SPOILER ALERT: This review contains a plot detail from the Season 3 premiere of “The Diplomat,” now streaming on Netflix. There are no other spoilers about the rest of the season.
Season 3 of “The Diplomat” is the first installment of the Netflix political drama to come out since the 2024 presidential election, which means the series is now even more of an escapist fantasy than it already was. Watching Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) stalk the halls of the United States embassy in London, earnestly working to satisfy Danish concerns over British oil drilling in the North Sea and gushing over bipartisan treaties as the key to domestic popularity, it’s hard not to think of Elon Musk’s minions laying waste to USAID or trade wars conducted via Truth Social. These pangs 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 call sheet. If a female VP struggling to gauge how much distance to place between herself and her now-former boss while she attempts to fill his shoes gives you a sinking feeling, this season may be a tough sit.
The good news is that “The Diplomat,” still under the leadership of creator Debora Cahn, makes other changes that bring the series back to its core strengths. At just six episodes, and with a fast-paced plot unfolding in the immediate aftermath of an explosion that injured multiple major characters, Season 2 diverted its focus from the volatile marriage between Kate and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), also a veteran of the foreign service. The accelerated momentum was helpful in stabilizing — or perhaps acclimating viewers to — the show’s mishmash of tones, which staple together motormouthed policy wonkery and combustible romantic chemistry. But Season 3 goes beyond extending the pre-existing story and meaningfully alters the status quo. Paradoxically, shaking up “The Diplomat” also returns the series to its roots: the tug-of-war between the aspirations of two ambitious people, both straining against the gender dynamics of monogamous heterosexual marriage.
Grace’s sudden promotion creates many job openings in the new administration, chief among them her old gig. Hal spent the first two seasons of “The Diplomat” scheming, along with White House Chief of Staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah), to get Kate promoted to VP. To Hal’s mind, the plan was — along with moving to London — a mea culpa for subordinating his wife’s career to his own for many years, even though she’s a capable professional in her own right; to Kate, Hal’s maneuvering behind her back was her husband once again going rogue to serve his own agenda. The question of just how sincere Hal is in wanting Kate to take the lead for once is one of the animating tensions of “The Diplomat.” Which is why Grace offering the job to Hal over his better half is so good for the health of the show.
The idea that Hal’s Richard Holbrooke-esque résumé would land him in the line of succession is part of the series’ alternate reality, where the only skill that matters is wielding American influence abroad with an expert knowledge of protocol. (The entire season premiere is dedicated to the minutiae and optics of Grace’s swearing-in: where to stage the event, which Bible to use and who to administer the oath of office.) This institutionalist worldview, inherited from Cahn’s old workplace “The West Wing,” can grate in light of recent events; a casual mention of the Jared Kushner-negotiated Abraham Accords of the first Trump administration raised my eyebrows given ensuing developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s also less tenable with Hal working out of the White House, an office with a much broader portfolio than that of a diplomatic mission — including domestic issues “The Diplomat” still largely avoids.
Regardless, there are real benefits to Hal’s new workplace. One is simply expanding the world of the show, which has added a production outpost in New York (where Russell and Cahn both live) that enables setpieces like a “Succession”-esque interlude at Grace’s Hamptons retreat. Mensah, once confined largely to Zoom, FaceTime and phone calls as her character patched in from D.C., gets to join the ensemble in earnest as she spars with the Wylers face-to-face. Both she and the new environs are breaths of fresh air.
The shock to Hal and Kate’s equilibrium, already unsteady to begin with, is even more rewarding. For two seasons, Hal tried and mostly failed to occupy the role of “ambassador’s wife,” as he introduces himself to Grace’s husband Todd (Bradley Whitford). (With Whitford joining Janney and Cahn in the “West Wing” reunion, one wonders if Richard Schiff is waiting in the wings for Season 4.) Now, he’s once again in the higher-profile position, a shift Kate tries to spin as “all upside” — he can negotiate a bigger role for her! she can get a meeting with any foreign dignitary she wants! — before admitting how she really feels. When asked if playing second fiddle is what she actually wants, Kate sighs: “Apparently. It’s what I keep choosing.”
The season’s second episode looks back on the early days of Hal and Kate’s relationship as they contemplate this major change. It is, to this critic’s mind, the finest chapter of “The Diplomat” to date, because it centers the unhappy power couple that is the show’s most singular creation. Sewell gives Hal a childlike quality for both good and for ill; he’s as sincerely enthusiastic as he is reflexively selfish and petulant. Russell, for her part, can match Sewell’s intensity without uttering a word, as in a scene where Kate silently unpins her hair while Hal spirals out over Grace’s VP offer. And with Grace and Todd, “The Diplomat” gives Kate and Hal a mutual foil, and perhaps a look into their future. Kate finds commonality with Todd as the spouse shut out of the room where it happens, but she doesn’t want to be him.
Ultimately, “The Diplomat” doesn’t have much to say about international relations, being too in love with surface pageantry and process to dive 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 grand enough to heighten both the stakes and the eroticism. In Season 3, “The Diplomat” recommits to this core mission, a pivot that pays dividends.
“The Diplomat” Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.
