Rubicon (TV series)
Rubicon is an American conspiracy thriller television series created by Jason Horwitch and produced by Henry Bromell that was broadcast on the AMC television network in 2010. The series centers on an intelligence analyst working for the American Policy Institute in New York City. He discovers that he may be working with members of a secret society that manipulates world events on a grand scale. The series stars James Badge Dale, Jessie Collins, Lauren Hodges, Miranda Richardson, Dallas Roberts, Christopher Evan Welch, Arliss Howard, and Michael Cristofer.
The original focus of the series was influenced by conspiracy films of the 1970s such as Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View, in which an innocent character is caught up in, and slowly unravels, a major conspiracy. Creative differences with the network, however, caused Horwitch to leave the series, after which Bromell focused the episodes more on the workers at API, which was changed from a think tank to a private intelligence agency.
Rubicon debuted on AMC on August 1, 2010, as a two-hour, two episode block. With two million viewers, the August 1 premiere set a record as the most watched debut of an AMC original series at that time. However, due to low viewing figures, AMC canceled Rubicon on November 11, 2010, stating that the show had been "an opportunity to tell a rich and compelling story, and we're proud of the series. This was not an easy decision, but we are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such a phenomenally talented and dedicated team."
Production
Concept
The show's title references Caesar's 49 crossing of the Rubicon in northeastern Italy, an act of war against the Roman Republic. A press release by Bromell noted that the Roman senators "were always afraid that the Roman army would someday take over, which is exactly what happened. And that's when the republic ended and the empire—which is a dictatorship—began." The river's history was also mentioned in episode 12, when Kale Ingram compares Katherine Rhumor's late husband to Cato the Younger, whose suicide permitted his family to "make peace with Caesar and a life of their own".The narrative of the show involves the main protagonist, an intelligence analyst, during his investigation into the mysterious death of his mentor, which is later revealed to be an act of a larger conspiracy committed by a secret society of war profiteers in corporate America, whose members may include his employer.
Creator Jason Horwitch conceived the show based on conspiracy films of the 1970s such as All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, and The Parallax View inspired by their slow-paced action and complex stories. After writing and producing the pilot, Horwitch left the show due to "creative disagreements" with the network. Producer Henry Bromell then took over the role as showrunner, making numerous changes including shifting the workplace from a civilian think tank similar to RAND to an intelligence consulting firm similar to STRATFOR. With Horwitch off-board, further production began on March 29, 2010, in New York City. Subsequent episodes shifted much of the series's focus to workplace dynamics instead of the original conspiracy.
Cast and characters
Main cast
- James Badge Dale as Will Travers: a brilliant man with an aptitude for pattern recognition, he is the leader of a team of analysts at a New York City international intelligence think tank, the American Policy Institute. Will's wife and daughter were killed during the September 11, 2001, attacks. Will was supposed to meet his wife and daughter at the World Trade Center on that date, but was delayed long enough to miss the attack. As a result of the tragedy, he is distracted and distant from his co-workers. He detects a pattern in the crossword puzzles of several U.S. newspapers, all published the same day, and reports his discovery to his father-in-law, mentor, and protector at the agency, David Hadas. Hadas assures Will that the pattern is likely of no value, and instead puts himself in harm's way by passing Will's discovery on to a supervisor at API. After Hadas is killed in a suspicious commuter train collision, the agency offers Hadas' job to Will. Will begins unraveling an apparent conspiracy with threatening U.S. national security implications, all based on the "go code" discovered in the crossword puzzles.
- Jessica Collins as Margaret "Maggie" Young: Will's assistant. She appears to be romantically interested in Will, but she has been unable to break through his emotional barriers. She has a daughter named Sophie, and she is estranged from her husband. Maggie tries to help Will, but also works for Kale, delivering information about Will and his team. Eventually, Kale recognizes that her feelings for Will could compromise the information she provides, and he tells Will that she has been spying on him. Will, who had become attracted to her, confronts Maggie and refuses to work with her further, though Kale assures Maggie she will remain at API.
- Lauren Hodges as Tanya MacGaffin: the newest member of Will's analysis team. She is the least experienced and consequently the most insecure, but very intelligent and also the most ambitious. She appears to have a substance abuse problem. She regularly comes to work hungover and keeps miniature bottles of vodka in her desk. Kale is made aware of her possible alcoholism by Maggie, and he passes that information to Will. Her problem comes to the attention of Spangler when she fails a bi-weekly urine test. Instead of being fired, Spangler assures her that the agency "takes care of its own" and offers her the help of a special drug rehab facility created for "the intelligence community".
- Dallas Roberts as Miles Fiedler: member of Will's analysis team. An MIT graduate with a genius-level IQ, he is the most distracted and anxious member of the team. His behavior is compounded by his recent estrangement and separation from his wife and children, a fact he conceals from his co-workers, but which affects the quality of his work. Miles respects Will as a boss, and clashes frequently with Grant.
- Christopher Evan Welch as Grant Test: the eldest member of Will's team. Impatient, irritable, and self-important, he resents being passed over as team leader in favor of Will. He clashes frequently with Miles and Tanya, using his seniority to bully the two on occasion. Married with two children, Grant's marriage is heavily strained by the demands of his job and the aggressive personality of his ambitious and emasculating wife.
