Last Straw is the eleventh episode of Season 2 of Sodor: The Modern Years, and the ninetieth episode overall.
Plot
Patrick arrives at Crovan's Gate with a special delivery for the Skarloey Railway, Atlas. Sir Handel is surprised to see him and he begins to shunt him to the workshops. Suddenly Rusty arrives with Fred's load, and is complaining about it. Atlas proceeds to tell a story of a tugboat like Fred who always tried to do the bare minimum and make others do the work for them.
Atlas tells Rusty that there were two tugboats working the river near his tramway. One of them, Ten Cents, was a hard worker. Drollan, the other, wasn't. After venting his frustrations to Atlas, Ten Cents has a confrontation with Drollan. He's fed up with the other tugboat 'delegating' work to him, and won't stand for it any more. Both tugboats leave in a huff.
Drollan decides to prove that he's just as capable of hard work by taking three of the large mineral barges at once. Atlas tries to warn him, saying that he's never seen Ten Cents take more than two of those at once. Drollan dismisses Atlas' concerns and heads off.
As Drollan heads down river, some currents and mishandling of the barges by Drollan cause two of them to break free. Out of control, they hurtle down a branch of the river, towards the wood bridge that Atlas is about to cross. Atlas makes it across, just in the nick of time. Drollan is sent to get help.
Drollan is confined to the harbour and the bridge is rebuilt. Coming back to the present, Atlas tells Rusty that both Ten Cents and Drollan let their emotions get the better of them, and Drollan didn't establish all the facts of the situation. He asks Rusty if he's sure he's not doing the same with Fred. Rusty replies that those are good questions, and that he hopes to get good answers by the time Atlas is restored.
This Is Their Story
This episode is a crossover with the series 'TUGS', which was a sister series to the Thomas & Friends TV series. There had been several references to TUGS in past episodes of the series. These include:
- Ten Cents' whistle in the background of the harbour (Fame and Misfortune)
- Use of incidental music from TUGS in other episodes (Homecoming, The Thin Clergyman)
- Charlie Hatt's T-Shirts (Arrogance, Mistrust, The Thin Clergyman, Storm Damage)
- A TUGS style megaphone being used by the stationmaster in Storm Damage.
- An Izzy Gomez model given a cameo in ''Barry the Rescue Engine: A Troubled Engine"
Characters
- Patrick
- Sir Handel
- Atlas
- Rusty
- Ten Cents
- Drollan
- Peter Sam (referred to as 'Stuart'; does not speak)
- Douglas (cameo)
- Alice (cameo)
- Toad (cameo)
- Rheneas (cameo)
- Duncan (cameo)
- Duke (mentioned)
- Stanley (mentioned)
- Andreas (mentioned)
- Fred (mentioned)
- Blister 1 (mentioned)
- Zorran (mentioned)
- The Z-Stacks (mentioned; unnamed)
- The Star Tugs (mentioned; unnamed)
- The Fat Controller (mentioned)
Trivia
- Many TUGS references are made throughout the episode, ranging from characters to music pieces.
- This is the first appearance of Duncan's new model.
- Geebmachine and Harry Connett join the voice cast.
- This is the first episode where TheBlueE2 voices Sir Handel.
- The name of the ship Drollan mis-docks, the Hartnell, is a reference to William Hartnell, the First Doctor in the BBC sci-fi series, Doctor Who.
- This is the first episode of Sodor: The Modern Years to not have any narration by the narrator, unless you count Atlas' narration of the flashback. But the second episode overall with the first being Storm Report.
- The audio for Patrick was more or less a cleaner and softer audio than it was in the past.
- The weedkiller truck is given a background cameo.
Voice Actors
- WildNorWester as the Harbour Master and Workmen
- Eugene Yu as Patrick
- TheBlueE2 as Sir Handel
- Luke Ryan as Atlas
- Matthew1996 as Rusty
- Geebmachine as Ten Cents
- Harry Connett as Drollan
- David Moyle as the Quarry Manager
Gallery
