Will Travers - played by James Badge Dale (Chase on 24) - plays a code-cracking operative who works for API, a (fictional) Federal spy agency that's a bit above the CIA and the all the lettered agencies we know about. His wife and daughter were killed in one of the towers on 9/11 - and his immediate boss at API is his father-in-law. The big shocker in the opener - read no more if you have not seen it - is the father-in-law gets killed in a commuter train crash, definitely presumably not an accident. Travers is offered a promotion to his father-in-law's job, and he takes it.
Part of the fun of this show, if that's the right word, are the word puzzles that appear in various written media. Part of the fun is seeing how Travers' team operates - in the episode this week, we see them truly struggling with whether to authorize a surgical strike on a terrorist that may kill innocent people. And part of the fun is seeing how the API maintains its shakily superior position over other spy agencies.
With all the spy stories in books, the movies, and on television, I've somehow never seen a show quite like Rubicon. It has a little less action than you'd expect, but that's to the good, because the time freed up is devoted to more cerebral issues of the spy business - sort of like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
I'll be back here from time to time as the spirit moves me for review of an episode - I'll definitely be watching every one.
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7 comments:
I've been watching this since the first episode and as much as I love the show I worry that it may be too cerebral of a show to last past the first season.
Umm...Will's wife & daughter died in one of the towers on 9/11, not in a car crash. That's kind of important since Will works as an intelligence analyst in NY city...
Thanks - I just corrected - what I call a "mindo" - I confused with NCIS or another show I was just watching...
I definitely agree with you on the "Spy Who Came In From the Cold" feel, Paul. :)
Was wondering if you were going to write about this show or not. Been watching since the first episode, as well. I agree with the commenter who said it may be too cerebral to last past one season. I worry about that.
Fortunately, it is on AMC and not ABC.
I watched the first 2 episodes before deciding to abandon it altogether. But I did have to mull over it a bit since it's one where you just cannot miss a single episode. Until reading your blog, I really wasn't sure why I decided to drop it--b/c, as you wrote, it is very 'cerebral' & I do really love intellectually stimulating content. Now I think it was the lack of action/drama events that led to my decision. The closest it got there was with all of the random men in the trench coats who visibly shadow Will from street corners 1-2 blocks down the way. But he was too reserved to do much with that. Guess I wanted him to act (i.e. action) like Mulder always did on 'The X-Files' with the mysterious men he'd sometimes find in his shadows. lol
I did really like how the team scans world headlines & event occurrences, discovering hidden codes et al. But that also made me wonder constantly about the status of John Nash's paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis in "A Beautiful Mind". Perhaps Nash's hallucinations really weren't all simply the creation of a diseased brain afterall?
Watching the pilot, not sure so far.
Sort of like 3 Days of The Condor meets Mad Mean.
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