DC's LEGENDS OF TOMORROW Episode 3 Review: Blood Ties - Warped Factor - Words in the Key of Geek.

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DC's LEGENDS OF TOMORROW Episode 3 Review: Blood Ties

"I've seen men of steel die and dark knights fall." Well, if you're a Time Agent you can just pop to March 2016 and catch the premiere of Batman v Superman, whilst the rest of us have to be content with a new episode of Legends of Tomorrow.


Less super, more hero. That seems to have been the remit for Blood Ties, episode 3 of Legends of Tomorrow. And in large part, it worked.

Once again we're in 1975, but this time the cast were split up, allowing for three separate story-lines to unfold. Arthur Darvill's Rip Hunter and Caity Lotz's Sara Lance pair up to go after big bad Vandal Savage, and on the way take part in a couple of bouts of fisticuffs (less super, more hero). The pair share some moments of bonding as Rip helps Sara with her blood lust and she returns the favour by boosting his confidence, which we learn has taken a knock after Rip failed to kill Savage when he previously had the chance.

Story-line number two sees Wentworth Miller's Leonard Snart and Dominic Purcell's Mick Rory talk Franz Drameh's Jax Jackson into essentially being their getaway driver as the Prison Break brothers steal an emerald. This seemed quite out of character for Jax, he didn't get involved in the actual robbery part as such but I don't really buy that he would even go along with them in the first place knowing what their intentions were.

This story-line did throw up a nice twist as we learn that Snart only stole the emerald to give to his dad so he wouldn't have to steal it two days later. That event resulted in Snart Sr ending up in jail and sparking an abusive side, one which he took out on his family once released. Of course, time has a habit of repairing itself (or so we're told) and Daddy Snart was caught trying to sell the gem, ending up behind bars as he did before.

Our third narrative featured the remaining three Legends, as Victor Garber's Martin Stein and Brandon Routh's Ray Palmer teamed up to save Ciara Renée's Kendra Saunders. Palmer, in one of the few 'super' moments seen this week, Atom'd up and took a Fantastic Voyage inside Kendra (I could make a joke now about how her true love Carter Hall has only been dead a week and she's already got another man inside of her, but I'm bigger than that) to destroy the shards from the dagger that are in her bloodstream making their way to her heart. Palmer, like Hunter, has a moment of self doubt, fortunately Stein's on hand to feed him some BS and he completes his mission, with the pair bonding nicely in the process.

Kendra woke up just in time to overact (seriously, Ciara Renée must be earning half decent money for this show, can she not just spend a bit of it on acting lessons?), receiving a vision of the whereabouts of Carter Hall's corpse and the imminent demise of Hunter and Lance. The trio of Heat Wave, Captain Cold and Jax swoop in to save the day, overpowering Savage's followers and giving Rip Hunter the chance to make amends for his hesitation back in Ancient Egypt. A knife to Savage's torso might 'kill' this body but being that he's immortal sooner or later he's going to show up again, resurrected to continue his plans for world domination.

Blood Ties was another good episode, it was certainly much lighter on the SFX - no Firestorm or Hawkgirl, minimal Atom, Heat Wave and Captain Cold - and heavier on the bonding, but I quite liked the splitting up of characters into smaller groups as we seemed to learn a lot more about several individuals this way. When you're juggling eight central characters (nine with Savage) it's hard to give everyone their moment, the splitting of narrative helped with this. Unfortunately the episode finished with yet another round of reaffirmation that the Legends are in this together (we got that at the end of episode one.... and episode two), and it seems they've also learned that they are stronger together than apart, so maybe it'll be a while before this format is explored again. Oh well.

Roll on 1986...

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