The pace picked up on "Rubicon" Sunday night, with all kind of plot thickeners, not-so-chance encounters, shredded documents and one regrettable flame-out. Will met Katherine, Ingram met Donald Bloom (ex-CIA assassin) and Tanya met the challenge of standing up to the other analyst team members, as well as to Truxton Spangler, with her theory that George of George and Uri is a Al Qaeda financier in the making and far more dangerous than Uri. This didn’t stop her from returning to her office, opening her desk drawer and emptying a little airline bottle into her water glass, but it was a victory nonetheless.

I have to admit I cheered when Will and Katherine bumped into each other at the bar of Spangler’s wife’s charity event. The fact that two people working from different angles on what the heck is going on in this show met seemed to signal progress. Katherine needs Will, and it felt like Katherine was joining the rest of the show.

Will learned last week that a Donald Bloom was potentially a key figure in what might have happened to his former father-in-law and API mentor, David Hadas. He was able to piece together that Bloom had recently flown into New York. Ed Bancroft, Hadas' dear friend and the only person in which Will has confided, found Bloom was staying at the Waldorf Astoria. Will spotted him the next morning and tailed him through the Manhattan streets, in and out of what looked to me like Bloomingdale's, and then to a restaurant where Bloom was meeting … Ingram! Will played it a little clumsily, allowing Ingram to see him through the glass door.

Next scene: Ingram in Spangler’s office, asking him if all the loose ends on Hadas had been taken care of. Spangler says yes, as he feeds a White Paper marked “Houston” (which Will had noticed missing from the archives) into his office shredder. Michael Cristofer is great as Spangler, is an outwardly obtuse but crafty Cold Warrior spook and global conspiracy megalomaniac.

Ingram later warns Will against looking into something that doesn't concern him, saying he wouldn't want to see him get involved with any "mayhem" -- not the kind of thing you want to hear from your boss.

There were all kind of feints and tidbits of info Sunday night – Will spots Spangler making the pronouncement to three other men -- among them, James Wheeler, who has been working hard to steer Katherine in the wrong direction -- in a dark parlor off the charity ball: If they don't take care of "it," someone else will.

What “gig” did Ingram offer Bloom – rerouting the commuter trains so Hadas would be killed in the ensuing crash? Was Will really telling Bancroft at the episode's end that he was dropping the investigation? Bancroft had shown up outside the office to question Will about their progress, and after finding Bloom by cold-calling Manhattan hotels, had put together a rundown “connecting the dots” that papered his dining room wall. Was Will merely throwing him off by saying he had decided they should "stand down" because he feared for his sanity, or did he know that Bancroft’s apartment was bugged?

One of the pleasures of a show such as this is the confusion you’re left with after a heaping portion of plot revelation -- without many connections. And the paranoia in "Rubicon" is deliciously chilling. I loved Katherine telling her financial adviser, after he recommends selling a company that he said was a bad performer, that she’d keep it – just because he wanted her to sell it. She suspects everyone. And we shivered for Will when he returned from spotting Ingram with Bloom, and took Maggie aside to confide in her – Maggie of the secret meetings with Ingram to report on Will and the analyst team. At the last minute, caution kicked in and he didn’t tell her what had so rattled him. Paranoia ruled.

If you've stuck with Rubicon, what did you think of Sunday’s episode – do you think it's going somewhere, or was it TMI?

-- Kelly Scott

Above: James Badge Dale as Will on "Rubicon." Credit: AMC