The Blacklist Episode 2.12 The Kenyon Family

Somewhere in the Smoky Mountains, the denizens of the Church of the Shield compound are enthralled by a sermon on Lot and his daughters orated by their leader, elderly polygamist militiaman Dr. Justin Kenyon. Near the perimeter fence, two guards are loading ammunition crates into buried storage containers when they're shot dead. That's when we realize the sermon is the preamble to Kenyon's wedding to a 12-year-old girl. But just before the vows are uttered, a smoke grenade sails through a window and the door is locked from the outside with a scythe. Screams of murderous mayhem can be heard issuing from within.

Back in D.C., Cooper and his wife Charlene drive home from another dismal doctor's appointment. Cooper would rather talk about lunch then his health, so an angry Charlene makes her point clear: the doctor said the Georgetown clinical trial is his only shot at survival. Cooper wants to think it over, but Charlene is firm. He'll apply as soon as he gets to the office. Meanwhile, Liz meets Red at the DMV, where he waits for Glen. Liz doesn't want to hear about Justin Kenyon; the FBI knows exactly who he is and what he does, but they can't touch him by virtue of his four prominent civil rights attorneys. Red's unmoved, asking, "How do you suppose he pays for those high-priced lawyers?" It's not long before Liz is briefing the team: the buried shipping containers on Kenyon's compound comprise a storage facility for the criminal underworld, and Red has compiled a partial inventory from his sources. Now Kenyon has fallen off the radar, which means the world's crime elite can't access their goods. As a side note, Liz mentions "The Silver Bear Prophecies," a book Kenyon wrote in 1982 in which he alleged that he is the incarnation of the entity Silver Bear called The Ken'yon. After ascending to heaven for six days, Ken'yon and his children are purported to return to rain fire on the defiled U.S. and cleanse the streets with the blood of her founders' enemies. Since Kenyon's been off the grid for three days, there should be only 72 hours left before his version of Armageddon descends, but Reven Wright is skeptical. Besides, breaching the wilderness of his 78-square-mile compound is pretty much unthinkable. Could Reddington be wrong about Kenyon?

After a lifetime of waiting, an unusually tense Red has finally won an audience with Glen, who's enjoying turning the proverbial screw and watching Red lose his cool. It turns out Red wants Glen's help to find the safe Fitch mentioned just before he blew up, which is located on the second floor of some building in St. Petersburg. Moments later, Red is back in his car and still extremely irritated when Liz calls to voice Reven Wright's concerns that any maneuver will martyr Kenyon. Insisting they won't be disappointed, Red hangs up, just as a pair of state troopers pulls over a panel van on Highway 85. They're just about to question the driver when a massive explosion vaporizes the van and both men. Back at the Post Office, Aram discovers the van is registered to Kenyon's Church of the Shield and linked to several other stolen vans. Deciding it's time to trust Red, Cooper sends Liz and Ressler to the Kenyon compound, while Samar seeks out another stolen van. As his team scatters, Cooper takes a phone call. He didn't make it into the clinical trial...

Red returns to the DMV, where Glen makes his demands clear: If there's a hope in hell of finding Fitch's safe, Red will take Glen to St. Petersburg on his private jet. In the meantime, Liz and Ressler meet County Sheriff Meryl Starkweather and her TAC team at the Kenyon compound perimeter. Claiming Kenyon is reasonable - though he'll shoot to kill any trespassers - Starkweather wants to handle the operation herself... until the team pries open the doors of the chapel to find it filled with butchered men and women. Liz reports back to Red: there are no children among the dead, and most of the storage containers have been emptied of weapons and some serious ordinance. And there's still one more missing van. Red insists something has gone sideways with Kenyon's operation, just as Ressler discovers a little girl hidden in a cabinet.

Samar meets up with police on Interstate 270 outside Burtonsville, Maryland, where a filthy 10-year-old boy sits behind the wheel of another abandoned Kenyon van. Ignoring the cops' protests, Samar walks right up to the kid to acknowledge the detonator he holds in his hand, and his plan to kill a lot of people. Claiming the bomb will kill only the two of them, Samar talks the boy into relinquishing his deadly plan. Back in St. Petersburg, Red's temperature is skyrocketing, courtesy of Glen, who still hasn't found the safe. Glen insists he worked around the clock to track Fitch's purchase of the very apartment they're standing in - #221 - and produces the deed with a flourish. Steam pouring out of his ears, Red explains they're standing in #212! Once in #221, the wall safe is quickly located and opened. The only thing inside is a business card with a phone number, which Dembe immediately sets to tracing.

