The return of Netflix’s political thriller The Diplomat is one of the few TV shows from the streaming giant that I basically counted down the days for ever since that explosive Season 1 finale. And now that it’s here — and, unsurprisingly, already dominating Netflix’s US Top 10 chart — I’m happy to report that it not only lives up to the standard it set during Season 1, but I’d even argue this season will go down as one of the best Netflix TV series of 2024.
If you’re willing to suspend a certain amount of disbelief (The Diplomat, after all, is a drama and not a documentary) the show from creator Debora Cahn offers quite an entertaining ride. I know I shouldn’t have to point out that caveat, but when I see takes like this one — from a curmudgeon at Forbes who thought the ending of the new season didn’t ring true or whatever — I feel that it’s worth pointing out the above fact once more. The Diplomat is a TV show, and a damn good one.
Here are five reasons why I actually think it’s among the best of Netflix’s TV releases this year. I’ve finished the new season, by the way, so be forewarned: There are *spoilers* ahead.
The Diplomat feels like a cross between Homeland and The West Wing
The Diplomat’s influences rank among some of the greatest political TV shows of the modern era, and that’s not by accident. Cahn actually cut her teeth on, wait for it, both Homeland and The West Wing. Which is to say: If you were a fan of both shows, Season 2 of The Diplomat should be especially right up your alley.
The story this season, with American ambassador to the UK Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) racing to get to the bottom of what appears to be a deadly false flag attack, makes the show feel like an espionage thriller tucked inside a walk-and-talk-style political drama. Allison Janney’s Vice President Grace Penn — the veep who Kate is actually being groomed to replace, via her posting in London — also comes across the pond for a satisfyingly dramatic visit with Kate.
Long story short, there’s a reason both the audience and critics’ scores for The Diplomat’s new season are higher this time around.
The side characters are just as interesting as the main cast
Another reason for the largely positive response to the new season of The Diplomat has to do, I think, with the interesting side characters — all of whom have been perfectly cast and who have no trouble keeping your interest when the show’s leads are off doing something else.
I could watch Russell’s Kate and Ali Ahn’s CIA station chief Eidra Park all day. Park, in fact, is such a model of unshakeable competence that I actually wish she was an intelligence professional in real life. Rory Kinnear’s arrogant UK Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge is a cyclone of impulsivity, and Kinnear plays him as such a live-wire that you have no trouble believing he’s responsible for the false flag attack on a UK ship that Kate is investigating — an attack which is also connected to the London bombing at the end of Season 1.
Other enjoyable side characters include Ato Essandoh’s deputy chief of mission Stuart Heyford, a reliable subordinate for Kate who spends the first few episodes of this season recovering from the bombing that wounded him in addition to Kate’s husband Hal (Rufus Sewell). An extremely likable character, Stuart is also Eidra’s romantic interest — a pairing that you can’t help but root for.
This season pulled a great head fake
I mentioned the false flag attack above, which is especially core to the plot this season. I know I’m not the only one who was sort of convinced that Trowbridge was up to no good and almost certainly had something to hide — turns out, it was actually rogue elements in his government who wanted to give the UK a “unifying event,” in the form of an attack they could blame on Russia in order to stop the momentum of Scotland wanting to break away from the empire. The PM didn’t know a thing about it, contrary to Kate’s suspicions.
Conservative party operative Margaret Roylin, a Trowbridge confidante, is actually the one who pushed the idea of a false flag attack with the aim of rallying the country around the PM. She enlisted two far-right members of parliament in the scheme. But, come to find out, the idea didn’t originate with the conniving Roylin. The idea for the plan actually came from …
ALLISON JANNEY!!!
That’s right. Not only is Janney’s presence a welcome addition to Season 2 of The Diplomat, but she make great use of her paltry screen time this season by stealing scenes and turning out to be a low key troublemaker.
As Vice President Grace Penn, Janney’s portrayal has all the gravitas that West Wing fans came to love. Rather than the White House press secretary, though, here she plays a veep who’s on the verge of being pushed out of office as a result of a scandal involving her husband. Kate, as we’ve noted, is the White House’s potential replacement for her, which makes Grace’s visit to London in the wake of the bombing all the more awkward.
Grace is there to shore up the alliance and to gently steer the UK’s response to the supposed Russian attack. Kate, though, eventually figures out that Madame Vice President was actually the one who set all this in motion — but our favorite diplomat gets more than she bargained for when she confronts Grace.
The latter, who uses a large map of the world as a prop in her response to Kate’s accusation, somewhat condescendingly points out to the ambassador that all sorts of bad things would follow from Scotland breaking away from the UK. That democracy is actually going out of fashion worldwide, and holding the world order together sometimes requires unpleasant choices to be made.
And that brings us to the season’s shocking finale.
The cliffhanger
Season 1 of The Diplomat delivered a whammy of final episode, with the bombing that left several characters’ fates up in the air, but the sophomore season took things to a whole new level with its final episode.
Basically, Kate and Grace go for a walk while Hal tries desperately to reach his wife by phone. It turns out that Hal — a seasoned former diplomat himself — has gotten hold of POTUS and told him that Grace is actually the one who conceived the false flag attack. At which point, POTUS has a heart attack from the shock news and dies right there on the spot. The last thing we see before the credits roll is an army of security personnel making a mad dash for Grace, who’s now the president by default, while a dumbstruck Kate has just been told by her husband what happened.
Was it an over-the-top, kind of outlandish ending? Sure. Am I dying to see what happens next? Obviously! In my opinion, The Diplomat is right up there with some of the best Netflix TV series of the past couple years, and Season 3 is going to be absolute trip. Among my final thoughts:
Will Grace, as POTUS, tap Kate as to be her veep — a sort of keep your enemies closer kind of thing? That would be a great turn of events, even though it would also kind of undercut the title of the show. It would also make for an even juicier sequence of events if Grace’s husband’s scandal still comes up, Grace has to leave office, and … Kate moves up to the Oval Office?
If I had to bet, I suspect Grace will name Kate as the new Secretary of State. This show is titled The Diplomat, after all.
