The Diplomat Season Three: Keri Tears Up the Rule Book…and the Embassy Carpet, writes Nick Stark
Pass the sausage rolls and pour yourself a large G&T: The Diplomat is back, and this new Netflix season has dumped the diplomacy and gone full-on bonkers. Forget calm chats over canapés: this is political chaos at 30,000 feet, and it’s an absolute treat.
Right from the off, the tension’s cranked to eleven. Keri Russell’s Kate Wyler isn’t just buttering up world leaders anymore – she’s trying to save the actual White House. In storms Allison Janney as President Grace Penn, neatly summed up in the show as “a terribly flawed woman… now the president.” You couldn’t make it up.
Creator Debora Cahn clearly told her writers to floor it. The pace is frantic, the dialogue zings, and while the plot occasionally disappears up its own diplomatic pouch, it never once feels tired. No lazy filler here — just rapid-fire rows, corridor sprints and the kind of steely side-eye that could trigger sanctions. One critic called it “an old-fashioned network drama inspired by Aaron Sorkin,” and that’s bang on — except this time the suits are sharper and the stakes sexier.
But don’t expect dusty policy chat. This season leans into the soap — big time. Kate’s marriage to Rufus Sewell’s Hal remains the show’s emotional circus. Their chemistry? Off the charts. One minute they’re sniping over nuclear treaties, the next they’re arguing about who left the ketchup out. It’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? meets Yes, Minister, with a hangover.
Episode One kicks off with a dead president, a panicking Cabinet and enough double-crossing to fill a Bond film. Allegiances twist faster than a Downing Street press line, and the real message rings loud and clear: the fiercest wars aren’t fought on battlefields, but in bedrooms.
That said, the tone sometimes lurches like a government in free fall. One scene we’re dissecting satellite intel, the next we’re mid-lover’s tiff under candlelight. And yes, you’ll need to swallow the idea that a top ambassador can juggle terrorism, scandal and an affair before Sunday brunch.
Still, that’s half the fun. This isn’t a civics lecture — it’s House of Cards with a blow-dry and better lighting. Russell gives her sharpest performance yet, equal parts steel and meltdown, while Janney’s new president steals every frame with that mix of chaos, cunning and charm only she can deliver. Their on-screen duels are pure gold — handbags at dawn in high heels and higher office.
By now the series has fully embraced its identity: part political thriller, part glossy soap, with enough witty bite to keep it from collapsing into camp. And thank heavens for that — we’ve got plenty of grim reality elsewhere.
If you’re the sort who loves realism and muted tones, stick to Newsnight. But if you fancy your global politics served with a wink, a martini and a minor nervous breakdown — this is your box-set heaven.
Verdict: 8/10 — gloriously mad, wildly entertaining and impossible to switch off. Keri Russell rules the screen, diplomacy be damned.
