Henry's Hero (Thomas & Friends)

"Henry's Hiro" is the seventh episode of the seventeenth season.

Plot
When Henry and Hiro take on bad coal by mistake Hiro wants to get the job done but Henry wants to wait until the new coal arrives.

Why It's Our Hero

 * 1) The episode does a fantastic job at showcasing two engines that are the most flawed protagonists while also seeing their point of views and why they make their decisions.
 * 2) Hiro and Henry are both likeable and have good reasons for their decisions.
 * 3) The character chemistry with Henry and Hiro is brilliantly matched because we hardly ever had an episode where Henry and Hiro share an episode with one another.
 * 4) The surprise return of Duck is quite easy to catch anyone off guard since his last episode appearance was in the Season 12 finale, "Best Friends", making him one of the older Classic era characters to return to the show in favor of being reintroduced to a new generation of children at the time.
 * 5) Henry pushing Hiro up Gordon's hill is one of his finest moments in the Brenner era making this closest we'll ever get to seeing "Super Rescue" from the Railway Series book "Enterprising Engines" in the TV Series. Had this been an episode for Season 21 instead of being in Season 17, this would be a great closure to Henry's major character arc in the series before moving out of Tidmouth. But we've got "Henry in the Dark" from Season 20, that episode is close enough as it is.
 * 6) It has one nice piece of continuity with Henry in this episode because Henry was an engine who has had a bad history with bad coal before, so it seemed quite understandable to see why he was eventually backed out on Hiro just to be safe.
 * 7) It has a good moral about not giving up despite the hardships.
 * 8) Seeing Henry and Hiro arrive at the docks in time and get clean coal in the end is very satisfying.

Reception
The episode was given a 8.3/10 on IMDb with Unlucky Tug praising it for how it handles the flawed protagonist setup.

Videos
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