Check out this week’s episode recap for Legends of Tomorrow, where the “Legends” try to thwart Vandal Savage again while trying to keep Kendra/Hawkgirl alive. Josh provides a recap of the episode, titled Blood Ties, and we both share our thoughts!
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Episode Recap of Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 3: Blood Ties
On this week’s episode of Legends of Tomorrow, we again have a team fractured. The episode begins in ancient Egypt, and we see Rip Hunter in a hooded robe, and he is confronting Vandal Savage. But the episode leaves us hanging until later to see what happened at this meeting.
Stein and Palmer
As for our team, there are a few groups going on. One is Professor Stein and Ray Palmer. They are with Kendra/Hawkgirl, and she seems to not be doing well. On top of that, the Waverider can’t make any time jumps, as it will put Kendra’s life in jeopardy. The rest of the group goes off to do their thing while Stein and Palmer try to figure out a way to help Kendra. They discover that there are knife fragments in her system that are circulating towards her heart.
Unfortunately, neither party has a solution, until Ray comes up with an idea—use his ATOM suit to shrink down and go inside of Kendra, vaporizing all of the knife fragments with his weapons. Stein is opposed to this idea, as it seems too experimental to try on a person. Ray insists though, and gets the suit on. Stein reluctantly agrees to help him.
Once inside Kendra, Ray vaporizes a few fragments, but winds up having trouble with his suit and makes a quick exit. He wasn’t able to get all the fragments though, so Stein, now seeing the plan is working, tells Ray he needs to get back in there. Ray seems to get cold feet though, and Stein tries to figure out why. After some back and forth, and some back patting by Stein to Ray, Ray finally gets the courage to go back in. He finishes getting all of the fragments out. But Kendra begins muttering something, which will pay a more important role when we get to some other people’s story lines…
Jax, Captain Cold, Heat Wave
These guys were left behind again on a mission, but Jax was put in charge of figuring out how to repair the jump ship for the Waverider—a small ship meant for short trips. Jax protests, understandably so, given he is just an auto mechanic, but Rip has faith in him apparently.
Getting to work, he seems to have made progress after finding the instruction manual for the jump ship. Captain Cold and Heat Wave pay Jax a visit, and seem to have some ideas of their own as to how they can utilize this jump ship. They plan to steal an emerald. Jax at first opposes the idea, but eventually gives in.
The trio are able to retrieve the emerald pretty easily, but Captain Cold was playing a little close to the vest with his plan. He tells Jax and Heat Wave they have one more stop—giving this emerald to his father in 1975. The reason being? Apparently his father attempts to steal this emerald in a few days, but is arrested and imprisoned for 5 years.
So, Captain Cold gets to his childhood house, and happens to run into himself as a kid. He gives his younger self some advice—never let anyone hurt him in his mind or heart. Then his father, who points a gun at him, confronts him. Snart tells his father that he has a gift for him, and gives his father a summarized version of what will happen when he tries to steal the emerald himself.
Back aboard the jump ship, Heat Wave seemed to put everything together—Snart’s father wasn’t such a bad man until he went to prison for 5 years. Snart was hoping to circumvent this prison sentence by stealing the emerald for his father.
Later, after the team reconvenes, Snart looks into what happened with his father, and as Rip warned, the future is hard to change—Snart’s father still goes to prison for 5 years for trying to sell the emerald, as an undercover cop arrests him.
Rip Hunter and Sara
So, these two are actually working towards their plan of stopping Vandal Savage, or as Sara suggests, at least hampering him a little bit. Sara suggests trying to get to Vandal Savage’s money, as that could be a way to slow down Savage’s eventual world domination. Rip is aware of Savage’s bank, which is an ancient, exclusive one. But Rip seems to have a plan to get in.
He and Sara get all snazzied up, and pretend to be clients interested in having some ancient doubloons deposited in a safety deposit box. After meeting with a representative, Rip thinks things are going well, but Sara realizes otherwise. She tells Rip they have been made, and need to get ready for some fist to cuffs. Rip seems to disagree, but Sara seems to be right when a group of attackers are armed to the teeth, facing Sara and Rip. A fight goes down, and Sara gets a little crazy with her fighting, nearly killing a man, a man which Rip wants to keep alive so they can figure out where Savage’s funds are held.
This guy is taken back to the ship, and he tells Rip and Sara about a gathering happening that night. They also learn that the plan is to desecrate Hawkman’s body at the party, which infuriates Rip. Rip insists they have to crash this party, while Sara wants to continue with the original plan of getting to Savage’s money. They eventually decide to crash the party.