- Arliss Howard as Kale Ingram: Will's enigmatic supervisor at API. Ingram is a veteran of U.S. Army Intelligence and has many friends in special operations. At API, he has tasked Maggie to spy on Will and the rest of his team. He is in regular contact with API's director, Truxton Spangler. Although the series implies that Ingram is involved in the conspiracy, he helps Will by providing him with leads in his investigation and by warning him that his home and office are bugged. He is very secretive about his personal life and past, but Kale invites Will to dinner with him and his live-in male partner at home. He twice mentions he was formerly in CIA "black ops", and that he was involved in a series of assassinations in Beirut in the 1980s.
- Miranda Richardson as Katherine Rhumor: the widow of businessman Tom Rhumor, who committed suicide. Determined to understand the reasons for the suicide, she turns to his best friend for help. When she realizes that he cannot be trusted, she is forced to investigate her husband's death on her own.
Supporting cast
- Michael Cristofer as Truxton Spangler: the formidable head of API and an executive of industrial titan Atlas MacDowell. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Spangler is an eccentric but brilliant man with an unusual sense of humor and highly suspicious nature. He discovered Kale Ingram and his associate Donald Bloom during their operations in Syria, and uses their talents for his own interests. He is zealously dedicated to maintaining API's independence from the government, and is initially fond of Will until he learns too much. Spangler is the brains of the conspiracy and uses intelligence from API to anticipate or create international crises for profit.
- Roger Robinson as Ed Bancroft: a genius and former API analyst whose intelligence and knack for pattern recognition exceeds that of Will. Prone to obsessive behavior, his compulsive drive to chart labyrinthine codes eventually caused a nervous breakdown, forcing him into retirement and a permanently fragile emotional state. He remained a long-time friend of David Hadas, who kept him updated about the events at API. He helps Will solve the mystery surrounding David's death, despite Will's concern for the effect his exhaustive efforts may be having on his psyche.
- Peter Gerety as David Hadas: Will's father-in-law and the original head of Will's team. He is preoccupied with superstitions and numerology, particularly bad luck and the number 13. After showing the crossword puzzle to Kale, he is killed in a commuter rail accident that Will suspects was an engineered assassination.
- David Rasche as James Wheeler: a friend of Tom Rhumor and member of the conspiracy. He is initially sent to monitor Katherine Rhumor's actions following her husband's suicide, but his patronizing attitude backfires and prompts her to investigate Tom's death. Wheeler shows signs of remorse for his part in the conspiracy and lies about Katherine's activities to the conspirators out of guilt and romantic interest in her. Wheeler soon realizes that Spangler is having him monitored and he ends his contact with Katharine.
- Annie Parisse as Andy: Will's neighbour and eventual love interest. Ostensibly an artist, she provides sanctuary to Will once he comes to realize that his apartment is under heavy surveillance. She is ultimately revealed to actually be an asset of an undisclosed intelligence organization.
- Natalie Gold as Julia Harwell: A fellow API employee who initially comes to Will's team when Miles Fiedler solicits her services as a translator. The recently separated Fiedler quickly develops romantic feelings for her. Harwell later more formally fills in on Will's team for Tanya MacGaffin after MacGaffin's substance abuse issues come to light.
Episodes
Reception
Rubicon received generally favorable reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it received a 69% approval rating with an average score of 7.75 out of 10 based on 29 reviews and a critical consensus of, "Rubicon creates an intellectual puzzle for the mind that is pieced together with skillful writing, acting, and carefully-crafted storytelling." On Metacritic, it scored 69 out of 100 based on 28 critic reviews. Most of the critics praised the show's cast and atmosphere, but many have criticized the lack of action and the slow development of the central mystery. The show has often been compared to AMC's other shows, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, because of their success and originality, Entertainment Weeklys Ken Tucker ended his review with such a comparison saying "Rubicon doesn't have the glossy panache of Mad Men or the in-your-face confrontations of Breaking Bad, but I think that's a good thing. It establishes Rubicon as its own distinct creation from AMC." About the lack of action on the show, Scott D. Pierce for the Deseret News wrote, "For a show that's supposed to be a spy thriller, there aren't a whole lot of thrills in Rubicon." Maureen Ryan from the Chicago Tribune commented, "This pleasantly low-key drama has little trouble creating an atmosphere, but the pace is sometimes slack in the first four episodes." However, some critics found the lack of action as smart and creative, as Tucker wrote: "Rubicon does it by creating an eerily quiet world in which small moments can generate great suspense. The discovery of a spy's clues planted in crossword puzzles, or Will's insistence that a guy is following him while we are shown that two different men are tailing him—these carry more dramatic weight than a score of car chases or martial-arts fight scenes."After the last episode had been aired, Adam Kirsch in The New Republic highlighted that the series had two parallel stories that seemed 40 years apart: Will's unraveling of the conspiracy, which so much tries to recreate the 1970s conspiracy films in which nobody seems to know that emails, databases and USB sticks have been invented; and the work of the analysts, which is definitely set in our post 9/11 world.
Rubicon made appearances in several 2010 top ten lists. Therese Odell, of the Houston Chronicle, listed Rubicon as the third best TV show of 2010, while Time magazine's James Poniewozik called Rubicon the ninth best show of the year. Rubicon also appears in Robert Lloyd's list, published in the Los Angeles Times, of the 10 shows that "made TV worth watching" in 2010, as well as in Maureen Ryan's list for TV Squad of the best TV of 2010.
In a 2010 article entitled "Whither Intelligence? Where Espionage Goes Wrong", David A. Andelman, writing for the World Policy Journal, described Rubicon as "perhaps the single most realistic interpretation of intelligence analysis".