Let me be real, I have no problem with female representation in Thomas The Tank Engine and I don't think any other fan does either (unless it’s Lamar Artis, but let’s not talk about him). Ever since the original Railway Series books, there have been great girl characters in Thomas like Daisy and Mavis and they were consistently adding more females to the original series in the later CGI Era. From re-introducing Rosie with a new red paint job at what was the perfect opportunity to give her some purpose in being part of this franchise albeit never actually doing anything with her (please don't screw Rosie being a main character up, 2026 reboot!) and especially with someone like Emily who I think was the best way that the franchise introduced a new main girl character into the series, I really don't get why it just suddenly became a major problem at the start of the BWBA era. This is honestly why despite me thinking that Nia and Rebecca are not bad characters on their own, I don't like what they represented in terms of Thomas' history as a franchise, just being generic happy-go-lucky archetypes. But this is all a segue into one of the forgotten ladies of the railway...Molly, in her Season 9 debut episode "Molly's Special Special"! Is she truly a special engine? Let's find out!
MOLLY'S SPECIAL SPECIAL: Thomas meets a new yellow engine named Molly and tries to help make her empty trucks look special so she can feel important.
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Unfortunately, just having a unique basis for Molly is where the positives towards this episode end because it's time to now get into the negatives. Firstly, like many of the newbies introduced during the HIT Era of the original series, Molly fell into the same trap of "toys first, character second" that was quite common during this time. If I can be honest, despite this being her only leading role in the entire series, what does surprise me is that they seemed to really want to push Molly potentially becoming a main character like what they did for Emily through various other cameos or the odd chance she would get another speaking role and that's not to mention how much they pushed her in the marketing for various products like toys and books/magazines and even the world of gaming including various games on the official website. Remember the "Whistle And Peep" game which tested your memory of engine whistles and Molly was one of the four engines? 'Cause I do.
Secondly, I'm not entirely sold on the conflict of this episode as I don't like how Molly was bullied because of her job of taking empty trucks. For those who know how railways are operated in the real world, engines take empties all the time as the trucks need to be transferred from place to place so that they can be used for other loads. Also, I can't be the only one who hates the fact of how they mentioned that Molly's empty trucks are more important than the express. Express trains are more important as there are passengers who need to get to their destinations on time, so the express was deliberately delayed just so Molly (and Thomas, in this case) could get the one-up on Gordon. Did Sir Topham Hatt catch wind of how the engines were treating Molly and wanted to teach them a lesson in a style similar to what he did for Edward? I don't know, this does not feel right to me. Personally, they should've at least ended this episode with Emily or any other character with a slow goods train coming across Molly instead or maybe even just by themselves.
So, overall "Molly's Special Special" is right in the middle of "bad" and "okay", a middle of the road kind of episode for me. It's not bad by any means and I do think that there was plenty of potential for a new character like Molly albeit being ultimately wasted in favor of toy sales, but the problems that this episode and this era as a whole have which ultimately effected how this episode performed do hold it back from being anything truly "special special" (see what I did there?). But I'll be nice and give "Molly's Special Special" a rating of a 2.5/5. Nothing too special, but still special.
Final Rating: 2.5/5
