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...
read more
Cheers to Rubicon for crossing the finish line in fine style.
Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!
The first season of AMC's conspiracy thriller ended with a relatively action-packed episode that answered some key questions while leaving others hanging. James Badge Dale's intelligence analyst Will Travers finally put together all the pieces of the puzzle to determine how API, his thinktank, had manipulated tragic world events for profit and confronted one of the masterminds behind the plan, Truxton Spangler (the brilliantly chilling Michael Cristofer). Meanwhile, Will's ex-bedmate, Andy (Annie Parisse), was revealed to be an operative — who was sadly unable to save widow Katherine Rhumor (Miranda Richardson) from being murdered in the middle of Central Park...
read more
There are renaissance men in this world, and then there's Michael Cristofer.
He's currently kicking keister on Rubicon as eccentric intelligence czar Truxton Spangler — a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a trench coat — but acting hasn't always been his thing. In fact, Cristofer is way better known as a playwright (he won the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony for "The Shadow Box") and film scribe (The Witches of Eastwick), and he's also an acclaimed director (his HBO movie Gia made Angelina Jolie world famous). Now he's penning his first opera...
read more
It's a few hours into a June day of shooting on the New York set of AMC's Rubicon. The set is breathlessly quiet, and the show's star, James Badge Dale, is staring at a photograph.
The quiet is finally broken when Dale's character, Will Travers, begins jotting down notes on index cards with a Sharpie. That's right: With four episodes of the conspiracy thriller's first season left to shoot, there are no car bombs, no sniper fire, no creepy phone calls — just the squeak of the marker moving over paper.
Rubicon's James Badge Dale: "Our show is not for everybody"
"We're spinning a yarn. We're trying to do something different than what's normally done on television, and it's not going to be for everybody," Dale tells TVGuide.com during a break. "We want to do something subtle. ... We're asking people to sit down and be taken on a ride, albeit not a very fast one...
read more