Written by Marc Guggenheim & Chris Fedak
Directed by Dermott Downs
Savage: "I pity you. You have no idea what it's like to have people willing to follow you up to the gates of hell."
Rip: "Actually I have a little bit of an idea."
If the first part of the pilot episode was very much Rip's story, then this episode certainly had elements of exploring him more while also making sure the rest of the main players (except Kendra) weren't left behind with nothing to do either.
First though, Rip - he's reckless, almost stupidly so and this episode highlighted it in a massive way by the fact that it was his own carelessness that put his family into Vandal Savage's cross hairs in the first place. Why the bloody hell did he tell Vandal the names of his wife and son? He knows the guy doesn't stay dead for long, so passing on that sort of information to someone as dangerous as Savage seemed like an irrevocably stupid thing to do.
For a guy who has lectured the rest of his team (something which they ignore) about messing with the timelines, Rip did exactly that in this episode alone. Maybe Rip should think before opening his mouth next time. On the plus side though, all of his scenes with Sara and Savage were the best part of the episode.
I liked that for the first time in this series, we're exploring the effects of Sara's resurrection. Her blood lust came into full display here by her merciless killings of Vandal's various henchmen - first at the bank and then at Savage's place towards the end of the episode. I don't think Sara is a monster either but she's certainly an unknown quantity with the effects of the Lazarus Pit still playing the role they currently are in her life.
As for Savage - well, Rip did kill him but it's hard to care because we've got several episodes left and we know the only person who actually kill Savage and have him stay dead is Kendra, who spent most of this episode suffering the effects of being stabbed by her own dagger. Of course this was where both Stein and Ray stepped in as the latter used his suit to destroy the shards internally while at the same time getting over some confidence issues and dealing with a rather thorny relationship with Stein himself.
Then there was Heatwave and Cold wanting to use Jackson's help in getting a hold of a certain diamond. Like Rip, Cold messed with the timelines in a bid to try and prevent his father from going to prison and becoming an abusive asshole but it didn't make any difference. I did like the subplot quite a bit and the various mixing up of team members with different plots is certainly keeping things fresh for the show at the moment. I do wonder though if it might have the odd episode not focusing on stopping Savage though.
- Shallow comment but how hot did both Rip and Sara look during their undercover stints in this episode? I also liked that Cold ditched the parka for something else this week too.
- No Arrow or The Flash people appearance in this episode, though there were clips from both shows at the start and a Thea mention.
- Heatwave isn't stupid. He knew what 'thick' meant after all and seemed to display some logical advice to Cold during their plot. We also had Carter's funeral when Savage wasn't drinking blood from his corpse.
- Chronology this week, 1700 BC Ancient Egypt and Leipzig, Germany in 1975. We are moving to 1986 next week though.
This was another fun episode. Effectively, Blood Ties had three different but relevant to each other plots, all of which connected quite nicely. I do like the mixing up with team members per episode and I do feel for the most part the show is doing a great job defining all of the characters pretty well. However the odd episode without Savage might help things as well.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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