It seems in today's world that there are a lot of people who seem to have a problem with bringing a character with a physical difference to the center of attention even if it is only for less than a minute and those same people will say that it is 'disrespectful to kids with special needs and it's offensive'. Okay, frankly shouldn't hiding a character that's different from everyone else be more offensive? Isn't censoring a character with a disability more disrespectful to people who actually might have similar issues? Those kids need representation too, those kids need a character to look up to just as much as any other kid perhaps even more so. There was a story about an autistic kid who looked up to Drax from 'Guardians of the Galaxy', he saw someone who acted like he did and was still a hero. Even Julia from 'Sesame Street', kids can see a character like her and say 'hey, she's just like me fr'. This kind of representation is important for kids especially kids who might already get bullied at school for being different, it gives validation to who they are and the struggles they go through. Here, Bruno is different: he loves schedules and timetables when everything goes to plan, he can flap his own ladders to tell you if he's upset or really excited, he can use his items to show you how he's feeling but he is also a very relaxed character who uses his comedy to get past situations sometimes so the possibility of people censoring Bruno because he happens to look and act different from the other engines could actually be seen as worse than just leaving him be. Do you really believe that Mattel of all companies would be malicious like this? In the end, it's a sad testament to the power of words but it's important to bring up when speaking about Bruno. But enough of talking about Bruno, let's get on with the show!
Now, it should be worth noting that Thomas and Bruno don't share the spotlight together often in All Engines Go with the only recent example that I can think of is the All Aboard mini-series short "The New Platform" where Bruno basically made Thomas late with his delivery to Sir Topham Hatt's birthday party all because he didn't see any mechanics when they first arrived and we fans of Thomas all know that being late is something Sir Topham Hatt does not like especially on his birthday. So when you have Thomas, Bruno and Sir Topham Hatt together again for a new episode where Thomas and Bruno deliver a marble statue of Sir Topham Hatt's great-grandfather to Vicarstown with Thomas not listening to Bruno by doing what he thinks is best, you might be wondering "why does this ring a bell". Well, that's because this is literally "Shake, Rattle And aruno" all over again but with Thomas now taking on Diesel's role in said episode. You could make the argument that this sort of black and white storytelling has been done for Thomas & Friends as far as back as the original Railway Series books, but it doesn't work when the characters are acting however the script needs them to be. Oh, and that moment where Sir Topham Hatt talks about the statue of his great-grandfather Sir Topham Hatt I who was the founder of the North Western Railway? It was a nice moment, but I felt it was clearly nothing more than fan service.
So yeah, "For All the Marble" should consider itself lucky to be a passable episode at this point with the amount of cracks that were found in this episode's foundation and that is why I'm giving it a 2.5/5.
