Air Date: September 3rd, 2018 (UK)
Thomas is in China, where another blue tank engine named Hong-Mei is the number one engine on the national railway. Hong-Mei challenges Thomas to a race and wins, so Thomas is determined to beat her in a second race. But when he takes a short cut along the steep mountain pass, he hits a rock on the line and derails.
Tropes:
- An Aesop: Being friends is more important than winning.
- Big Damn Heroes: Hong-Mei gets her moment when she rescues Thomas.
- The Big Race: The premise of the episode.
- Bilingual Bonus: Hong-Mei having the Chinese characters for the number 1 on her tanks is what starts the plot of the episode.
- Blatant Lies: Thomas boasts to An-An and Yin-Long that he once went so fast, he jumped over the moon. Of course, they don't believe him.
- Call-Back: The life-lesson segment at the end of the episode has Thomas reference the events of "Reds vs. Blues".
- Continuity Nod: Thomas' fantasy sequence has him jumping over the Vicarstown Bridge, which is a reference to the infamous scene from The Great Race.
- Dawn of an Era: This episode marks the beginning of the Big World! Big Adventures! series.
- Distaff Counterpart: Hong-Mei serves as one to Thomas, as they are both blue, cheeky tank engines who are the number one engines on their railways.
- Double-Meaning Title: The title not only references the events of the episode, but is also a reference to this episode being the first episode of season 22.
- Foil: An-An and Yin-Long serve as foils to Annie and Clarabel. An-An and Yin-Long are daring and crazy, while Annie and Clarabel are finicky and nit-picky.
- Foreshadowing: A rock falling out of one of Hong-Mei's trucks foreshadows Thomas' accident.
- Friendly Rival: Hong-Mei. She may be cheeky and have challenged Thomas to a race to prove who is the real number 1 engine, she ultimately has a heart of gold, as shown when she helped Thomas after he got derailed.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Some Chinese terms are used in this episode, such as "yí", which means "one", and "kāi shǐ", which means "start".
- Imagine Spot: Thomas has one in which he goes so fast, he jumps over the Vicarstown Bridge and the moon.
- The Man in the Moon: Thomas imagines Sir Topham Hatt as the moon in his fantasy sequence. This episode also starts this element being incorporated into every episode.
- Once an Episode: Season 22 introduces several of these starting with this episode, namely the And Knowing Is Half the Battle segments before and after the "main" episode and a character having an Imagine Spot.
- Record Needle Scratch: One can be heard as An-An and Yin-Long doubt Thomas that the latter really jumped over the moon, which causes Thomas, Annie, and Clarabel to have a bad landing in his Imagine Spot.
- Series Continuity Error: Thomas is scared to cross the bridge, when he had no problem doing so in Big World! Big Adventures!.
- There Can Only Be One: Hong-Mei's belief when it comes to number one engines.
