“The Diplomat,” the hit Netflix drama starring Keri Russell as a career stateswoman, has an ever-shifting tone that keeps you on your toes. Creator Debora Cahn is an alumnus of “The West Wing” and “Homeland”; sure enough, “The Diplomat” has the latter’s international intrigue and the former’s zippy workplace patter. But there’s also a hint of “Scandal” in Russell’s hyper-capable professional navigating affairs of the heart as well as state, and a jag of true, transcendental weirdness that’s entirely this series’ own. Most of this X factor can be found in the dynamic between Russell’s Kate Wyler, the newly appointed American ambassador to the United Kingdom, and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), a dashing maverick getting used to the passenger’s seat after heading the American embassy in Beirut.
In Season 1, these sometimes-clashing elements could be more of a lumpy mix than a smooth blend — or perhaps it just took this viewer time to adjust to the show’s singular frequency. Season 2, which picks up immediately after the London car bombing that left fans on a cliff-hanger a year and a half ago, is more focused in a literal sense: The episode count has been trimmed to just six. But the new season is also a more confident and convincing version of itself. It’s still not without flaws, chief among them an uncritical reverence for both the American security state and Kate as its avatar. (The first is a political concern, which may lie beyond the scope of a review; the second is a dramatic one, and thus fair game.) But “The Diplomat” now satisfies its own brief more successfully than ever.
Some urgency helps. In the wake of the bombing, which injures both Hal and Kate’s deputy Stuart (Ato Essandoh), the ambassador is fully in crisis mode, which is clearly her — and seemingly, her show’s — preferred state. Everything from her marriage to her political future is placed on the back burner while she tries to ascertain who ordered the bombing and confirm her suspicion that Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear), a hawkish Tory, organized a false flag attack on a British naval ship to provoke a war with Russia. In these early episodes, “The Diplomat” is impressively adept at refreshing the viewer on its dense, twisty plot. Exposition is unsexy work, but it’s the kind of nuts-and-bolts fare that shows Cahn’s experience as a showrunner — and befits a story about a seasoned hand itching to put her expertise to use.
Ball by ball, “The Diplomat” resumes its juggling act as the initial fracas settles down. Once the embassy resumes its daily activities, “The Diplomat” can lean back into the situational comedy of no-nonsense Kate — who once dreamed of an assignment in Kabul — being forced to deal with the social niceties of a ceremonial post, like planning a lavish 4th of July party. And once Hal is back on his feet, we get more of the Wylers’ volatile marriage, as well as a performance from Sewell that lives on the same spectrum of puckish charm, grand vision and selfish scheming as Billy Crudup’s on “The Morning Show.”
Some of the best scenes in “The Diplomat” involve a tense argument disrupted by an unpredictable bit of chaos. Kate delivers a vulnerable mid-fight confession to Hal while she’s urinating, and interrupts another exchange by smashing a teapot with her bare hand. Not to be outdone, one of Kate’s interlocutors makes her case by dragging a massive map of unclear origin across the floor to make a point. “The Diplomat” fills the space between these moments with competence porn that’s more straightforward but no less satisfying. Diplomatic jargon makes the viewer feel clued into an obscure, acronym-riddled profession, and high-level espionage evokes Russell’s last starring role in “The Americans.” An informant gets smuggled out of a funeral with a flood of decoys, allowing “The Diplomat” to show off both its filmmaking chops and an amped-up location budget. The funeral takes place at St. Paul’s Cathedral; later, a subplot about potential Scottish secession takes the entire production up north.
These pleasures distract from some issues with “The Diplomat” as character study, though not indefinitely. It’s never been plausible to portray the luminous Russell as an unkempt tomboy who can’t be bothered to brush her hair. (“The Diplomat” can’t make Russell less beautiful, but it could fit Kate’s clothes a little less impeccably.) More importantly, there’s something false in how much “The Diplomat” idealizes Kate, often by implying that her lack of traditional femininity symbolizes her pure-hearted virtue. Season 2 tantalizes the viewer with an opposing point of view when a traumatized Stuart starts to resent his new boss, leading to some richly layered debates with his recent ex, CIA station chief Eidra (Ali Ahn). All too quickly, he reverses his stance, once again uniting all characters in an adulation of Kate that’s as unrealistic as it is uninteresting.
The most prominent addition to Season 2 is Allison Janney as the sitting Vice President Grace Penn, marking a reunion of sorts with her “The West Wing” colleague Cahn. Penn is set to be deposed in a brewing scandal, and the quest to position a reluctant Kate as her successor casts her as a messianic chosen one. (Like Paul Atreides in “Dune,” Kate’s initial refusal only makes her boosters more sure she’s the woman for the job.) Despite staring down her potential replacement, Penn is introduced not as an adversary of Kate’s, but as a role model. Just as the show worships Kate, Kate worships this older woman who embodies the pragmatic leadership she aspires to. It’s in their shared scenes that “The Diplomat” reveals its truest self. The show is less about a specific person than an abstract ideal of women in power. Whether or not one shares that ideal, “The Diplomat” is as earnest as its characters can be cynical.
All six episodes of “The Diplomat” Season 2 will premiere on Netflix on October 31.
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