){kind=link}
Season 2 of The Diplomat picks up only moments after Season 1’s explosive finale. Ambassador Kate Wyler (played by Keri Russell), still in France, tries to find out if her people, including her husband Hal (played by Rufus Sewell), survived. As so much of the core personal drama for Kate is her conflicted feelings for Hal because she hates the choices he made when he was an ambassador but that he is still someone who she turns to, it would have been extremely shocking for the show to have killed Hal so early, and while the show and the season isn’t short on big twists, revelations, or shocks, it is protective of the core characters and their relationships. Because, on the other side of the mystery that Kate and those in her circle are trying to get to the bottom of, it is how it affects their relationships with each other that moves the drama forward.
Speaking of drama, it does not take Hal long to realize that Kate and the Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (played by David Gyasi) would have found a bedroom together if it not for the explosion that injured Hal. You can see this knowledge colour their every interaction, and perhaps, in his desire to stay ahead of Dennison and be of import to Kate, he may not have presented information as timely as he could have, thus possibly setting certain things into action. And without spoiling the finale, his actions that lead to thrust into next season can be seen through the lens of his need to be the one needed by Kate.
One of the big plot lines introduced in season 1 was that the Vice President is about to become burned (because of stuff her husband did), so they are looking to find a replacement. Kate’s placement in England is a trial to tap her for this because she is good on paper, a policy person, but she doesn’t have the image. But more importantly, she doesn’t want it. After the bombing and initially finding out more about why it happened, Kate seems further from becoming VP than ever, but the show is great at drama, so just when the pendulum swings one way, it crashes the other until it swings right off and you are left wondering where it will drop.
Writers are often asked to describe a show by comparing it with two other shows, saying it’s blank meets blank. For The Diplomat, the obvious shows that come to mind are The West Wing and Homeland, which is fitting because The Diplomat creator, Debora Cahn, worked on both series. Former West Wing cast member Allison Janney joins The Diplomat this season, taking on the role of the previously unseen current VP, Grace Penn. Her character is worlds apart from C. J. Cregg, but both characters give good ‘reads’ that are both mean and comedic. The series has always done that well: banter and allowing the characters to be humorous even if the situations are deeply dramatic, finding the humour in the drama. In episode five, one scene, in particular, stands out, where Janney’s Penn does a ‘read’ of Kate’s character that accomplishes what the cerulean monologue from The Devil Wears Prada does.
Media is not created in a vacuum; it is affected by what happens in the world around it, and that’s where it draws its inspiration. The Good Fight famously had to reshoot its pilot to reflect Donald Trump’s first election. While The Diplomat is not beholden to current global politics as it operates in an alternate (aka no real Presidents, PMs, etc.) but familiar universe, that doesn’t mean we won’t feel reflections of tensions, policy changes, or anxieties reflected in the coming season that is currently underway.
Seasons 1 and 2 of The Diplomat are currently available on Netflix.
© 2020-2024. UniversalCinema Mag.