AMC
Spoilers for last night’s Rubicon coming up:
In many stories, the dramatic function of lie detectors—like the ostensible actual function of lie detectors—is to eliminate ambiguity: to cut through the murk and differing possibilities and find black and white answers. Black or white, pass or fail.
In some stories, however, they show how the truth can be elided, finessed, or—think of the Xerox-lie-detector scam in The Wire and Homicide before it—gamed. Characteristically, last night’s Rubicon, “The Truth Will Out,” used a set of polygraph interrogations to question whether the truth was in fact knowable, and whether the investigators were even seeking the right answers.
The security lockdown, and subsequent mandatory Q&As, were an economical device, not to bring out unambiguous truths, but to create suspense (while Will’s investigation moved on its own track at its own pace) and to highlight some of the personal and professional tensions in the API office. As Ken Tucker at EW noted, one strength of Rubicon is that it’s an excellent picture of office life—but in this case, an office life with the added stressors of enforced secrecy and knowing that in this job a screw-up could amount to a national security breach and prison.
So Grant’s problems at home, for instance, are compounded by his being trapped away from his daughter’s school play by the lockdown, and not even being called to explain himself. On top of that, in the process of his interview, he’s flustered when the machine indicates “deception” when he says he hasn’t cheated on his wife. Has he? We don’t know, but his interregator’s chilling answer is that, essentially, it doesn’t matter: “Maybe you haven’t cheated on her, but in my opinion you will. In your mind you already have.” The machine is always right—if not now, eventually. Guilty!
If Kafka had written more about being married with kids, this is the sort of story he might have come up with.
In the meantime, the investigation teases out storylines surrounding Will’s other co-workers. Tanya—who for some reason gets a “deception” indicator even on being asked her name—admits having used illegal drugs. Miles—who worries wrongly that he’s the leak—confesses the embarrassing story of losing a file he took home, but is uncomfortable admitting even to the polygraph that he’s separated.
In the end, the Feds haul in some poor schlub from the financial division. He may even be guilty.
Will’s investigation progresses, meanwhile, as he finds a bug in his office, appropriately in an owl paperweight (and, in a nice chilling touch, sees it immediately reappear). And probably more important, his suspicions turn to Truxton Spangler himself, who appears to have been having David surveilled before his death. (And who reacts with sneering indignation to the FBI’s own searching of his shop.) As Will’s suspicions gradually broaden—”Who are we working for?”—”The Truth” was another episode that did a strong job striking sparks off the smaller story while the bigger picture slowly fills in.