. He fell in love with her, which angered Huge Greg. They fought each other, causing the lab (and the fish) to explode. Big Greg swore to never use their findings again–until now. He’s desperate for revenge against Huge Greg. And he can turn Alison back after the Handball Olympics.

Huge Greg finds out about the drugs, but he doesn’t want to rat them out. It turns out that he’s using leftover drugs for his team as well.

Liam and Alison face the twins next, but they’re now both dangerous animal hybrids. Big Greg confesses he was lying; there’s no antidote for Alison. So, Koala Man decides to talk with Alison.

He tells her he thought this tournament would bring them together. She’s changed so much, and he knows it’s not easy to have him as her father–but there’s no one he’d rather have for a daughter. She jumps at him, not to tear him apart, but to give him a hug. This turns her back into a human–but now she and Liam have to play against the animal hybrids.

Vicky and Janine make it to the realm of the gods, where Vicky encounters the god of realizing your potential. She talks to him about her desire for Dapto to win. She feels they can’t with the town’s curse.

According to the god, the curse is a metaphor. We can break the cycle with the courage to try. He then tells her it’s never too late to break her own cycle. He leans forward to kiss her, but she stops him. She can’t do that to Greg, but she will try to realize her own potential.

It turns out that the realm of the gods has boxes of Sick Sunnies, so she takes a stash of sunglasses back down to Dapto. Liam and Alison are about to lose terribly until Vicky arrives with the gods and throws sunglasses down to all the Dapto residents. The glare from them incinerates the twins, and Dapto wins The Handies.

Big Greg goes to confront Huge Greg and finds that Tanya the fish never died, but stayed with Huge Greg–and they’ve had loads of animal/human hybrid children.

Koala Man has a good feeling about Dapto’s future. But the Kookaburra watches Dapto’s celebration from afar. He now has the Greg brothers’ drugs–and he’s certainly going to use them for evil purposes.

The Episode Review

Vicky is quickly becoming my favorite character in this quirky show. Koala Man has been building up an important character arc for realizing her potential and self-worth–from the first episode where she discovers she can fix things for herself. Hopefully that arc doesn’t stop here, and we continue to see her stand up for herself.

Things are looking up for Dapto, and for the Williams family. Alison is on the rise to popularity and power, Kevin has made strides in his relationship with Alison, and Vicky saved the town from its self-imposed cursed cycle. But what is the mysterious Kookaburra planning?