Legends of Tomorrow - 'Blood Ties'

We are goddamn sexy superspies, bitches.

With the team on the back foot, Sara suggests a means to slow Vandal Savage down: Take out his money. Meanwhile, Jax works on the Waverider's scout ship and gets roped into a little side mission, and Stein and Ray try to save Kendra's life.

The third mission is the most straightforward, as Ray goes all Atom to blast fragments of the Amun dagger out of Kendra's bloodstream before they kill her. Unfortunately, Ray is suffering a crisis of confidence after almost destroying history and nearly getting the break-in team killed twice in the pilot episode, especially as Stein seems to have no memory of being his teacher. It falls to Stein to listen as Ray reminds us - or tells those who weren't following Arrow - that his fiancee was murdered by Mirakuru soldiers, and then deliver a rousing pep talk before sending Atom in to frag those fragments. Ultimately he admits that he really doesn't remember Ray, but explains that 'I've had a lot of exceptional students.'

Jax agrees to fly Snart and Roary to Central City, where they break into a museum and steal an emerald. That's not the end of the trip though, as Roary realises Snart's actual plan is not to keep the emerald but to hand it over to his father, preventing Lewis Snart going to jail trying to steal it and thus keeping the Snart family modestly happy and comfortable. Despite a moving interaction with both Lewis and his younger self, however, the plan fails, as dad is arrested the next day while trying to sell the emerald to an undercover cop.

"Who wants leg?"

The main arc of the episode, however, follows Sara and Rip's attempt to follow the money. They rock up at a bank looking like rich bitches, but the bank is staffed by lethal mercenaries who make Sara as one of their own. In the ensuing fight, Rip sees Sara's bloodlust in action (this week is big on callbacks to Arrow) but they capture the bank manager Blake who tells them where Savage and his most precious possession, 'the vessel' will be, quite openly in order to see them try to stop the unstoppable. Although knowing it is a trap, they show for Savage's soiree because they learn that the vessel is Carter Hall's body, to which Savage is going to do bad things.

How bad? Well, basically they're going to eat him. The party guests are Savage's followers, a fanatical cult who worship him as a god and enjoy a minor form of his immortality granted by imbibing the blood of Khufu and Shayera's reincarnations. They even have their devil in the 'Gareeb', since Rip Hunter made his first attempt to stop Savage before he became immortal. He hesitated, and hates himself for that as much as Sara hates herself for her bloodlust. Rip gets his chance to (temporarily) shank Savage when Kendra has a vision of the cannibal feast and sends Jax, Snart and Roary to rescue Sara and Rip, but in his rage he gives away the names of his family, allowing Savage to swear that he will remember those names, kill them and so complete the circle.

This show has a lot of fun with costuming.

'Blood Ties' wraps up the 1975 section of Legends of Tomorrow with the funerals of Carter Hall and Aldus Boardman, and cements the team-building from last week with Rip declaring that all of them - himself included - have to learn to open up and work together. Snart, Ray, Sara and Rip all get some good personal moments this week, although Kendra was disappointingly unconscious and acting as a means to advance Ray's plot given that she's fully half of the female cast.

The cast is all good, but particular props are due to Casper Crump, who eschews the traditional booming voice for a soft sneer that just drips with disdain for the frailty of human existence. His utter assurance, absolute cruelty and reveling in the worship of others make him a much more effective villain than just a hard-to-kill knife guy.

Next week, we're off to the 80s for parachute pants, big shoulder pads, bigger hair, and probably at least one Back to the Future reference.