Last night was perhaps the last episode of Rubicon that we will ever see, which means that the image of Will Travers noticing the four-leaf clover and horrifically gazing into the dark -- figuratively and literally -- just might be how we'll always have to remember him. But will the 13-episode first season of Rubicon amount to a big nothing -- will it wind up, as Spangler said to Will, with no one "[giving] a sh*t?" Hopefully not. I loved last night's episode as a finale. Let me rephrase: I loved last night's episode as a season finale, not as series one. And so this is a plea to AMC to renew Rubicon for another season: Ahead, Movieline offers five reasons why this simply has to happen.
1.) We need to know what happens to Truxton Spangler
Here's an interesting tidbit that we only touched on lightly in Friday's Q&A with Michael Cristofer, holding back the really spoiler-ish discussions: During the final scene with Will on the roof, originally that was supposed to be the reveal that Spangler and his shadow group committed the terrorist acts in order to get the U.S. off of oil. In Spangler's mind, he's the protagonist and Will is trying to stop him from achieving a greater good. Consider what Cristofer mentions, having not seen the finale yet at the time we spoke.
"Do I have a speech that talks about oil and water? I don't say to him, 'forty years from now the United States will be out of oil and we'll be out of water'? When we were doing the last scene, there were a couple of different versions of it. And in one I made the case that a lot of what we were doing, we were doing because the government was too slow and couldn't get the job done. The job being, to protect the country from running out of oil and to get the country away from being addicted to oil and to preserve the water supply. The other choice, Henry kept saying he wanted to reserve that for the next season if there should be a next season."
Spangler's motivations were not money, as I had assumed a few times during the course of the season. A second season arc dealing with the fallout between the moral argument of creating a terrorist attack for "the greater good" -- going as far to start a war with Iran -- could trump this excellent first season. This is all going under the presumption that Spangler is even still alive after receiving his four-leaf clover (Cristofer mentions that in early scripts for the finale, he did in fact perish), so we kinda need to know that, too.
2.) What is Andie's relation to this whole conspiracy?
I always thought that Andie was a bit too eager to be Will's lover: considering he would disappear for days at a time, his apartment was bugged and that he carried a firearm. Next thing we know, Katherine Rhumor is over at her apartment asking for protection. Obviously, her late husband and David were behind Andie's involvement -- probably for both his wife and Will -- but what is her background? Also, she's terrible at her job. If she's supposed to keep Katherine and Will alive, she almost went zero for two. For her sake, I hope that she was paid upfront.
3.) Will the real Kale Ingram please stand up?
After 13 episodes, I still have no idea whom Kale Ingram is supposed to be. I mean this in a good way; he's fascinating -- he just may be he best character on television. But what is his role in the atrocities that occurred? If you re-watch the first episode, it appears he's very much a part of David's death. Or at least he's well aware that it's going to happen. Kale is such an enigma. He runs Will's entire investigation from the shadows, then, just as abruptly as he started helping, he backs out. He's a survivor and is not going to take any unnecessary risks after he knows that he's already lost. I cannot imagine living in a world where Kale Ingram is not a part of that world.
4.) Rubicon has a direction
Think, again, to that first episode. Yeah, yeah, as some of you made abundantly clear in the comments of an earlier Rubicon piece, you liked the slow buildup. Well, so do I ... now. Now that I know that the show found its footing, it makes the early episodes better. Rubicon is a completely different show than it was when started. (I still laugh at the notion from the pilot that Will is never late to a meeting because he was late to meet his family on 9/11 -- because he's late pretty much all of the time these days.) Now that it finally has a direction, it would be such a shame for AMC to pull the plug. I mean, remember Ed Bancroft? David's chess playing former colleague? What happened to him? My point is, the current writing team has no problem writing out characters that were slowing down the pace of the show. Case in point: Katherine Rhumor. I'm so happy about her death for two reasons: (A) She really served no purpose going forward and I feel like it was a struggle to fit her into the current arc, regardless, and (B) they actually did find a way to legitimately fit her into the arc, so the time spent watching the long scenes of her walking around an abandoned townhouse in the early episodes was not completely in vain.
5.) Grant will be in charge of the API team
No character has improved more over the last 13 episodes than Grant. This guy started off as your typical disgruntled a-hole with no actual personality. Grant's been softened in the later episodes -- to the point where now he's easily the nicest to Tanya after her return from rehab. And the guy looked generally concerned for Will's feelings when informing him of the promotion and Will's demotion. Of course, in a second season, Grant will hold the title of team leader, but Will will still hold the power. Assuming Tanya returns in some capacity: she doesn't particularly respect Grant as a leader; Miles knows 100 percent about Spangler's involvement in the attack and why Will has been demoted; and Kale's never going to confide in Grant. Grant, unfortunately, will be a stooge of Spangler's, but not an evil stooge -- which is what makes it interesting.
So, yeah, AMC, you've got a worthwhile show on your hands (as you often do). And we're still talking about it -- so please let this show develop in a second season now that it actually, finally, knows where it's going.