International Affairs

Has 18 months ever felt so long? When we last saw The Diplomat’s American Ambassador to England Kate Wyler, energetically played by Emmy-nominated Keri Russell, she had a lot on her mind. In the closing minutes of the Season 1 finale, Kate — in Paris with British Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi) to negotiate the arrest of Russian mercenary Roman Lenkov — learned that British Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) was planning to assassinate him. And that the PM, not Lenkov, had been behind an attack on a British warship that killed 41 soldiers and resulted in Kate’s posting to England. And if that’s not enough, though she and Dennison have been dancing around their mutual attraction, she appeared shattered when informed that her almost-ex-husband Hal (Rufus Sewell) and top aide Stuart Heyford (Ato Essandoh) had been caught in a car bombing in London. Then the screen went black, and we’ve been waiting over a year to learn what happens next.

But that’s not all! For fans who sat stunned through the final credits, they heard a British voice saying, “This is Dolphin 3-6 transmitting in the blind,” and, “We suspected comms failure.” Was that a British soldier speaking? And if so, who was it and where was he? What does it all mean?

We have to wait until the new season premieres on October 31 to find out but considering creator and executive producer Debora Cahn also wrote for Homeland, these gasp-inducing turns may not be surprising. “I wanted to make people want more,” she’s said of The Diplomat’s cliffhanger. “I wanted to bring together all of the different dynamics of the political relationships and the personal relationships in one event that splits apart all at the same time.” Mission accomplished!

People have wanted more of The Diplomat since it debuted in April 2023 at No. 1 on Netflix’s weekly global Top 10 TV list. The series, about Russell’s feisty first-time ambassador, her complicated marriage, and America’s behind-the-scenes political maneuvering at home and abroad, was watched by close to 60 million in its first weekend. Netflix renewed it for a second season just 10 days after it premiered.

Russell, who’d taken a five-year break from acting to raise her three kids following her 2013-2018 stint on FX’s The Americans, excitedly stepped into the role of Kate. “What I loved is the constant discomfort and sweatiness and nervousness and just overall unpolished quality of her — matched with the bossiness to everyone, which I think is really funny,” Russell said.

It’s a fine line the ensemble cast walks between delivering scenes of hard-driving, dramatic diplomacy and tension-breaking humor. “[Russell] is an incredible comedian, [who has a] classic, tragic clown kind of ability to meet the world with emotional vulnerability and an incredible physical vocabulary,” Cahn said of the star.

The former dancer’s physicality was on side-splitting display in one first-season episode when Kate and Hal have a literal knock-down, drag-out fight. “It was kind of screwball in energy,” Sewell told Screen Rant of the couple’s relationship. That fight demonstrated what viewers had begun to suspect: “These people are insanely connected to each other and respect each other…. But they want to kill each other too,” Russell told Deadline. “It’s a lot of energy between them. It’s not always for the best.”

Indeed, the couple was on the edge of divorce, yet the look on Kate’s face when she learned about the car bomb explosion was heartbreaking. Will Hal — an ambitious former ambassador himself whom Kate suspected was striving to become Secretary of State — survive? And if he does, will their marriage last? Cahn has hinted, “Everything we thought we knew about the Wylers changes, as does everything they think they know about each other.”

The Wylers aren’t the only power couple whose connection is on the line. Essandoh’s Stuart had been unceremoniously dumped by his partner, CIA London Station Chief Eidra Park (Ali Ahn) when she’d learned he would be going with Kate to Washington, D.C. if she became Vice President, a role he’d been told to groom her for.

And speaking of the Veep: West Wing veteran and Oscar winner Allison Janney will arrive this season as Vice President Grace Penn. “The VP thinks Kate’s after her job,” said Cahn, who also was a producer of The West Wing. “She’s not entirely wrong. Kate thinks she understands the VP. She is mistaken.”

When Season 2 begins, everything in Kate’s life is in pieces. But how she and those around her deal with the fallout keeps us tuning in. “The Diplomat is a show about long-term relationships, about marriages between people and marriages between countries and it gets hard to keep that going for a long time, be it a marriage or a military alliance,” Cahn said. “We change, we grow, the world changes and yet we want these relationships to last.” Yes, we do!

The Diplomat, Season 2 Premiere, Thursday, October 31, Netflix