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The explosive ending of the first season of The Diplomat is right where the trailer for the second season opens. Did a car bomb kill the husband of Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom? The answer arrives fairly quickly in the clip when Wyler approaches her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), in a hospital bed, setting the tone for the season.
There’s tension and black humor galore in the two-minute clip, including a tossed off nod to the horror movie classic Black Christmas with the line, “The calls are coming from inside the house.” The series, which is horror only inasmuch as international politics are a horror show, fittingly premieres on Netflix on Halloween.
“Season One ended with Kate’s realization that the attack on a British warship [that] brought her to the U.K. wasn’t the work of a hostile nation — it was the British prime minister,” the series’ creator, Debora Cahn, told Tudum. “Now she has to prove it. The U.S. and the U.K. don’t spy on each other. In fact, they share all their intelligence. So how do you investigate the PM? Who do you trust?”
The second season will introduce Allison Janey as Vice President Grace Penn.
Rolling Stone’s TV critic, Alan Sepinwall, praised the series’ first season and especially Russell’s acting. “Is it high art? No, and the more you have to think about the mechanics of the plot, the less sense it seems to make,” he wrote. “It may not win Russell the Emmy she was inexplicably denied for playing [The Americans’] Elizabeth Jennings, or even get her a nomination, given how much awards bait is debuting in these spring months. But it’s a ride first and foremost, and one I very much enjoyed taking.” (Incidentally, Russell was nominated for The Diplomat but lost to Succession’s Sarah Snook.)
