Netflix’s 'The Diplomat' Returns with More Political Intrigue & Worse Hair

About halfway through the second season of Netflix’s The Diplomat, it occurred to me that perhaps US Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) isn’t so good at her job.

She treats being the US Ambassador to England a little bit like being a character in Mean Girls. She forms exclusive cliques that she shuts people out of (she uses the political term that someone needs to be “read in,” but the result of being exclusionary is the same). She gossips and jumps to conclusions like she’s in the cafeteria and just heard rumors that the quarterback cheated on the head cheerleader. And her allegiances constantly fluctuate based on, as one character says, whomever speaks to her last. “She’s frothing at the mouth to have the Ides of March play out at her picnic,”  her deputy chief of mission Stuart Hayford (Ato Essandoh) says about one of Kate’s many ill-thought out strategies.

The second season picks up right where the first season ended in April 2023. I highly recommend watching this Season 1 recap and then watching the last 15 minutes of the first season finale (starting at around the 24-minute mark) because the entire second season is based on what transpires in the last episode, especially its final scenes.

After an explosion in London which injures her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell), Stuart and Stuart’s assistant Ronnie (Jess Chanliau), Kate and British Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi) race back to London. What Kate discovers is that it is not, in fact, the Russians who are posing a threat to the British government but that, as Kate says with no sense of irony, “the call is coming from inside the house.” (Someone on the writing staff is a fan of scary movies.) But who is the, pardon the pun, prime suspect? 

Is it the oafish, reactionary British Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear)? Margaret Roylin (Celia Imrie), the Tory party operative Kate, confided in? Or somebody else entirely? And where does the fact that the President (Michael McKean) wants to groom Kate to be the next Vice President fit into all this?

Several personal storylines are the undercurrent of all this political intrigue. There’s the Wyler’s fraught, on-the-brink-of-divorce marriage. Hal is a man with aspirations and has decided that being the VPOTUS' husband is his fastest route to real power. He’s constantly doing things he should not be doing, right up until the season’s final moments. Kate is continuously frustrated with his ambition-at-all-costs mentality. “It’s not okay, the way you talk to me,” he tells his wife.  Kate, for her part, is beginning to see how the Ambassador job is much more complicated than perhaps she ever considered. “At some point, you’ve got to decide if, in the aggregate, we are doing good,” he tells his wife. 

Stuart’s burgeoning romance with CIA Station Chief Eidra Park (Ali Ahn) keeps hitting roadblocks, as their jobs often involve competing agendas. And there’s the simmering attraction between Kate and Secretary Dennison, which really is a problem.

The action can become repetitive when watching the episodes back-to-back because the show is in constant crisis mode. But things take a turn for the (much) better when Allison Janney arrives, complete with a bleached blond bob, as Vice President Vice President Grace Penn. Kate has been told that Penn’s husband is why Grace will have to step down from the second-highest position in the country. But is that, in fact, the case? It will be a thrill for any West Wing fan to see Janney walking and talking politics with authority again. Watching Russell and Janney spar on screen is a delight—two actresses at the top of their game. “So you would be Vice President of the United States as a favor,” Grace snarks when Kate says she’s willing to step into the job. 

The Diplomat isn’t a show with much humor, but the inside joke of Kate’s hair being a problem is the gift that keeps on giving. Making Russell’s most famous mane look that bad must take a lot of effort. “You probably think your hair says you’re too busy serving your country to get a blowout. But it reads as bed-head, which sends a signal, I think, in this case, that’s better unsent,” Grace tells her.  

Overall, the show is buoyed by some standout performances. Not just from Janney, Russell, and Sewell, who are reliably excellent. (No one can convey panicked tension like Sewell.) But Ahn is also terrific as the CIA agent in charge of trying to manage foreign policy, traitorous informants, and a boyfriend who keeps making her cry at work. As a prime minister seemingly modeled after a certain recent US President, Kinnear is fantastic as the impulsive leader who no one seems to be able to contain. Also, Gyasi is perhaps the sexiest politician since Tony Goldwyn’s Fitz Grant on Scandal.

Once again, the season ends with a bang (although not so literal this time) that will leave viewers wanting more. With Season 3 already in production, let’s hope we don’t have to wait 18 months for another season. 

The Diplomat Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on Netflix. Season 3 is expected out in 2025.