“Why would David leave my name in a code?” – Will
A challenge with a show built around mysteries and the chase to unravel them is that the audience will get overly confused or bored by the chase. Rubicon, at this early stage at least, is well up to the task of keeping things cooking, and I continue to be particularly impressed at its confidence at keeping things at a stately and even low boil. I fully expect things to “heat up,” so to speak, as we get further into the season but I enjoyed the smart way that the writers are spreading areas of intrigue and inquiry around for this new band of players that we’re getting to know.
The best parts of this episode involved Will Travers (James Badge Dale) realizing in fact that now deceased boss and father-in-law David Hadas (Peter Gerety) has left him some sort of trail of clues and the first steps he takes — in consultation with former analyst superhero Ed Bancroft (Roger Robinson) — to figure out what’s going on. After Will discovers that there’s a crazy code written into the back of a piece of masking tape on the motorcycle that David gave to Will the night before he died (along with a gun embedded in the seat), the next step is to figure out what the series of 10-digit numbers means.
Miles (Dallas Roberts), who we are learning is dealing with and hiding some personal issues of his own, offers up several possibilities of what 10-digit numbers can relate to, including the possibility of that number range being needed to give every person on Earth a unique value. It’s this level of intellectual speculation that gives the show a geeky but fun brain-teasing angle. The payoff comes in the form of David’s son Evan, who is hot-to-trot to get the motorcycle back from Will, claiming that his father had promised it to him. Evan mentions that he only had honest conversations with father about baseball, which leads Will to realize that the 27 sets of numbers relate to the dates of the New York Yankees World Series wins.
Back at Ed’s apartment, which is turning into something of the Bat Cave for the show, they unlock the code on the second of numbers, the first of which dates back to an old baseball game involving Ty Cobb and a young Detroit Tigers pitcher who gave up 26 hits in a single game, an American League record. It turns out his name was Travers.
* “Why would David leave my name in a code?” — Will
* “So you’d know when you’d broken it!” — Ed
And that’s the fun of the show right there. If that kind of revelation doesn’t turn you on, then Rubicon likely isn’t for you. But that level of intrigue matched with sure-handed pacing and fine and suspenseful musical direction has made for quite an enjoyable experience thus far.
A lot of other story strands are being spread before us, including the search to figure out the deal with a Russian thug and other hints about Tom’s background and the fourth leaf on the “clover.” Let’s see if the chase and boil continue to be so well produced.
More thoughts on “Keep The Ends Out”:
* “People don’t change, Maggie. We are who we are.” — Ingram
* Good bit with the gang discussing the worst presidents of all time. Grant, it seems, was named after Ulysses S. Grant.
* The show features two widows — of Tom and of David Hadas. I started to think that maybe these are the “ends” that need to be kept out. And even Will is an “end” even though he’s an analyst on the “inside.”
* “It’s Travers. He’s still digging,” one of the guys following Will says at the end of the episode. I realized that the actor Isiah Whitlock Jr., AKA Clay Davis from the The Wire! He’s credited as Mr. Roy here.
From Around the Web: Rubicon, “Keep The Ends Out”
- IGN: Katherine Rhumor continues to press James Wheeler about the townhouse Tom left behind but nothing more is revealed this week that we didn’t already know. Thankfully, Katherine and James are given fewer scenes than last week allowing the focus of the episodes to remain where the most story progression is taking place.
- Show Tracker: I’m still waiting to see if I’m going to love Rubicon.& It has a lot to draw you in, among them James Badge Dale’s Will – he’s a great depressive brainiac, and the camera loves to watch him think. But so far the show has an almost perverse tendency to string together disjointed dialog, scenes and discoveries in what I’ll politely call a stately pace. The hope is that the show will eventually gather strength, power and relevance.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.