Look, I gave up on this show, too. I mean, the original showrunner gave up on this show for "creative differences." That's a pretty terrible sign. I was actually supposed to cover Rubicon on a weekly basis, but I didn't particularly care for the first episode (though, that train wreck was certainly cool!) and the show, after one recap, became an afterthought. I even went as far to remove it from my DVR queue (which is rare considering that I still have something called The Loop, which hasn't been on the air since 2007, on my DVR queue). A funny thing happened: AMC kept sending me early screeners and, eventually, I could no longer keep staring at poor James Badge Dale on the cover of the DVD, running toward me, begging me to watch. So I started watching. I watched as far as the episode that's airing this coming Sunday. My reaction: Holy hell, this has become a really good show.
At one point, Rubicon was in prime position to set the world record for "slowest paced episodic television show." I even joked that I wasn't smart enough to understand Rubicon. As it turned out, though, it wasn't particularly confusing, it was just boring. Through the first three episodes, no character ever seemed to turn on a light let alone say something interesting. Minutes of screen time would be spent watching a guy we barely knew sit alone in the dark. I'd think, wait, that's what I'm doing right now; why would I want to watch someone else to that on television?
Rubicon, if you're not up to speed, is the story of Will Travers (James Badge Dale) who works at an independent intelligence agency called API, an organization whose purpose is to analyze the intelligence from all the different government agencies in an effort to help those agencies communicate with each other. Will's boss (and former father-in-law) is murdered and he attempts to get to the bottom of what happened -- while being bugged by his own employer -- while, at the same time, help his team decode information which can prevent a terrorist attack.
Somewhere, around the sixth episode, something happened. I mean that literally -- something finally happened. But things kept happening and, most importantly, the characters started developing personalities. I'm not making this up, Kale Ingrim (Arliss Howard) just may be the best character on television right now. See, that was a problem with the early episodes, the conspiracy of what happened to David, Will's murdered boss, took precedence over, you know, building characters.
If you ducked out early, you left too soon. But that's not your fault, it shouldn't take a series half a season to get interesting. I'm just letting you know (an "FYI," if you will), that with two unaired episodes left, it's gotten really good.
If you don't want to catch up On-Demand or iTunes, here's the basics of where we are headed going into Sunday: Will has gotten way too close to the truth about David's death and how this all ties into a pending terrorist attack. So close that Truxton Spangler -- the head of API -- ordered a hit (that's slang for, "will you please kill this man for me in exchange for some money?") on Will. It failed, barely, and Kale was called in by Will to clean up the mess in his apartment -- a la The Wolf in Pulp Fiction. The Katherine Rhumor (Miranda Richardson) storyline is finally paying off. She and Will frequently converse and, as it turns out, her husband, who killed himself in the first episode, was very much a part of this entire conspiracy. So much so that it drove him to suicide. Also, Grant is not near as prickish as he was in the first few episodes; he's actually become a likable enough guy.
We live in a society of forgiveness. You need to forgive Rubicon. This is certainly not one of those pieces -- you know, admonishing you for having the audacity not to be interested in the finer aspects of what I happen to feel is great television. You were right to give up on Rubicon, it was going nowhere. Though, miraculously, with a new showrunner, it turned itself around and did go somewhere. Somewhere pretty great, actually. I can't blame you if you don't watch -- especially if you feel compelled to sludge through the first few episodes -- but, I promise, you'll be rewarded. (Or, at least, I promise that it's better than The Loop.)