The Blacklist Review: “The Kenyon Family” (Season 2, Episode 12)

As for the case of the week, Red’s direction of the FBI to the Kenyons has to do with the fact that their sprawling compound in the Smokey Mountains is the perfect place to hide some contraband. By storing enough weapons on behalf of terror groups and criminals to supply World War III and IV, dealing with the Kenyon Family promised to be a sensitive situation. Fortunately for Liz and Ressler, someone already decided to take out the cult for them.

We learn that the cult of Kenyon, and its policy of every man getting three wives, hit a fatal flaw: too many men, not enough women. In a logical contortion that’s even straining for The Blacklist, we learn that the Kenyon Family chose one boy every year to celebrate, commemorate and then unleash out in the woods to fend for himself alone against nature; population control by way of The Hunger Games, I guess. It was this tribe of “lost boys,” led by the elder Kenyon’s own son, that killed everyone, kidnapped Kenyon, and set about the task of bringing about the end of the world. How that was to be done by having young kids blow themselves up in vans filled with explosives, is never explained.

If it seemed bizarre that a crazy cult leader that kept such a tight control over his flock would allow a smaller, competing society to grow nearby and not, I don’t know, double-check to make sure that the abandoned kids did indeed die after being exposed to the elements, you’re not alone. And didn’t it seem odd that kids living out in the middle of the boonies were able to build their own stronghold, with working electricity? Hey, I got a kick out of seeing Ressler being dragged behind an ATV in a Degrassi version of Deliverance, but where did they get the gas for the ATV, or those vans for the suicide bomb? And who taught them to drive? Something tells me this was not entirely well thought out.

Also not well thought out seemed to be this storyline about Director Cooper’s health. It’s a plot thread so imperative that you barely remember it’s happening. Red mentioned something about a diagnosis in the season premiere, and then we saw Cooper and his wife seemingly get bad news in a dialogue-less scene at the conclusion of the “Luther Braxton” two-parter. And although the episode addressed the issue more directly than it has before, he still don’t know what Cooper has, but it’s dire enough to warrant potential participation in a clinical trial, and for Cooper to turn down a chance to be director of the FBI when it was offered by the returning prospective Attorney General Tom Connolly. And if you think that Connolly wasn’t involved in some funny business to get Cooper in the backdoor of the clinical trial after being initially refused, then there are some kids living in the woods I’d like to tell you about.

In the final mystery of the night, we see Red accessing a secret compartment under the Kenyons’ chapel where there’s a presidential limousine with a silver briefcase in the back. We know that Red is enigmatic and with his own agenda, but come on, a presidential limo?! Red’s missions for the FBI usually have some side benefit for him, but that benefit is usually pretty obvious by the time the credits roll. What does he get out of accessing the briefcase in the limo? Is it his, and if so, why did he need to get the family out of the way? And if that stuff isn’t his, then how did Red know it was there, and how does this affect his own plans?

Overall, this was a promising episode of The Blacklist, but I felt my feelings towards it get chillier as I’ve been writing the recap. Whenever The Blacklist’s already tenuous relationship with logic is strained, then you know the episode’s in trouble, but at least we’ll always have an Odd Couple that delivers.