The Rubicon Conspiracy: An Analysis
When Rubicon premiered on AMC during the summer of 2010, executive producer Henry Bromell promised an old-school, 1970s-style conspiracy thriller along the lines of Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View. Those movies differed in regards to contemporary films of the genre, most notably Will Smith’s Enemy of the State, in that they were more cerebral in nature and featured slow burning plots that produced the tension and suspense rather than in-your-face action. Based on the finished product, Bromell delivered a television series that indeed lives up to the expectations. Although early episodes unfolded at their own pace as intelligence analyst Will Travers stumbled upon mysteries surrounding the death of father-in-law David Hadas and put the pieces of a larger conspiracy puzzle together, the intensity of the drama accelerated once the fully formed picture crystallized, keeping fans of the series on edge and guessing until the very end.
The Rubicon conspiracy actually involved three separate storylines that emerged in the preliminary stages of the series but in the end intertwined into one complete tapestry. In addition to Will Travers’ personal inquiry into the death of David Hadas, there were Katherine Rhumor’s attempts at making sense out of her husband Tom’s suicide and the investigation of an al-Quaida terrorist by a Travers-led team of analysts at the American Policy Institute—the government think tank where both he and Hadas worked. Those three seemingly unrelated narratives all tied back to a cabal of rich and powerful men who grew up together on Fishers Island, New York. In classic conspiracy theory fashion, the group has been influencing world events for both financial gain and to dictate US foreign policy for decades.
The 1970s conspiracy thrillers that served as the blueprint for Rubicon also featured small groups of powerful individuals manipulating events to suit there needs. In Three Days of the Condor, for instance, intelligence analyst Robert Redford stumbles upon a “secret CIA” which inevitably puts his life in danger. Warren Beatty, meanwhile, discovers that an obscure corporation is using mind control to create assassins that in turn eliminate political figures opposed to their viewpoints in The Parallax View. And in the non-fiction All the President’s Men, a select group of Richard Nixon advisors use a series of illicit tactics to ensure the president’s re-election in 1972 and embark on a cover up that inevitably leads to Nixon’s resignation two years later.
On the surface, the members of Rubicon’s conspiracy appear to be financially motivated. One particular scene in the episode “Caught in the Suck” is a prime illustration, as the group secretly meets and discusses various ways in which they could increase their already substantial portfolios.
“Is there a play for us in the Somali piracy situation?” one of them asks.
“Insurance or security?” another responds. “Insurance is a loser, security is a pretty thin margin. I’d stay away.”
In reality, however, their maneuvering also shaped American foreign policy and in no small way contributed to the current political climate of the nation (in the world of Rubicon, at least). The first clue to the conspiracy that Will Travers deciphers involves similar answers to a handful of separate crossword puzzles appearing in competing major newspapers on the same day. He later discovers, however, that this is not the first time the anomaly has occurred—it also happened in 1983 at the time of the Beirut suicide bombing of a US Marine barracks. This would suggest that subsequent actions taken by the United States were based on events manipulated by the small group of Rubicon conspirators.
The cataclysmic events of the penultimate episode of the season—which involves the explosive destruction of a tanker at the base of Port Galveston, Texas, and in effect cuts off access to the oil reserves of the United States—likewise has political consequences. While the tragedy itself might have financial benefit to those “in the know,” the conspirators also planted evidence that point to Iran as the culprit behind the terrorist attack, a revelation that would no doubt lead to a declaration of war against a nation that George W. Bush once declared an “axis of evil.”
Michael Cristofer, who portrays Truxton Spangler, the head of API and one of the chief string-pullers of the series, told MovieLine in October 2010, “There’s always been an idea from the beginning that Truxton and those other guys—like some of the neocons, like some of the Dick Cheney type guys—although, objectively, they’re doing pretty nefarious things, they think they’re doing things for the good of the country. And it was something thematically that (executive producer) Henry (Bromell) and I spoke about for a long time. But as it got close to resolving the plot, I felt that was being neglected, that idea. And it was all about greedy guys doing this to make money.”
With the exception of All the President’s Men, all the conspiracies of the classic 1970s thrillers ended with the conspirators escaping justice. In The Parallax View, Warren Beatty is ultimately set-up as the fall guy for the assassination of a presidential candidate and then killed by the police while trying to escape, taking his proof of a conspiracy to the grave with him. In The Conversation, meanwhile, surveillance expert Gene Hackman is placed under surveillance himself by the conspiring murderers of a corporate CEO, thus putting his own life in danger if he ever attempted to reveal the truth. The message of these films appear to be that one individual, no matter how righteous, is no match for a superior force armed with money, power and influence.
Rubicon ends in a similar fashion. Kale Ingram, an apparent loyal lieutenant of Truxton Spangler who nonetheless feeds Will Travers information in an attempt to assist the analyst in his struggle to unravel the truth, tells Travers in the finale, “We lost a battle, not the war. A good soldier knows when to fall back, regroup, live to fight another day.” Ingram is obviously a realist who understands that to stop Spangler and his cohorts one must expose them in the act of conspiracy, not after the fact.
Then there’s the very last scene, in which Will Travers finally confronts Truxton Spangler and tells him that he has all the pieces necessary to expose the truth. “Make your report,” Spangler responds. “Knock ’em dead. I’m sure it will make for very exciting reading. Skullduggery in high places and all that. Do you really think anyone is going to give a shit?” The line is eerily similar to the end of Three Days of the Condor when Robert Redford reveals that he has given the New York Times all the information he’s gathered regarding the “secret CIA” within the CIA.
“How do you know they’ll print it?” an agent aware of the conspiracy asks in response.
Rubicon’s thirteen-episode solitary season is a finely crafted intellectual thriller that, while not necessarily action packed, is still filled with enough intrigue and suspense to keep viewers on the edge of their seat. The series may never have gotten the ratings of an NCIS but is enjoyable television at its best nonetheless—and that’s no conspiracy.
Anthony Letizia (October 22, 2010)
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