If you haven’t seen the first two episodes of AMC’s latest offering, Rubicon, I suggest you hie yourself to the AMC website and watch them before digging into this Sunday’s episode (at 9:00 EST).
Here’s why it appeals to me:
1. Paper is king. People read on this show. They do the crossword puzzle. The show is set at some sort of intelligence agency (but not the CIA), and people are given stacks upon stacks of documents and photos to analyze. I’ve seen two people watch TV, but I have yet to see someone type furiously on a computer keyboard while his/her monitor displays some sort of techo-dazzle that only exists on TV.
In fact, the crossword puzzle is a key plot element. The first episode begins with a wealthy man (if you’re like me, you exclaimed, “Hey, it’s Quentin Travers!” when you saw him) committing suicide after seeing a four-leaf clover on his morning paper. (See? Reading!) Then the credits roll. The next scene introduces Will Travers, Rubicon‘s main character, solving a particularly tricky crossword puzzle clue: “What lucky lepidoptera larvae eat.” The answer is “four-leaf clovers” — COINCIDENCE? Most likely not, and I’m sure the rest of this season is going to uncover the connection between the two.
What I didn’t quite buy is that Will knows the Latin for four-leaf clover, the correct answer to the puzzle, off the top of his head. Then again, I just met the guy. Maybe this is a defining character trait — he’s bookish, possibly savantish. Probably why his shirt is always untucked.
But despite that, I love that paper and books and puzzles are central to the show. I’ve always loved word puzzles. I don’t even mind the amount of time the show spent showing us Will working through a book-related cypher.
2. The show is intricately written — it’s only after rewatching the pilot after watching the second episode that I realized how intricate. David — the super-superstitious team leader killed in a train accident in the pilot episode, who also happens to be Will’s father-in-law — gives Will a book early on in the first episode, and it’s this book that Will uses to work through the aforementioned cypher in episode two. When Will brings David the information about the same crossword puzzle clues running simultaneously in several different international newspapers, David brings it to his superior, saying “I’ve never seen anything like this.” NOT TRUE, we learn in the second episode — he actually CREATED the first crossword puzzle cypher back in 1983.
Did David know about the train crash? Did he know, as not-Quentin Travers seemed to know, that his time was up, and he’s setting all the puzzle pieces in play for Will to pick up?
3. For that matter, I love the overall old-school espionage feel that the show has. I love that it’s quiet. It heightens the suspense and my suspicion that the character Arliss Howard plays is up to no good. (How can he be, when he’s clearly manipulating Maggie [Will's assistant] into spying on Will’s team?)
4. I love Miranda Richardson. As the widow of the wealthy guy (Tom Rhumor, I looked it up. Rhumor? Really? Subtle. Also subtle: opening the show with kids playing hide and seek. But I’ll let that pass — it made me chuckle) she’s starting to learn about her late husband’s secret life (an AMC show specialty, apparently) and I’m looking forward to further discoveries and how her path will cross with Will’s — because surely it does.
5. I’m a sucker for anything set in New York, really.
So I’m pretty hooked and will probably pick up a season pass on iTunes to keep up with the show. I do like this concept of ala carte television. Why spend $120 a month to watch two or three shows when I can pay $56? I wonder how soon cable packages will start including the ala carte options, so I can pick and choose which channels I want. I’d restart my cable subscription if I could just have, say, AMC and BBCA and maybe one or two others, and leave off the rest.
Did you watch Rubicon? What did you think? Worth watching more?
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