Lifetime Review: 'Keeping Up With the Joneses: The Wrong Blackmail'

Robin Jones (Vivica A. Fox) may be home safe and sound, but things are far from over when it comes to her family's problems. After Robin was kidnapped and held captive, Pam (Arie Thompson) reluctantly relinquished her family's Harborside deal in exchange for her release. Now, with each of the Jones sisters receiving emails containing compromising information that could destroy them, the women realize they have to stick together if they want to save Jones Enterprise. After all, their suspicions that Robin might be conspiring against them with their father's old nemesis Webb Devereaux (Ted McGinley) have gotten a lot stronger.

On top of their conflict with Webb, the Joneses have other problems to grapple with. Despite Carrie's insistence that her boyfriend is on their side, her sisters are skeptical of whether or not Webb's son Lance (Adonis Williams) can be trusted. Kayla (Shellie Sterling) is still reeling from her miscarriage and her treacherous fiancé William (Marcos James) is still causing her and Pam--his former mistress--grief. The scorned Maria (Stacey Patino) is still looking to have revenge on the women she blames for destroying her life. With all these enemies plotting in the shadows and friction in the Jones household being as high as it's ever been, can this infamous family still come out on top?

While The Wrong Blackmail may be the end of the Joneses trilogy, I can't help but feel like this isn't the last we've seen of this family. Ending with a few opportunities for story expansion still viable and with at least one threat to Jones Enterprise still standing, I wouldn't be surprised if a Keeping Up With the Joneses TV series were to materialize in the coming months. But if that doesn't happen, The Wrong Blackmail is a great way to close the book on the Joneses and their web of drama. The cast still gives it their best efforts, their characters are still compellingly nuanced, and the action is more consistent than the previous Joneses film.

While The Wrong Letter dipped when it came to drama and suffered from some inactive antagonists, The Wrong Blackmail makes up for it by throwing the viewer into the deep end right away. You've hardly gotten past the title screen before the Jones sisters have each received the threatening emails. While the digital blackmail angle doesn't go far, it leads into a well-paced drama where the Jones sisters pull together to figure out how they're going to save their father's company and stop whoever is trying to destroy it. Like in the past films, the actors playing the Jones sisters give strong performances as the morally ambiguous pack of siblings. The only weak link would be Jasmine Aivaliotis. She ended The Wrong Family with a bout of stiff delivery and she has some scattered spells of it here too. But otherwise, Aivaliotis makes it fun to watch as Tara plays a bigger role in the action, helping Pam deal with William and SPOILER ALERT giving Maria the high-voltage comeuppance she deserves. Spoilers Over

Tara also develops a sweet camaraderie/partnership with Pam that was starting its formation in The Wrong Letter, with Aivaliotis and Arie Thompson selling the change in their characters' relationship. Thompson also gets a nice little emotional moment to sell on her own when we see her briefly reminisce about her late father and his accomplishments. Another Jones sister who shows a different facet of themselves is Carrie Jones. Usually the most demure sister of the bunch, Carrie lets her darker Jones qualities out as she continues defending her boyfriend Lance and nastily lashing out at her family for being suspicious of his intentions. Ciarra Carter is as much of a fireball in these scenes as she was for similar scenes back in The Wrong Letter. But this new dynamic for Carrie comes with the side effect of having to endure more of holier-than-thou Lance Jenkins. Adonis Williams' acting is better here, but it still can't take away the frustration of watching Lance and the script continue to pretend he's nothing like his father after The Wrong Letter showed him aiding Webb in his bid to take down the Joneses. At least he's not in this film long enough to become too much of a headache.

Speaking of Webb, he's another character who we get to see another side of during The Wrong Blackmail; one which Ted McGinley does a stellar job depicting. After the previous movies gradually showed more and more of Webb Devereaux's darker half, we finally get to see and learn about his capacity for cruelty in its fullest form. As hypocritical as Lance is, some of the remarks Webb makes about his own son are just despicable. SPOILER ALERT It makes Webb's terribly shot/edited death scene all the more annoying. After all he'd done, not least of all presumably being responsible for the accident that killed Theodore Jones, the viewers should've been able to fully savor Webb meeting his watery maker by Robin's hand. It brings to mind the similarly botched scene of Tara getting knocked out in The Wrong Letter, but this scene is much worse.

At least the badly done death scene leads to an excellent potential wrap-up for the series: the Jones women converged at Theodore's grave, affirming that (for all their differences) they're still a family and will always work together to preserve their patriarch's legacy. It also serves as a proper conclusion to Robin's character arc. After a movie and a half of her familial loyalty being called into question, Robin ultimately shows that she truly did love Theodore and would never betray that love by betraying his daughters or aligning with his main rival/presumed killer. Spoilers Over

As for the lesser involved characters and their actors, Shellie Sterling gets an amazing scene where Kayla finally lets the two-faced William have it and Marcos James follows McGinley's lead in giving a stellar performance as it becomes clear that William is a truly heartless man. But after The Wrong Family hyped him up as a connivingly twisted man capable of being as worthy an opponent to the Joneses as Webb, it's definitely disappointing to see him get dealt with so easily. It's also weird to see the implied obsession William had with Pam in the first movie go untouched and for the series to potentially end without Kayla finding out that her sister had been sleeping with her fiancé. If a TV series comes out for the Joneses, William French better be making a comeback as a renewed threat.

It's also disappointing how, apart from one conversation the sisters have about her, Maria doesn't get a true "Reason You Suck" speech for her self-righteous efforts to "avenge" her greedy murderer of a brother. At least Stacey Patino still gives a solid performance as a scorned sister who SPOILER ALERT ultimately learns the hard way how in over her head she is with the Joneses. Relating to that, Michael Paré's ambiguous performance from The Wrong Family finally pays off as Sheldon reveals he's in Webb Devereaux's pocket and willing to kill to keep their plan on track. But in another weird loose end, we never learn what happens to Sheldon after Webb's death. Add him to the list of things that need to be revisited if a new film saga or TV show is being planned. Spoilers Over The only noteworthy new appearance here is Eric Roberts as Jones Enterprise ally Leo. While Leo is a pretty minute character who doesn't get to do a lot, Roberts still gives a bit of his usual charm to the cameo.

While the plotlines that get left without a satisfying end are fairly irritating, I'm going to hold out hope that this isn't really the end of the Jones saga and they'll be addressed in the future. Plus, even if this is the Jones family's swan song, the delicious drama and exceptional characters make the loose plot threads easier to accept. The actors continue to know how to bring their characters to life and the script offers an assist by allowing some characters the chance to show new aspects of themselves as things reach a boiling point. I'm hoping this isn't the last hurrah for Robin Jones and her stepdaughters, but if it is, they're going out as strong as their business is lucrative.

Score: 8 out of 10 ghost trusts.