The Rubicon WTF? Factor: Parsing the Headscratch-y Reality of AMC's Newest Series

So: Did you watch Rubicon last night? Whether the first-episode preview lived up to the hype you had in mind, it boasted one quality we can all agree on: Jason Horwitch's show promises more than just an little bit out there. Thank goodness for Movieline's Rubicon WTF? Factor, a handy metric deriving each episode's most quizzical matters on a scale of 0 to 30, broken down byt the degree of difficulty to understand, the developments' plausibility, and Horwitch and Co.'s execution of each. Together, we will get our heads around this show. At least until it introduces a Smoke Monster, at which point I got nothing. (Needless to say, SPOILERS AHEAD.)

· WTF?: Four-leaf clover = Kill yourself

Context: Nice of Horwitch to drop the always-reliable Harris Yulin into the mix for about three brooding minutes before driving his character to suicide. While the wife (Miranda Richardson) and kids are playing outside in the snow, Tom Rhumor unearths a four-leaf clover tucked into his Sunday New York Times. The discovery nudges his obvious funk into a more reeling despair; Rhumor silently walks over to an end table, withdraws a pistol, and blows his brains out.

Thinking it Over: So basically the entire show (or at least the first season) is going to be about unraveling the meaning of the clover and its role in Tom Rhumor's life. Not to mention that of his wife, who, by all appearances, seems to have not known anything was amiss in their snow-dusted manor.

Degree of difficulty: 10, considering, well, it's the first scene and viewers know exactly nothing.

Plausibility: 6. A half-inch leaf prompting suicide gets discovered on top of the Styles section? That's a stretch. I would have at least gone for Week in Review.

Execution: 8. After that last scene of Breaking Bad, there is _no way I would have guessed AMC would go from black to blacker in consecutive scenes on separate shows. Surprise!

Total WTF? Factor: 24

· WTF?: Intrigue by way of crossword puzzles

Context: When we first meet Will Travers (James Badge Dale), it's just another morning at the American Policy Institute in New York -- and his colleague Tanya (Lauren Hodges) needs help figuring out the clues to that challenging three-down in the NYT crossword puzzle: "What lucky lepidoptera larvae eat." Er, OK. Much mumbling ensues about four-leaf clovers, bicameral legislatures, Grateful Dead, Fillmore, 13th president... as does lots of intense musical scoring moments later when Will's racing mind discovers that OMG the three daily newspapers have the same clues. This requires the attention of David (Peter Gerety), Will's immediate boss -- and father-in-law.

Thinking it Over: Hoo boy. Maybe we should break this up? Nah. David clearly knows something is going on here, shrugging it off as a puzzlers' inside joke before taking the papers down to black-eyed API middle-manager Kale Ingram (Arliss Howard). His death stare when David says he's the only one who saw the clues in the "three initiators" says pretty much all anyone needs to know about the big, bad consequences forthcoming.

Degree of difficulty: 8. It's a little easier to diagnose a conspiracy when you've got conspirators. Not that the conspiracy makes any sense yet.

Plausibility: 8. Crossword puzzle editors do play gags and inside jokes kind of frequently. What's to stop them from taking a payoff to drop this insane clue all at once?

Execution: 6. As noted above, the premiere was fond of overlaying various "thinking cap" music for texture when Will is basically doing nothing but sitting around contemplating to himself. This will get very old very fast. And you_still_ have to deal with the awkward expository dialogue anyway.

Total WTF? Factor: 22

· WTF?: API chief Spengler eats corn flakes every day -- for lunch

Context: Will joins co-workers Tanya, Miles (Dallas Roberts) an Grant (Christopher Evan Welch) in the cafeteria, where they watch their big boss Spengler (Michael Cristofer) enjoying his customary mid-afternoon cereal break. What begins as a quirky curio deteriorates into workplace pathos as Will is discovered to have lost his wife and daughter in the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11.

Thinking it Over: What is it this year with director Allen Coulter and 9/11? First came the maudlin Remember Me, and now we've got Rubicon's condensed lunch-break revelation. Is this part of the conspiracy, too? And how did we get here from a mysterious bureaucrat eating corn flakes by himself?

Degree of difficulty: 7. Is it too early to write it off as a MacGuffin?

Plausibility: 8. Some people like their corn flakes any time of day!

Execution: 8. I kind of loved that little note of workplace voyeurism depicted as lunch-break people-watching. Not sure if the downturn at the end totaly worked, but you take what you can get.

Total WTF? Factor: 23

Pages: 1 2