ThomasNATION Classic Reviews - Flour Power

Hey all, JF here, and you ever notice how Thomas’ spooky episodes all basically have the same premise?

Granted, you have some like Stepney Gets Lost that don’t fall into this, but the majority of these episodes all feature a haunted something. You name it, it’s haunted. A forest, some flatbeds, even some glow in the dark paint could spook you. Hell, we here at TN even used this idea in ‘Mike and the Haunted Castle’. But one of their favorite spooky tales to tell is the one of the ghost train, which is put front and center in Flour Power. But does this episode really have the power? Let’s begin.

At first, this doesn’t seem like the typical story you’d get from a Halloween episode, it’s just Thomas and Diesel working together sorting some flour. But Diesel keeps teasing Thomas about the scary images of Halloween and Thomas has to find a way to pay him back.

One thing I can never knock the model series’ Halloween episodes for, it’s the atmosphere. The way Halloween is presented in these episodes, this one included, is insane. It perfectly captures the scariness that comes with the holiday and, like I said in my review of Season 8’s Halloween, it feels reminiscent to the setting of a horror movie. The only downside is this episode doesn’t feature the same spook factor that Halloween did, it’s just played like a typical Thomas episode. If anything, the setting feels more like an afterthought.

As for the story, while I admit the idea is pretty funny, the one thing that ruins it is the pacing. It feels like Thomas gets drenched with the flour and scares Diesel too early on in the episode, when I feel like it should’ve been saved for the ending, meaning half of the episode just ends up feeling like filler. In fact, this is gonna sound bonkers, but this is the one episode that could’ve really worked with the three strike formula…hear me out. What if it focused on Thomas trying to pay back Diesel, starting with two pranks that he sees right through, but then the third prank being drenched in flour, that being the one that works. But as is, the episode just feels over before it gets going.

To conclude, is Flour Power a good episode? No. Is it a bad episode? Not quite. It has a funny concept and great atmosphere, but at the same time, the Halloween aspect feels unimportant and it feels as though it wraps up way too quickly to the point where it just becomes quickly forgettable. If you’re curious, don’t go in expecting something that takes advantage of its premise, but then again, it might be a decent way to kill eight minutes. But for me, I’m already forgetting what happened in this episode as I’m writing it, and I just watched it like twenty minutes ago. That, my friends, is an accomplishment that earns it a 2.5/5.

Final Score: 2.5/5