Netflix’s 'The Diplomat' Returns with More Political Intrigue & Worse Hair
About halfway through the second season of Netflix’s The Diplomat, it occurred to me that perhaps US Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) isn’t so good at her job.
She treats being the US Ambassador to England a little bit like being a character in Mean Girls. She forms exclusive cliques that she shuts people out of (she uses the political term that someone needs to be “read in,” but the result of being exclusionary is the same). She gossips and jumps to conclusions like she’s in the cafeteria and just heard rumors that the quarterback cheated on the head cheerleader. And her allegiances constantly fluctuate based on, as one character says, whomever speaks to her last. “She’s frothing at the mouth to have the Ides of March play out at her picnic,” her deputy chief of mission Stuart Hayford (Ato Essandoh) says about one of Kate’s many ill-thought out strategies.
The second season picks up right where the first season ended in April 2023. I highly recommend watching this Season 1 recap and then watching the last 15 minutes of the first season finale (starting at around the 24-minute mark) because the entire second season is based on what transpires in the last episode, especially its final scenes.
