Rubicon
Rubicon is a 2010 conspiracy drama on AMC starring James Badge Dale and Miranda Richardson. James Badge Dale is Will Travers, a twitchy, bushy-haired intelligence analyst at a private think tank called the American Policy Institute (API) who finds himself in the middle of The Conspiracy. Miranda Richardson co-stars as Katherine Rhumor, a woman who moons around opulent Manhattan townhouses looking vaguely unsettled. She's also the recently ex-wife of one of the Powerful White Men involved in the conspiracy.
While the overall arc focuses on the conspiracy, individual episodes focus on the day to day drudgery of intelligence work and the strain it puts on Will and his team. The shows drew heavily on the audience of the AMC show that ran after it.
The show was canceled after one season of 13 episodes.
Not to be confused with any of the other works with the same name, or the river that Julius Caesar momentously crossed.
- Actor Allusion / Casting Gag: Robert Leckie and Lena Basilone have gotten very friendly.
- Bunny Ears Lawyer: Nearly everyone. David was obsessed with superstitions and numerology; Miles is a Conspiracy Theorist with few social skills; Tanya is The Alcoholic; even Will is kind of strange and is only normal in comparison to everyone else.
- The Conspiracy
- Chekhov's Gun: in this case, it is literally a gun.
- He Knows Too Much: Will and Katherine; Will's ex-boss David Hadas (in the past tense.)
- I Was Never Here: Kale to Will, frequently.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: episode 1x08, much to Miles and Tanya's discomfort.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Andy, kinda.
- The Men in Black: are constantly following Will.
- Must Have Nicotine: Many of the characters, especially Miles, and it affects his ability to take a lie detector test.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Will, obviously, but most of the other analysts at API qualify as well (especially Tanya.)
- Nobody Over 50 Is Gay: Subverted with Kale
- Oh Crap: Everyone's faces when they see the news report about the oil tanker explosion in the penultimate episode of season one.
- Public Secret Message: A secret society publishes messages encrypted in crossword puzzles in newspapers.
- Red Herring: Yeah, you thought the big disaster would happen in St. Louis and/or on Katherine's anniversary, too. Pretty sneaky, sis.
- Right Behind Me: Played hilariously in 1.10 with Miles sitting on the table and sarcastically suggesting that Kateb is in fact Santa Claus...not realizing that Spangler has entered behind him.
- Sexy Secretary: Maggie, Will's secretary who is also spying on him for Kale.
- James Wheeler, former friend of David Hadas, is paying his secretary extra for sex at 3p.m. every day.
- Shout-Out: There's an framed Invisibles cover in Miles' office and one of the API translators has a Triforce tattoo.
- Invisible to Gaydar: Kale.
- War On Terror: API is practically on the front lines as far as intelligence gathering and they're one of of the many dozens of think-tanks that either sprung up or received huge doses of funding after 9/11.
- Widower Hero