OK well I was right pleased about this itty bitty gem of a find, so I wanted to write this one up (AKA generate some "content") and do my second-blog-post-in-three-years thing. Here is a brief clip of the end of Rubicon's episode four. Check it out:
I've been watching AMC's Rubicon with an eyebrow raised for now five or six episodes. Throughout I've flipped back and forth constantly from thinking the show is smarter/dumber than me and that overall it's really good/bad. A lot of the writing is great, and a lot of it is pretentious and awkward. This doesn't really bug me, because it's been a lot of fun having a show to regularly watch with my dad while I'm home, but the way Rubicon eludes both criticism and praise has really caught my attention.
I think partly this is because the show's (noble, if imperfect) aesthetic hinges on reversing genere expectations--leaving unsaid things that are normally said, giving us disconnected conversations where there are normally gunfights and explanations (or even... plot), etc. They might have also wanted to sustain the appearance or narrative possibility for as long as possible that this is a conspiracy show set in a world in which whatever conspiracies arise are actually just figments of obsessive, overworked people's crazy imaginations.
Or something. Whatever it was, there was lots of weird ambiguity that was genuinely difficult to read: "The dots are out there in the world . . . a woman buying vegetables in an algerian market . . . Teenagers fornicating in a liverpool market . . . What's the connection? What is the narrative?" the crazy old spy man asks in a delicious (if heavy handed?) meta-moment.
Or something. Whatever it was, there was lots of weird ambiguity that was genuinely difficult to read: "The dots are out there in the world . . . a woman buying vegetables in an algerian market . . . Teenagers fornicating in a liverpool market . . . What's the connection? What is the narrative?" the crazy old spy man asks in a delicious (if heavy handed?) meta-moment.
But try selling that to the network. So then the 5th or 6th episodes air and the entire feel of the show changes considerably. This has been commented on all over the internetz. The pace kicks up just as more plot details and character information is revealed. Much turns out to be different than we've perceived it to be (unless we perceived a hall of mirrors all along, in which case we were spot on. But at least now it's an exciting walk through the hall). At this point, I'll bet there will even be a shootout of some sort by the time the season's over. Huzzah.
And just before the change, the audience was given a really clever, sly clue, hidden-in-plain-sight. Back to that clip from above. Watch it again. Keep an eye on the board the right of the screen as the camera zooms in.
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| The audience "crosses" the Rubicon. |
There in the north of Italy is the Rubicon itself. In episode four, you, or at least your proxy in the camera, cross it. Maybe: "If you've stuck with the show this long, you're now committed. Settle in."
I'm not sure. I think that's a very deft way to make a very simple point, so something tells me this moment fits in with the overall architecture of the show in some way that's even more ("No!" "Yes.") clever.
Good stuff. We'll see if that reading holds. Or at least I will--I'm hooked.