Back at the Post Office, Cooper, Samar and Aram take stock. Not a shot was fired in the compound's chapel - all the murders were committed by hand - or hand with a knife. Former cult member Dawn Weston calls the Weston field office to identify the boy van bomber as her son. It's not long before Samar is interviewing a tearful Dawn, who explains that to cult members, Kenyon's word is the word of God. According to his law, each man is to take three wives; but when he realized there were too many boys, he initiated "The Walkabout." Every January, lots were drawn among the sons between ages eight and 10 to find "The Chosen," who were feasted and celebrated as men, then stripped naked and abandoned deep in the woods. Back on the compound, Liz insists the team's first priority is to get the little girl Ressler found off the mountain safely before nightfall. When Liz climbs into an SUV with Ressler and the girl (whom we'll call Amy) and asks what she's looking at, Amy says, "Watchers." Neither Liz nor Ressler knows who's watching them, nor who shoots out the tire of the SUV, sending them headlong into a tree. Liz and Amy are unharmed, but the radio is shot, there's no cell reception, and Ressler is pinned into his seat by the tree trunk - a near miss. Liz spies smoke in the woods, so she leaves Starkweather to watch over the SUV. But when Starkweather investigates the crunch of footsteps, a band of filthy young men attack her and the SUV, dragging Ressler and Amy away.

Cooper enters his office to find his old buddy Tom Connolly, who's all but confirmed as the next Attorney General. Cooper declines Connolly's invitation to become his director, citing health issues. When Connolly won't take no for an answer, Cooper explains these issues are serious, and since he can't get into the clinical trial, there's little hope. Afterwards, Samar updates Cooper on the situation with the boys of the Kenyon compound: the bombing attacks have been masterminded by a tribe of the discarded survivors led by Kenyon's son David, who worship the prophecies of Ken'yon. When Aram fails to reach Liz and Ressler, Samar calls Red to report them missing. Knowing the search could take days, Red asks Samar to send an inventory of the stored weapons before heading out there herself. Meanwhile, Liz returns to the SUV to find Amy and Ressler have vanished. A bloody Starkweather grabs Liz's ankle before dying.

Red surfaces in a greenhouse, where his friend Ruth Peasley is presiding over a beatdown. Asking for her undivided attention, Red promises to be forever indebted if she'll give him the activation codes for the Hellfire missiles she's stored at the Kenyon compound. Then he calls Samar with news that he has activated the cameras in the missiles' nose cones, giving him GPS coordinates. Meanwhile, Liz finds herself surrounded by young filthy boys, just outside a handmade derelict structure in the woods. After stroking her hair, they bring Liz inside to talk to David Kenyon, who explains the polygamous teachings of Ken'yon - Amy will soon be his wife, and Ressler is tied up. When Ressler makes a move, Liz grabs one of the boys' rifles, giving Samar and the TAC team a window to move in. Just as Liz and Samar find Kenyon dead and defiled, an HRT team leader runs up with a location on the missing van, parked just outside the derelict structure with David at the wheel. Liz has just about talked him out of detonating when another young Kenyon man, Caleb, materializes out of the woods to shoot David, killing him instantly.

Connolly drops by the Post Office to deliver good news to Cooper, along with a fine bottle of single malt. He pulled some strings and got Cooper into his trial at Georgetown. Red waits for Liz in her office. He seems uninterested in the news that whatever he had stored at the Kenyon compound is long gone. Instead, he offers Liz a key to a luxury penthouse apartment at the Audrey - it's time to leave her crappy motel room behind. Refusing his generous offer, Liz asks Red to stop trying to make things better between them. Their relationship is just business... and that's all it's ever going to be. Red moves on into the night, as Dembe drives him to the Kenyon compound's chapel. Red pushes over the altar to reveal a trapdoor leading to a subterranean storage container that houses a 1968 Lincoln Continental presidential limousine. Red turns the key and the 8-track player whirs to life, playing Sammy Davis, Jr.'s version of "If My Friends Could See Me Now." After a contemplative moment, Red pops the trunk and withdraws an aluminum briefcase. Dembe hands Red a burner phone, then explains that the number from the St. Petersburg safe traces back to a blind exchange, and there's no identifying the party whom he'll be speaking with. Red dials the number, then says, "I'm calling on behalf of Alan Fitch." When the voice on the other end asks whether he found the safe, Red asks, "Who the hell is this?"