- Title: Legends of Tomorrow – Blood Ties
- wiki: link
Remaining in the 1970s due to Kendra‘s (Ciara Renée) critical condition, the team splits up. While Martin Stein (Graeme McComb) and Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) work to try and remove the shards of magical dagger still in Hawgirl’s system, Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) and Sara (Caity Lotz) attempt to find and cripple Vandal Savage‘s (Casper Crump) resources, and Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) and Heat Wave (Dominic Purcell) enlist the help of Jackson (Franz Drameh) to perform a little grand theft auto and robbery.
Tackling these stories one at a time let’s start with the robbery. The reveal of Cold’s true motivations for the crime continue to highlight the character’s complex motivations and give the show an opportunity to restate the idea of the timeline attempting to reassert itself which was previously explored in The Flash. Ray’s Innerspace adventures are one of the episode’s highlights (along with Hunter and Sara dressed to the nines), even if the show never really explores whey the dagger fragments are somehow continuing to attack her (magic?), but the interactions between Palmer and Stein feel forced and hollow and are far less interesting than seeing the Atom continue to explore new areas of his suit.
As to the main storyline, here the show runs into trouble in terms of presenting Hunter as the deep thinker of the group. We’re given a flashback to Rip Hunter’s first attempt to kill Vandal Savage in Egypt but the writers gloss over a very obvious question: Why wait several centuries before a second attempt? By the time the 70s are in full swing Savage has a vast network of supporters, why not attempt to find him at a weaker moment in his timeline and attack then? By the end of the episode two things are clear. First, to take down Vandal Savage the team will have to work together. And second, if they have any chance of defeating the villain someone other than Hunter will have to come up with the plan.
