ThomasNATION Classic Reviews - Marion and the Pipe

February 10, 2024

I gotta confess, I didn't know about British shows like Peep Show or Broadchurch, so my first exposure to the works of Olivia Colman was through the Thomas character Marion, which made it a little more surprising when she not only won an Oscar in 2019 for The Favourite, but also kept popping up in films like Wonka or Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. It's a little weird being the one guy in the theater saying to himself "ayo ain't that the voice of the steam shovel from Thomas?" but either way, I have a ton of respect for her and her career, which brings us to Marion's first leading episode. Is it an episode worthy of a prolific career...that may have been one of the weirder sentences I've typed out on this site, but the point is, is this episode good? Let's begin.
While Marion is fixing an embankment, we see that after ages of telling people her stories of digging up fantastical relics, they've gotten rather old. That is until she digs up what she thinks is the mast of a Viking ship, but what is really a pipe. But the problems quickly arise when the pipe causes more mayhem than Marion had bargained for.
One thing that works about this episode is that it plays out with the sole intent of establishing Marion as a character. I didn't touch upon this at an earlier point since True Blue handled the Tale of the Brave review, but Marion didn't really impact the story of that movie until the end where she stopped Percy from dying. Here, she's established as an eccentric storyteller that loves her digging and can get carried away with her tales. We even get to see her signature game "Guess What's In My Shovel!", which lends itself to a couple of really funny scenes with Bill and Ben.
However, the big problem with the story itself is that it takes a little while to get going. It doesn't take that long, but it feels like the first couple of minutes is spent on Marion telling engines her stories before she finds the pipe, and it does culminate in a great climax. I do have one question, however: was the story about her finding the treasure chest foreshadowing for Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure?
Overall, I wouldn't call Marion and the Pipe a great episode, but for what it sets out to do, it's pretty good. Marion is clearly the star of the show here, to the point where if you do decide to watch this episode, I wouldn't be shocked if Marion ends up becoming a favorite. For me, I've been a pretty avid fan of the character, so this is an easy 4/5.

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