I’m going to go ahead and get all my complaining out of the way: Rubicon‘s episode titles are boring. They’re standard conspiracy theory fare: “Connect the Dots,” “The Truth Will Out,” it’s all standard. I think this episode should have been called “Fiedler on the Roof.” Something funny, you know? Just to offset the humorlessness of the series itself (not that the humorlessness is a bad thing).
This episode had the danger of falling into cliche, but managed not to, which is always a good thing. So many shows have a ‘lockdown’ episode in which confined characters discover a truth about themselves; perhaps most recently House did so with the unsurprisingly titled “Lockdown.” Luckily, the characters’ confinement during an FBI sweep was not the normal television vision of lockdowns, and had a lot of breathing room — thanks, in part, to the wonderfully filmed polygraph test sequences.
Speaking of the polygraph tests, I find it interesting that the only one we didn’t see was Maggie’s. Did she reveal something to the FBI about her relationship with Kale and her role in spying on Will? That storyline’s been left kind of untouched over the past few episodes after a brilliant setup in “The First Day of School.” Bring it back, people! If we can’t resolve it, then Maggie’s just an awkward character who even the audience can’t trust — which would be fine if she wasn’t a love interest for the show’s main character.
The actors were all to their standard level best, including the ever-brilliant Arliss Howard, as well as the perfectly sporadic Michael Cristofer, who played Truxton Spangler’s indignant attitude in this episode perfectly on key.
Finally, we’ll get to my final theory about the episode: the woman who keeps looking at Will through his window is in on the conspiracy. The intercut scenes between her watchful looks and Will listening to David warn Ed about being bugged makes me think that she’s got more than just a crush on Will. It’d be a nice twist if she was the one who bugged his apartment, and has been living across the way to keep watch on him.
That’s all I’ve got for this episode. Check back in next week for my report on “Caught in the Suck.”
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I would disagree with you about the woman across the way. While it is entirely possible that she is an agent of the conspiracy (that was my first thought when she was introduced), I feel that she might be there for the sole purpose of arousing our suspicions. Without knowing who we can trust, almost everyone on the show could be a part of the conspiracy.
Well, from the "scenes from the next episode" during the credits, it looks like the next episode will build on the Maggie working for Kale theme.