The intrigue-and-legal-focused thriller vibes are strong at Netflix these days with a new season of The Lincoln Lawyer afoot this month and promises of much more The Night Agent on the horizon. Then there’s The Diplomat, which is not only a thriller but a dramedy with emphasis on the comedy. Keri Russell’s Kate Wyler, a career diplomat who never wanted to travel to the U.K. in the first place, is so chronically exasperated by her professional and personal circumstances that it’s a joy to watch her go off the rails while her handlers aim to put forth a polished image.
Kate is not here for wearing a suit that isn’t colored to hide stains, and forget about her having the time to fix that hair every day, especially while she’s hungover. Surely, this is a sardonic and downright funny nod towards the ex-Mickey Mouse Club star’s controversial Felicity haircut in a way that pairs Russell’s handling of political firestorms in The Americans in an end product that is both unique and makes sense as Russell’s new long-term career rung.
Did we say long-term? Hell yeah. Netflix has revealed an on-set photo (while adding, “More Keri Russell is always a good thing”) to prove that cameras are already rolling on The Diplomat Season 3.
The one-year turnaround between the first two seasons is impressive enough, so let’s talk about the second season and what clues have been dropped on what to expect next.
Cast
This is where Netflix and Showrunner Debora Cahn are taking an unusual approach to the cliffhanger. Viewers will acutely recall that the life of Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) and other characters were left in the balance by an explosion in the final moments of the first season. Does Hal live? For sure, and Netflix wants you to know that going into the second season.
Hal is a cockroach, ain’t he? Right now, he is ^^^ probably making a backdoor deal with a random nation before Kate finds out and throttles him again.
The Diplomat‘s second season trailer dispensed with the cliffhanger by revealing that not only does Hal live, but Stewart Hayford (Ato Essandoh) is also alive and well with a forehead bandage. Likewise, the CIA Eidra Graham (Ali Ahn) and Kate Wyler are shown waiting at the hospital, all while Kate is certain that Prime Minister Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) did this terrorist deed.
Meanwhile, but we haven’t seen followup to how the brewing romance between Kate and Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi) would have gone if that semi-romantic evening hadn’t been interrupted by Hal almost-dying, so expect this to be awkward:
Meanwhile, Kate and Hal will be shuttled over to receive death stares from Allison Janney as the in-the-flesh version of Vice President Grace Penn.
Plot
Clearly, the aforementioned trailer (along with the above stills) was meant to let us know that this season will hit the ground running without wasting too much time wrapping up the explosion’s aftereffects. Cahn did reveal to Entertainment Weekly that Hal is “shaken,” and “[a]lmost dying like that can shake a lot on every level,” but we have seen that Hal always looks out for Hal, first and foremost. He’s shown himself to be determined to keep his marriage together with Kate, even if they only remain married in name. Expect them to remain an outward couple (and an ex-CIA official consulting on the series has discussed how common it is for married diplomats to stay married for the sake of their careers).
I know, poor Dennison. We might also want to worry about Kate on the professional front, since I’m not so sure that Vice President Grace Penn will be resigning (in scandal) as forecast in the first season. She could be extraordinarily disgusted that replacements are being floated for her at all. That discomfort will add to the tension experienced by Kate while trying to prove that Trowbridge is behind the explosion, and to what end, as Cahn declared to to Entertainment Weekly: “So how do you prove it? And then if you prove it, what the hell do you do about it?”
What is far more addictive than this show’s political happenings, however, are the messy personal lives on display, especially as Keri Russell notes, the Hal-Kate dynamic:
“I think the people around them in the story don’t know what’s happening. They don’t know what to make of them. It’s unnerving because they’re fighting cats and dogs or they’re completely backing each other up in this fierce way. And it’s unnerving because people don’t know where they stand.”
So are Kate and Hal stuck together forever? Maybe not. I know, we just pointed out that Hal won’t leave his marriage unless he is physically dragged away from Kate and presented with divorce papers, but there is a late-breaking development.
Following the official third season renewal, Cahn has further suggested that current and future filming will take place in both London and New York City, and what happens “flips the chessboard.” Then “Kate lives the particular nightmare that is getting what you want.” And what would that be? She didn’t really want to become vice president, so she will be relieved if that doesn’t happen. Yet she did want to leave Hal, and she apparently wanted to be with Dennison. So is that how this season will end? None of this makes sense, yet. Thank goodness.
Release Date
On October 31, Hal will go full Halloween villain and rise from the dead. Well, maybe not, but that’s the show’s official premiere date.
Trailer
The season’s full trailer makes no secret of the explosion not turning out as terribly as possible while turning attention to the next threat: Allison Janney.
The pressure is on, Kate Wyler. Get ready.