Kat with a K

Rubicon 1.4: "The Outsider"

Will actually took a train to another city in this episode, so I guess I have to stop claiming that nothing happens on this show. What actually happens, after the jump . . .

Okay, now they're just messing with us. This episode started with VERY intense classical music set to a montage of - Will making and eating breakfast. Really. But then it became clear that the classical music was actually on the radio, so I guess that's okay. Will sees a neighbor looking at him from the facing building, and sees her again at the end of the episode, and sort of waves. I have no idea whether that's important, so I'm just throwing it out there.

Will meets Spangler at the train station to go to Washington, and they have a conversation about Friedman's column about Sudan that's just like the conversations about vampires I have with my boss every morning. No, really. When they get to Washington, Spangler picks up a copy of the Post to "study the local flora and fauna," which I found unexpectedly hilarious. He then gives Will a very long lecture about proper briefcases, and even WIll seemed bemused that the show was taking so much time for Spangler's opinions on this. But anyway, it seems they are actually there to nurture allies in the intelligence community for API. They have lots of meetings, some of which Will isn't even allowed to attend, and some of which are in a room with President Obama's picture on the wall. Nice touch, show! At one point, they bring up that list of cities from the first episode, but remember how they decided it was Cameron's itinerary? Now they think it's an Al Qaeda itinerary. Make up your minds, people! After their Trip of Bonding, Spangler praises Will for managing not to speak, and buys him a proper briefcase. Will is much more surprised by that than I am. Spangler seems to avoid questions about his children, and talks about his father instead. And it seems that what Spangler likes about his life of secrets and spies is the chance to be solitary. Okay then.

While in Washington, Will has a covert meeting in a parking garage, because those always go well. I always expect someone to be run over and/or roofied and kidnapped, but either of those options would be too action-packed for this show, so instead he meets that "Daniel" from last episode, about the list of names. Once again, Will's getting someone to do work off the record that he could have done perfectly legitimately if he would just do the paperwork. The list of names is mostly CIA people, but Daniel couldn't find one name. Most are dead or retired; the only one that seems interesting is Donald Bloom. Daniel hands Will a bunch of files and then takes them back.

While Will is gone, his team has to decide whether to take out a guy in Indonesia. Tanya helpfully calls the guy they're researching a "bad guy" and an "al Qaeda rock star. It seems that the team needs to decide whether the chance to take out this guy is worth also blowing up a bunch of civilians. Apparently it's harder this time because last time they had WIll and David and no girls. Because obviously only girls are concerned about killing innocent civilians. This is obviously all here just to show the team having to Work Together and Make a Decision Without Will, so I'm not going into too much detail. Tanya takes pills, there's a MILF joke, and then they eventually decide to go ahead with the assassination and then get drunk together.

Elsewhere, Katherine wanders around a house, because that's basically all she ever does. She receives a box of evidence from the police, including bloody clothes and something small - maybe Tom's wedding ring? It makes her cry, understandably. It also contains his cell phone, which has a cryptic message from Wheeler. "If you keep this up, you know what's going to happen." Obviously, Katherine's response to this is to go wander around the Super Secret Townhouse some more. I have no idea why she thinks the Chinese restaurant menu she finds is important enough to make her go there and order takeout, but hey! She's going somewhere other than a house! So I'm in favor. She gets the restaurant lady to look up Tom's order history and finds that Wheeler used his credit card for an order at the townhouse, so was lying about not knowing about it. Are you shocked? I'm not.

Eventually, Will makes it back to the office and practically his first action is to put his new briefcase in a corner and block it with the globe/hidden chessboard. That's gratitude! He has another very vaguely suggestive and/or cute moment with Maggie, in which Will says "Nice to see you." Gasp. Anyway, Miles found out that Donald Bloom might be in New York. Kale says Spangler thinks Will has potential, but doesn't seem to agree. Tanya is annoyed that they can't even find out whether the assassination was successful. And at the end of the episode, we're back to Yuri and Beck, and even Will is barely paying attention.