Sara and Rip again get fancied up and use their kidnapped victim as a way to get into the party. In the party, we learn that the actual purpose of this party is to bleed out Hawkman, as apparently his blood can be used to extend the life of others. Unfortunately, Rip and Sarah are made pretty easily, and are taken captive. We also learn the results of the confrontation between Rip and Savage in Ancient Egypt, in that Rip had Savage “dead to rights,” but he hesitated, and was not able to complete his mission because of that.
The Team Unites
Luckily for Rip and Sara, the rest of the team realizes the two are in trouble. Stein and Palmer get clues from Hawkgirl’s fevered hallucinations, so Stein radios to Jax, Captain Cold and Heat Wave. They all head for the location of Rip and Sarah.
So Jax, Captain Cold and Heat Wave show up, and crash the party. Rip is able to confront Savage, seemingly cutting his throat. But, in the processes of their fight, Rip makes the mistake of revealing the name of his child and wife to Savage, which delights Savage, as he is looking forward to killing them. Meanwhile, Sara seems to have gone off the rails, but it turns out she managed to control it. Rather than plunging her knife into the face of one of Savage’s henchmen, she had done it directly to the side of him, as a way to curb her bloodlust.
The group then gets Hawkman’s body out, and they take it to a field, where they hold a brief ceremony. Then Rip talks with the group, and tells them about his encounter with Savage in the past. He then asks to get the team on board with hunting down Savage and everyone seems to be on board. Rip has Gideon (the A.I. of Waverider) find the next place Savage will pop up—turns out we’re going to 1986 next.
Josh’s Thoughts: Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 3: Blood Ties
This was another pretty good episode of Legends of Tomorrow, I thought. I have definitely been pleasantly surprised so far. There were a lot of little things I enjoyed this episode. First being Savage. The actor portraying Savage is excellent at playing a villain. He seems creepy, menacing, and all-around someone I would not want to hang out with. This works well, as you really want your heroes to win the day against him.
Additionally, we are starting to see a little softer side of Snart, which is nice. Despite his “cold” exterior, we see he is trying to help is father out—although I guess he really is also trying to help himself out, as if his father doesn’t go to jail, he doesn’t have such a rough childhood—but at the very least, we get some insight into who this guy is, rather than just being a cold-blooded criminal.
I also really like Rip Hunter, and find his character very intriguing. Arthur Davill certainly brings some “class” to the show. I also think the action scenes are filmed really well given that this is a TV show. The showrunners have done a great job stretching their limited budget to create some great scenes.
There were a couple cheesy things this episode though, like the fact that Jax is expected to repair a futuristic aircraft with his auto mechanic skills, and the pretty easily broken down morals of Jax who decides to allow Captain Cold and Heat Wave to steal a very expensive emerald.
I also didn’t really care for the scenes with Ray Palmer and Stein. It tried to show some bonding between the two scientists, but it was a bit forced, I thought. It turned from Stein being the worrisome character, to that of Ray in the course of 20 minutes, which just felt weird. I understand what the writers were going for, but I didn’t really like it.
But in the end, I really enjoyed the episode, and I am looking forward to the next one. We are going to the 80s next! Maybe they will run into me when I was a 4 year old!
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 3 of Legends of Tomorrow: Blood Ties
One thing I like about Legends of Tomorrrow is that it’s allowing me to get to know characters from The Flash and Arrow a little better than I was able to on those shows. For example, I wasn’t really a fan of Captain Cold and Heat Wave, nor of Sara Lance. However, Captain Cold has quickly been growing on me these past couple of episodes. I think maybe it’s because Wentworth Miller was playing a more over-the-top, cheesy character when he was on The Flash, whereas I feel like he’s been playing more of a dramatic role in Legends of Tomorrow lately, more akin to the role he played as Michael Scofield on Prison Break, of which I was a fan of both the show, and Miller’s performance on the show. Now that Barry Allen and Oliver Queen aren’t the main characters, we now have a chance to get to know these other characters in a way that we weren’t able to, since there’s really no “main” character on Legends of Tomorrow, it’s an ensemble cast, it’s a team.
Of course, there are so many members of the team that the only logical way to handle each episode is to frequently split the team up into smaller teams, so that we aren’t overwhelmed by having too many people on screen all the time. I’m glad we got to see Rip Hunter in action this episode. The last couple episodes I’ve been wondering just what he’s been up to while the rest of the team it out doing their thing. Just lounging in his quarters?
In any case, although it’s been fun in the 70s, I’m ready for some 80s! Bring it on!
Scenes from Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 Episode 4: White Knights
Here are scenes from the next Legends of Tomorrow episode, titled White Knights:
I have to agree with both of you, Leonard Snart and Mick Rory, are hands down my favorite characters on the show. Snart for his smooth criminal debonair and Rory this his simple but honest love for all the bad things.