Netflix’s “The Diplomat” is not a show for the faint of heart. Its once fairly straightforward narrative premise—Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) is unexpectedly reassigned to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom after a potential terrorist attack on a British aircraft carrier—has become so convoluted it defies easy description.
Its storytelling is unabashedly bonkers, fearlessly one-upping its most ridiculous plot twists season after season with cliffhangers that would put daytime soaps to shame. (These include, but are not limited to: international conspiracies, false flag operations, car bombs, blackmail, suicide, and the shock death of a sitting president.) And, yet, somehow, it remains one of the most relentlessly entertaining series of the streaming era.
“The Diplomat’s” fourth season is a marked improvement on its third, which saw Kate’s husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), elevated to the vice presidency, and newly sworn-in President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) thrown into the deep end of international relations. The show’s geopolitics—leaders resigning, international allies feuding, and threats levied with abandon—crossed into the fully unbelievable several seasons ago, so there’s little point in critiquing how unlikely any of its narrative swerves are. Instead, we’re free to enjoy the fallout from years of dramatic set-up finally coming home to roost as the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Couples engage in an intricate dance of loyalty and betrayal.
Season 4 picks up immediately following Kate’s realization that Grace and Hal conspired to steal an alleged “apocalypse weapon” from a sunken Russian submarine in British territorial waters. As she attempts to keep the truth of this information from Prime Minister Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) and various other key members of his government, including her former fling Callum Ellis (Aidan Turner), she must also juggle a series of increasingly difficult demands from the Penn administration that test her personal morals and professional convictions in new and uncomfortable ways. (Yes, this description is intentionally vague. As with so much about this show, it’s better to go in not knowing too many plot details.)
“The Diplomat’s” fourth outing is gloriously bingeable, thanks to a seemingly non-stop series of narrative twists, moral quandaries and personal betrayals that make its eight episodes (all of which were available for review) fly by at breakneck speed. Yet, for all its wild narrative swerves, this show remains so compelling because it’s unafraid to make the political personal. Its questions of moral compromise, professional ambition, and personal duty may play out on the biggest possible global stage, but its stories work because, at the end of the day, they’re deeply intimate, grounded in easy-to-understand emotion and relatable characters.
Season 4 thankfully course-corrects some of the worst mistakes from the show’s third outing, smartly recentering much of its emotional hook on Hal and Kate’s marriage as they try (yet again) to find a way forward together rather than letting their relationship fall apart. This rededication is, of course, complicated by their separate roles advising President Penn, as well as the fallout from the stolen nuclear-weapon situation. But for the first time in a long time, “The Diplomat” seems to remember that it’s possible to give Hal and Kate real, genuine conflict that isn’t predicated on whether one of them is about to cheat on or leave the other.
To be clear, their marriage has its share of (fairly massive) problems throughout this run of episodes, not to mention frequent disagreements about both the direction of U.S. foreign policy and their respective relationships with the new president. But there is at least a sense that the Wylers are, at long last, rowing in the same direction again, and the pair’s steadier than it used to be union offers an important counterpoint to the Penns’, which is straining under the weight of Grace’s new responsibilities.
Netflix’s decision to promote both Janney and her former The West Wing co-star Bradley Whitford to series regular status this season pays immediate dividends, and the two make excellent sparring partners for Russell and Sewell. The quartet faces multiple dramatic and strategic face-offs in a variety of combinations, which crackle with tension, frustration, concern, and fury by turns. The Penns’ relationship is, in many ways, as fraught as the Wylers’ marriage, and together they offer dual, occasionally combative depictions of the costs a life (and a love) lived so firmly in the public eye carries.
While Kate and Hal’s relationship remains the emotional engine driving much of this show, Todd’s attempts to figure out his role in a marriage where the whole world can claim a piece of his wife and Grace’s determination to test the limits of a power that it’s not clear she ever truly expected to wield make for equally compelling subplots.
Janney and Whitford share a rich, lived-in chemistry, making it easy to believe that their relationship has also weathered its share of storms. Maybe that hasn’t always been pretty, but like Kate and Hal, the fact that they’re still together says something about both their commitment to each other and the genuineness of their feelings. In a different world, it’s easy to see how the Penns and Wylers might have been real friends, rather than reluctant, occasionally combative, and sometimes unwilling allies.
The show’s increased focus on this central foursome does come with a few drawbacks, however. Ato Essandoh and Ali Ahn have relatively little to do this season, and most of their screen time is spent on Stuart and Eidra’s evolving personal relationship. (To his credit, Essandoh is particularly strong in the season’s final episodes, which finally remember that his character has long been this show’s most effective moral compass.) Kinnear and Turner are also largely sidelined, though the late-season arrival of former “Doctor Who” star Jodie Whittaker adds a welcome punch of energy to what might otherwise be some dully one-sided policy proceedings.
But the real reason to tune into “The Diplomat” remains Russell and Sewell. They’re dynamite together throughout a season as interested in their personal negotiations as in their professional ones. And thanks to another (fully expected yet still wildly surprising) cliffhanger, the pair are left in a unique and thrilling new position heading into the fifth season we all assume is coming. Let these two banter, bicker, betray, and bolster each other forever, I say.
All eight episodes screened for review. Premieres October 15 on Netflix.
