‘Rubicon’ offers riddles, but few answers

July 30, 2010|Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

Are you comfortable not knowing? “Rubicon,’’ AMC’s transfixing new suspense drama, poses that question in a few provocative ways — as a question about the American government, as a question about personal relationships, and as an aesthetic TV-viewing question. How long can you sit with a riddle?

Modeled after 1970s conspiracy thrillers such as “The Parallax View’’ and “The Conversation,’’ “Rubicon’’ is a mystery inside an enigma — and proud of it. It is all about the withholding of explosive information both from the characters, most of whom work at a federal think tank called the American Policy Institute, and from us as we watch. The show, which has a two-hour premiere on Sunday at 8 p.m., has an almost passive-aggressive tone as it dangles then pulls back so many vague clues and cryptic activities. If you enjoy slowly piecing together a puzzle without having first seen the final image, “Rubicon’’ is right up your alley; if not, the brainteasing will likely unnerve you.

The elaborate plot, which will stretch across the 13-episode season in the manner of “Damages,’’ focuses on mid-level API analyst Will Travers (James Badge Dale), as he and his fellow intelligence workers scrutinize top-secret data for patterns that could indicate a coming terrorist attack or assassination attempt. They report their findings to Homeland Security and the military (not, coincidentally, unlike the many expensive post-9/11 agencies described recently in a Washington Post series). But Will is starting to wonder if his New York-based agency is actually linked to something hidden, maybe a secret group with even more power than our elected officials. Is there a corrupt shadow government leading the country, about to create a weapons-of-mass-destruction-type mistake?

The notion of an evil government conspiracy sounds simple and familiar, but “Rubicon’’ juices it up with entertaining code-breaking sequences and oddball characters at the API, as well as a kind of generalized atmosphere of paranoia that has defined so much post-9/11 drama. The series is headed up by Henry Bromell, whose top-notch credentials include “Homicide’’ and “Brotherhood,’’ and he keeps the tone coolly unemotional but as addictive as a Rubik’s Cube. Indeed, the look of the show recalls a colorless Rubik’s Cube, as the drab API offices are a grid of boxy rooms united by a hard-to-understand floor plan. The show is a game of sorts, like the crossword puzzles and chessboard used by some of the characters.