AMC's "Rubicon" renewed for Season Two ... or *is* it?

We don't get it.  But then maybe we're not supposed to. Rubicon is just one of 'those' kind'a shows: lots of ominous looks, veiled threats, and dramatic pauses, imbibed every-so-slowly by an audience that is drawn forward, ever forward, into a downward spiral of exquisite WTF. But who'd a thunk AMC viewers, already giddy with quality shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men, would put up with two seasons of murky CIA shenanigans?


Backstage, for one -- one and only, at the moment. They're listing Rubicon as "renewed," though none of the other trades (or more directly, AMC) have made it official yet. It would be a mild surprise: the ratings have been less-than-stellar, but AMC doesn't need much, and they've been known to give other shows a chances to build a loyal base -- unlike your modern-day broadcast nets. 

Sometimes this 'conspiracy drama' stuff can work. The X-Files did it exquisitely. 24 made a cottage industry out of it. Fringe tries to carry to paranoid torch as well, and obviously Lost represents the Holy Grail of multi-year "whaaaa?" episodics; every net would like to be the next one to grab up that cultish following. This season, The Event and Rubicon are making a run for it -- The Event going a little more 24-ish, with lots of guns and explosions, Rubi going more Three Days of the Condor, with a devastatingly handsome young relational genius caught up in a global plot he can't quite see ... and neither can we. Not that his ignorance keeps him from poking around, and talking about it. Endlessly.

So far, Rubi seems to lack the action, imagery, innuendo, or sheer insanity of its more successful predecessors, and the ambiguous nature of this non-announcement announcement may be nothing but a whisper in the wind. But we thought YOU thought we thought you would want to know what WE know ... if we know it.

Maybe.