SwiftBlog

So, where is it? Where is “Rubicon” in this world of multiple streaming platforms and DVD and Blu-ray physical media? Why has “Rubicon” been stricken from the record, completely removed from the entertainment zeitgeist the way sensitive material is blacked out when classified documents make their way to the general public? Why has “Rubicon” become akin to a botched covert op, something no one wants to talk about anymore, pushed far into the past?

The show, created by Jason Horwitch, was cut from the same cloth as "Three Days of the Condor." In that Sydney Pollack classic of post-Watergate paranoia, Robert Redford worked as a CIA analyst in a nondescript office building. Anyone strolling by outside would have no inclination that top-secret spy work was going on within. “Rubicon” has a similar setting, an office nestled somewhere in New York; somewhere down a side street, flanked by never-ending construction. Food carts on the corner. People bustling by outside, wrapped-up in their own lives, oblivious to whatever is going on inside that building.

At the center of “Rubicon” is Will Travers, an antisocial intelligence analyst who gets swept up in a confusing, far-reaching conspiracy. As played by James Badge Dale, Will is a shuffling, mumbling mope of a man. He’s no one’s idea of a spy, yet he’s the force that drives the show. The conspiracy he slowly uncovers over the course of “Rubicon”’s first and only season has great implications, and results in several fatalities—including that of his boss and mentor (Peter Geret)—yet the bulk action of the show remains almost entirely within that bland office building where Will and his team work. No car chases; no country jumping; nothing sleek or sexy. It’s all cold, hard work. Sometimes people die. Sometimes people clock out for the day and go home.

Will’s team are all equally lackluster in the “super spy” department. They’re not calm, collected, or deadly. They’re screw-ups, and achingly human. Dallas Roberts plays Miles, a brilliant guy with the jitters, incredibly awkward and going through a messy separation from his wife; Christopher Evan Welch is Grant, the smuggest member of the team, fully convinced of his own superiority to most of his coworkers; and Lauren Hodges is Tanya, the newest member of the team, with a major drinking problem, often strolling into work hungover. These are the types of people you might find in any office.

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