From the beginning, AMC's Rubicon was a slow burn.
Although the show eventually won the approval of many critics, the show's pacing and complicated conspiracy storytelling resulted in a very small — but passionate — viewership, leading to the assumption that last week's Season 1 finale would double as a series finale.
Rubicon: Conspiracy or commentary? "Democracy is a very fragile vessel," producer says
But based on how that episode ended, executive producer Henry Bromell didn't get the memo. American Policy Institute analyst Will Travers (James Badge Dale) finally gathered enough evidence to suggest that his boss, Truxton Spangler (Michael Cristofer), was using API intelligence to manipulate world events for profit. And though Will was convinced Truxton was behind the explosion of an oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico that could create war with Iran, Will was unable to take Truxton down.
"I just don't believe in wrapping it up that simply," Bromell tells TVGuide.com...
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Cheers to In Treatment for coaxing Debra Winger into therapy.
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The Oscar-nominated Terms of Endearment costar has worked infrequently in recent years, which makes her the perfect choice to play a stage diva who's making a comeback after a long time out of the spotlight on the new season of Gabriel Byrne's HBO shrink-rap serial (starting October 25). Aside from a guest gig as a school principal on the final season of Law & Order and her role as the mother...
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The times, they are always a changin' on Mad Men, but as often happens with this fascinatingly unpredictable series, the changes come where you least expect them. After the last several weeks of intense workplace drama, priming us for another game-changer in the wake of Don Draper's anti-tobacco manifesto, Sunday's thoroughly absorbing and entertaining fourth-season finale takes a startling hairpin turn back to the personal. Cut to the headline: Don's getting married. To Megan!
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The main action: While Peggy triumphantly lands a new pantyhose account, the first win for the troubled agency since the Lucky Strike defection, Don takes the kids to California, world of Tomorrowland (the episode's title), and has a personal epiphany about his own future — as it relates to his tormented and once-hidden past — in the lovely and toothsome presence of Megan, the ethereal secretary-turned-nanny who is every inch the anti-Betty...
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As summer TV begins to hand off to the fall season, some thoughts and observations on a few of the shows and headlines that stood out.
Instant Classic TV: I haven't been able to stop thinking about Sunday's episode of Mad Men, regarded by many as the high point of the season to date and a series peak as well, a blistering tour de force for Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss, who now have dynamite entries for their Emmy reel next year. (This season has been particularly strong for Moss, as Peggy Olson comes into her own: partying with bohemians, doffing her clothes to unnerve the chauvinistic new art director, and now standing up to Don.) "The Suitcase," so masterfully penned by Matthew Weiner that it wouldn't be a surprise to see him at the Emmy podium yet again next year, felt like watching a three-act play — or maybe a three-ring circus veering from drama to comedy back to drama, or perhaps an emotional heavyweight bout that went on much longer — and with more actual ferocity — than the legendary Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston rematch knockdown of May 1965.
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Did you miss the sneak peek for AMC's new conspiracy thriller Rubicon? Now's your chance to catch it again.
Check out photos of the Rubicon cast
The new 13-episode series stars James Badge Dale (The Pacific) as Will Travers, an analyst at a New York City think tank who spends his days cracking codes. When he sees a pattern among the crossword puzzles of several major newspapers and begins digging for clues, tragedy strikes, forcing Will to question his employers...
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