‘The Diplomat’ Season 2 series review: Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell continue to rock this marital/political drama

‘The Diplomat’ Season 2 series is a bingeable show filled with political intrigue, power struggles, and personal drama in the world of diplomacy.

When the British Prime Minister, Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) says the aircraft carrier HMS Courageouswas attacked three weeks ago, one is suitably stunned. Did all the events of season 1 of The Diplomat, including the car bomb in the finale and the time required for the injured to heal happen in 21 days? Seems a stretch, but then while The West Wing’s Debora Cahn plays fast and loose with facts and time, she has created a brilliantly bingeable show.

Season 1 ended with a car bomb involving the US ambassador to the UK, Kate Wyler’s (Keri Russell) husband Hal (Rufus Sewell), Deputy Chief of Mission Stuart Hayford (Ato Essandoh), embassy staffer, the all-round good guy, Ronnie (Jess Chanliau) and a British MP Merritt Grove (Simon Chandler). Kate was in Paris in a scarlet dress on the arm of the UK Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi), all ready to be adulterous, when she heard the news which shocked her and made her all teary. There was a year-and-a-half wait to know whether Hal made it.

The show is an enjoyably soapy take on diplomacy and international relations. Kate and Hal’s on-off marriage continues to be absorbing. Russell and Sewell as the career diplomats Hal and Kate, riff off each other, loving, hating, being proud, envious and jealous of each other by turns. Sewell radiates Hal’s confidence, a poise brought on by negotiating with warlords and similar animals, as well as the insecurity brought on by his wife’s ascendance.  

Russell as Kate, has to choose between her husband’s broad shadow, and the polite and proper Dennison, who Hal sarcastically calls “a good man”, in between all the other duties of being an ambassador. There is also Stuart’s relationship with CIA Station chief, Eidra Park (Ali Ahn), which ended last season, but you need to cut a man some slack after surviving an explosion.

Trowbridge is all bluff and bluster but the real power behind the throne is his wife, Lydia (Pandora Colin) and his campaign manager, the mysterious Margaret Roylin (Celia Imrie), who seems to be in the know of everything.  

The main reason Kate was in London and not Kabul, where she wanted to be, was to be whetted for the Vice President’s post, as the incumbent VP, Grace Penn (Allison Janney) is set to step down under a cloud of her greedy husband’s doings. Penn makes an appearance making evil eyes and is set up to be a major player in Season 3.

There is talk of Kate’s clothes as well as mention of her underwear and hair. Towards the end of the season, she appears in a Vice-President bun. She wears dresses more easily and also appears in a skirt for a meeting. The paper clip Kate uses to keep her trousers up might be evocative of what is keeping the show together as well — great performances, breathless plot turns, snappy dialogue (“Is Lee Harvey Oswald my anaesthesiologist?”) and gracious, soaring staircases.