Rubicon - Mid Season - Recap

Rubicon started out with a splash, being the third original series from AMC following the breakout hits Mad Men and Breaking Bad, but over the course of this first season, Rubicon has been criticized for being very slow paced, more like a long novel instead of shows like Burn Notice or Covert Affairs.

Most people agree that the show is brainy and ambitious. You can take a simple line of dialogue and come up with double meanings. For example, when a character says his favorite tea is Earl Grey. Well, Earl Grey is a brand of tea but its also the name of a British politician who passed the Great Reform Act of 1832 (which increased the number of people who could vote in England and Whales.) Pretty cool, huh, but does that a show make?

So we're seven episodes in and we started out with Will Travers finding a hidden code in several crossword puzzles that is based on a four-leaf clover.
Will has figured out that the four-leaf clover represents the branches of government: 1-Judicial, 2-Legislative, and 3-Executive. But what does that fourth branch represent? (maybe a shadow government?) That's the big question Will is trying to answer.

The day after he shows this code to his mentor and colleague David Haddis, he suspiciously dies in a train crash. Believing that David's death was no accident, Will follows clues that David left behind and his world, already grey after losing his family to 9/11, becomes filled with shadows and conspiracies.

So what have we found out so far on Rubicon? Well, its tough to say sometimes. We do know that from the minute that Will showed David that code, he was definitely spooked and seemed to be preparing for the worst, his own death. Also, the last time the code appeared was in 1983 after a marine barracks was bombed. When the code was published, the suspected bombers, supporters of Hezbollah, were assassinated. Oh, one of the guys who helped to write the code was David Haddis! Lastly, Will's boss, a guy named Spangler, seems to be part of this secretive fourth branch. And when any of the members get out of line, that member commits suicide. I don't understand that suicide part exactly, but one thing is for sure these guys, who are ex-CIA or the CEO of some big corporation, play for keeps.

Will crosses the Rubicon when he accepts the job once held by David Haddis, so that he can follow the clues no matter how far up the flag pole they lead.

As for us, we've been crossing the Rubicon over this first season and yes, its been slow at times, but we just have to splash some sea water on our faces and remember, there isn't a view like this one anywhere else.