SPOILER ALERT: This review contains plot details from the Season 3 premiere of “The Diplomat,” now streaming on Netflix. There are no further spoilers for the rest of the season.
Season 3 of “The Diplomat” is the first installment of the Netflix political drama to release since the 2024 presidential election, meaning the series is now even more of an escapist fantasy than it already was. Watching Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) walk the halls of the U.S. Embassy in London, working earnestly to satisfy Danish concerns about British oil drilling in the North Sea, and delighting in bipartisan treaties as the key to domestic popularity, is tough. not think of Elon Musk’s henchmen devastating USAID or the trade wars waged via Truth Social. Those pains are only compounded by the cliffhanger that concluded Season 2, in which President William Rayburn (Michael McKean) suffered a fatal heart attack and elevated his vice president, Grace Penn (Allison Janney), to the top of the muster list. If a female vice president struggling to gauge how much distance to put between herself and her now-former boss while she tries to fill his shoes gives you a sinking feeling, this season might be a tall order.
The good news is that “The Diplomat,” still under the direction of creator Debora Cahn, is making other changes that bring the series back to its core strengths. In just six episodes and with a fast-paced plot unfolding immediately after an explosion that injured several main characters, Season 2 shifted its focus from the volatile marriage between Kate and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), also a Foreign Service veteran. The accelerated momentum was helpful in stabilizing — or perhaps acclimating viewers to — the show’s hodgepodge of tones, which combines motorized political wackos and combustible romantic chemistry. But season 3 goes beyond expanding the pre-existing story and significantly changes the status quo. Paradoxically, shaking up “The Diplomat” also brings the series back to its roots: the tug-of-war between the aspirations of two ambitious people, both struggling against the gender dynamics of monogamous heterosexual marriage.
Grace’s sudden promotion creates numerous job opportunities in the new administration, chief among them her old position. Hal spent the first two seasons of “The Diplomat” plotting, along with White House chief of staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah), to get Kate promoted to vice president. In Hal’s mind, the plan was, in addition to moving to London, a mea culpa for subordinating his wife’s career to his own for many years, even though she is a competent professional herself; For Kate, Hal’s actions behind her back allowed her husband to once again become a thug to serve his own agenda. The question of how sincere Hal is in wanting Kate to take the lead for once is one of the animating tensions of “The Diplomat.” This is why Grace offering the job to Hal rather than her better half is so good for the health of the series.
The idea that Hal’s Richard Holbrooke-style resume would put him in the line of succession is part of the show’s alternate reality, where the only skill that matters is wielding American influence abroad with a thorough knowledge of protocol. (The entire season premiere is devoted to the details and optics of Grace’s swearing-in: where to hold the event, which Bible to use, and who to swear in.) This institutionalist worldview, inherited from Cahn’s former workplace, “The West Wing,” may be irritating in light of recent events; a mere mention of the Abraham Accords negotiated by Jared Kushner during the first Trump administration raised my eyebrows given the subsequent developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s also less tenable with Hal working in the White House, an office with a much broader portfolio than that of a diplomatic mission — including domestic matters that “The Diplomat” still largely avoids.
Either way, Hal’s new workplace has some real advantages. The first is to simply expand the world of the series, adding a production outpost in New York (where Russell and Cahn both live) that allows for set pieces like an “Succession”-type interlude at Grace’s retirement in the Hamptons. Mensah, once confined largely to Zoom, FaceTime and phone calls while her character was from DC, joins the ensemble in earnest as she trains face-to-face with the Wylers. She and the new surroundings are breaths of fresh air.
The shock to Hal and Kate’s balance, already unstable to begin with, is even more gratifying. For two seasons, Hal tried and failed to fill the role of “ambassador’s wife” as he introduced himself to Grace’s husband, Todd (Bradley Whitford). (With Whitford joining Janney and Cahn at the “West Wing” reunion, one wonders if Richard Schiff is waiting in the wings for Season 4.) Now he’s in a more high-profile position again, a change Kate tries to spin as “everything topsy-turvy” — he can negotiate a bigger role for her! she can get an appointment with any foreign dignitary she wants! – before admitting how she really feels. Asked if playing second fiddle is what she really wants, Kate sighs: “Apparently. That’s what I keep choosing.”
The second episode of the season looks back at the early days of Hal and Kate’s relationship as they contemplate this major change. This is, according to this reviewer, the finest chapter of “The Diplomat” to date, as it centers on the ill-fated power couple who constitute the series’ most singular creation. Sewell gives Hal a childlike quality both for better and for worse; he is as sincerely enthusiastic as he is reflexively selfish and irritable. Russell, for his part, can match Sewell’s intensity without uttering a word, as in a scene where Kate silently lets her hair down while Hal pounces on Grace’s vice-presidential offer. And with Grace and Todd, “The Diplomat” gives Kate and Hal a mutual foil, and perhaps a glimpse into their future. Kate finds common ground with Todd as her spouse locks herself out of the room where this is happening, but she doesn’t want to be him.
Ultimately, “The Diplomat” has little to say about international relations, being too enamored with surface pageantry and processes to delve into the real power dynamics beneath. Rather, it’s a story about the messy intersection of love, work, and the battle of the sexes, with a setting grandiose enough to heighten both the stakes and the eroticism. In Season 3, “The Diplomat” reaffirms its commitment to this core mission, a pivot that is paying off.
Season 3 of “The Diplomat” is now streaming on Netflix.
