Blood & Treasure: Observations From “The Ravens of Shangri-La”

The seventh episode of the long-awaited second season of Blood & Treasure aired on Paramount+ on Sunday night, moving forward with the story of Danny McNamara and Lexi Vaziri as they are on the hunt for the latest antiquity that is also desired by a dangerous terrorist and his vicious team of killers.

Episode seven found Danny and Lexi back in the States, based on the lead they discovered in Kazakhstan (remember that watch with the Raven logo on the back?) Meanwhile, in Rome we had Kate and Chuck seeking the connection between the Vatican and the CIA.

The synopsis for the seventh episode, entitled “The Ravens of Shangri-La,” is “Danny enlists his estranged father, Patrick, in their quest for the Spirit Banner. Patrick leads them to a secret base in Laos, where he makes a startling admission to Lexi about the secret he’s hiding from his son.”

The Good:

I have two words for you: Lindsay Wagner!

How cool was it that the Bionic Woman herself was in this episode (that show meant a lot to me as a kid!), and that her character had a connection to Danny’s dad when he was stationed in Vietnam. I’m sure that everyone watching thought Daddy McNamara was talking about a guy when he told those tales about The Marshall, but I have to admit that I got to see some promo pictures for this episode a couple days ago so 1) I knew that Lindsay was going to be in the episode, and 2) I deducted (like I’m sure a lot of other viewers did too) that Lindsay was going to be The Marshall. And, how cool that she was the namesake for our Danny. That was a cool little reveal in my opinion.

I loved how well Daddy McNamara did getting them out of trouble with The General (what is it with the titles in this show, though? The Great Khan. The Marshall. The General. Really?!) through his old friend, and then getting them (him, Danny and Lexi) out of Shangri-La in that helicopter. The look on Danny’s face seeing his dad being a hero was kind of special too.

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The Bad:

Well, the obvious bad was Lexi going ballistic on that guy with the Great Khan tattoo on his hand; and worse yet, that that guy turned out to be a member of the worst drug cartel in The Golden Triangle. That just seems to be par for the course with them, right? They always end up on the wrong side of the worst kind of bad guys.

Even worse, was after an incredible fist fight and gunfight (with Lexi manning that machine gun inside the helicopter), the helicopter experienced major problems, causing them to crash. And, Lexi sustained a serious injury from a piece of the helicopter that she pulled out of her body before collapsing. Thank you so much (NOT!) for that cliffhanger ending.

So, the clinical trial was only masking Daddy McNamara’s cancer. It’s not making him any better. I can understand his reticence about telling Danny the truth, but now Lexi is saddled with that truth. Hopeful Daddy McNamara comes clean about his short life expectancy before it’s literally too late, and before she lets something slip considering how badly she is hurt from that helicopter crash.

And, just an aside, it was great that Lexi and Daddy McNamara got to have a little bonding time, but that snake wine? Gross!

Additional Thoughts:

While I love seeing any story that has to do with Chuck, I’m not sure I really like his pairing with Kate. I get it that she’s a means to an end since she works for the CIA, and, of course, she’s tied back to Jacob Reece from season one, but she’s just not working for me as a character. I don’t really care about her. I’d love it if the writers could find a way to get Chuck and Shaw back together to work on this part of the mystery. I’m sure that’s not possible, but I would just prefer that.

The one good thing that came out of that pairing is that we knew what A.G. stands for. I’m not going to attempt to spell it out; rather I’ll use the meaning behind what A.G. stands for: The Secret Sword. A splinter group that was supposedly disbanded years ago? Great! Just what our team needs. Yet another group that will be coming after them. Like they don’t have enough bad guys on their tail.

Make sure to tune in to Paramount+ next Sunday, August 28 for the next new episode.

A new episode of Blood & Treasure will air each Sunday on the streaming service.

You can also rewatch season 1 of Blood & Treasure on Paramount+.