TV Thoughts: Rubicon

everybody watches one show that, no matter what, they seem to be utterly entranced by it, week after week.

right now, that show's Rubicon for me.





Rubicon you ask? Why Patrick, I'm not as zombie-like in my attachment to television and film. what, pray tell, is rubicon?

in short, it's a Suspense drama about conspiracy theory. AMC has brought its A-Game yet again with a tight, twisty, gripping thriller about an analyst who gets in over his head. Will Travers is a brilliant mind- a bit odd, but then the best always seem to be. His socially-awkward nature is not goofball but more of a halting, inconsistent ability to simply be aware of his surroundings. His mind is perfectly suited to digging through masses of government-protected files, looking for the secret connections between various facts and circumstances. We learn from the get-go that API, the company he works for, is some sort of fictional Analysis company that takes separate sections of CIA case files and then begins to put together the pieces. Even when the analysts are left in the dark on what the Bigger Picture means.

But when Will's mentor and boss dies, a trail of clues and suggestions left by the dead man and the circumstances around his death open the door to a caliber of conspiracy that Will is completely awash in, within hours of his first tug of the yarn. The labyrinthine clues and subterfuge and spy-like nature of their business makes Will's team and his antagonists a very interesting bunch to watch.

these characters aren't very subtle about their flaws, which may simply have to be in order to counteract the utter Stanislavskian tendency to leave many thoughts unspoken but screaming in the silence. It's grown on me, the idea that this is a company built on lies, from lying to your wife about working a dull desk job because you're a Security-Sealed employee on a daily basis, to learning that your boss is spying on you, may be running a corrupt secret organization, and you're lying to everyone you know about this because it could mean you're dead by dinner.

The show goes through many twists, as this first season charges onwards. The episodes range in speed but always add something nice to the pot. The intrigue and double-betrayals and revelations are constantly keeping me hunched over the edge of the seat, and a few genuine laughs are certainly present to add some levity and allow the viewer to breathe once in awhile :-)

As a mystery/spy nut, I will say that this show hits all the right spots without being overly campy (I'm looking at you, SALT) or having an edge to it that turns off many fans (RIP "traveler", which few may remember as a short-lived ABC series with potential misused). The patterns and the ensemble are a pleasure to watch slowly unfold and something yet-to-be-fully-nameable has just drawn me in like a moth to flame.

James Badge Dale is a treat to watch-- Will's internal process of factfinding and his whole body are very subtle but 100% fascinating as he tries to reason his way through the mess that he's found himself in. I look forward to future seasons of this show and can't wait to see what AMC brings me next.

4 out of 5 Cryptograms.