Rubicon - "No Honesty in Men"

Andy (Annie Parisse) and Will (James Badge Dale) are having a very odd first date.

Photo Credit: AMC 

Review by Paul Steven Brown

'Rubicon'
Season 1 - Episode 9
"No Honesty in Men"

I'm not sure about how I feel about Andy, Will's across the alley neighbor. If she is not someone keeping tabs on him, as Will and our paranoia may have been led to believe due to the various scenes of Andy looking from across the way into his apartment, then she's kind of odd. A guy shows up in the middle of the night with a bottle of wine, a tomato, and a story about a bugged apartment and she takes it all in stride. This might be a case of one's attraction to another overriding the common sense center of his or her brain.

Andy stays up with Will on the first night as he spies on his own apartment, finds a gun in his belongings that he left there for her to rummage through the next day, and sleeps with him on the second night. Then she tells him that she likes the fact that he has a gun. Weird.

Will doesn't seem to be making the smartest moves as of late. He comes clean about his job to a complete stranger when guys like Grant and Miles have to endure damaged or almost dissolved marriages due to the fact that they can't tell their wives what it is they do at work all day long. Also, intentionally smashing a hidden listening device just strikes me as stupid. It lets the enemy (whoever they may be) know that you are aware of them.

Will's bold little moment of bug crushing was a big enough move that it cause Spangler to confront Kale in front of his home. This is the last thing Kale wants and his scenes with Spangler are telling. Spangler knows that Kale is a very dangerous, but very useful tool in his box. Will's fumbling around is making it harder for Kale to protect him and funnel information without being noticed. It also doesn't help that Will's paranoia is keeping him from trusting Kale at all. In fact, he almost refuses the article that Kale slips him at their late night diner meeting.

With Tanya off at rehab, Will brings in Julia, the woman that translated the spying operation for Miles a few episodes back. This adds an interesting dynamic by throwing a new person into the well-oiled machine that is Will's team, but it also allows for the opportunity to see if Miles can act on his apparent attraction to her. The weird thing is that Julia comes off less receptive than she did when she bumped into Miles in the cafeteria during the polygraph-athon.

With the possibility of Kale becoming compromised in favor of Will, Spangler makes a move at pulling Grant into his circle of influence. With Will having Grant and Julia run everything through Miles before taking it to him, this makes Grant answerable to another person. Also, Grant is feeling very vulnerable at the moment given his constant arguments with his wife and the loss of her job. So far, he still seems very loyal to Will, but he's probably too naive about the bigger picture swirling around him and could get easily played by Spangler.

Despite my problems with Will's foolish moves this episode, I'm still really loving 'Rubicon'. I'm really looking forward to next week where it appears that we'll finally get our first "real" meeting between Will and Katherine Rhumor.