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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
49
Mixed:
11
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Oct 16, 2025
Season 3 Review:
Whitford’s casting speaks not only to the care and consideration that goes into each role, but the time and effort put into every aspect of one of the best shows on television. The Diplomat remains on top, even if its primary protagonist lives in a constant state of crisis.
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Oct 16, 2025
Season 3 Review:
The Diplomat is still chockfull of cliffhangers designed to keep you clicking “next episode” into the wee hours of the morning, and a mid-season time-jump feels a bit jarring, if necessary. But the series retains its sobering depiction of the geopolitical machinations that keep the globe spinning, and, like The Americans, it understands that the political is almost always personal.
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Apr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Thanks to the fine writing and the obligatory scenes in which someone lays out just what’s happening for our benefit, we can keep up with the dizzying array of dramatic developments. ... [Keri Russell] returns to the international thriller game in fine fashion in this series set in the present day, delivering a knockout performance as a no-nonsense and seasoned diplomat.
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IndieWireOct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Clocking in at six episodes instead of eight, “The Diplomat” Season 2 feels less weighty than its original incarnation. That’s good news for anyone who immediately latched onto the love triangles and will-they-or-won’t-they pairings. .... Perhaps best of all, “The Diplomat” is proof that prestige dramas don’t have to strive to do too much, and that frothy entertainment doesn’t have to settle for less.
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Apr 26, 2023
Season 1 Review:
The Diplomat isn't perfect — it's not directed in a way that will garner much attention, and some of the plotting is a tad predictable — but the show is more than captivating for eight episodes. In fact, the main draw here is that the show is tightly scripted, well acted, and doesn't overstay its welcome.
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Oct 16, 2025
Season 3 Review:
But for all the global fractures taking place in this season of “The Diplomat,” the most troubling for viewers may be the one between husband and wife. Ms. Russell makes Kate, with whom everyone is in love, adorably impatient and endlessly resourceful. As is typical of the show, the Big Picture calamity is balanced by the Small Moment of humanizing tenderness. .... Ms. Russell is terrific, but she would be less so without Mr. Sewell.
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Oct 31, 2024
Season 2 Review:
It’s quite refreshing that The Diplomat’s second season keeps itself so compact. Maybe that simply had to do with the Hollywood strikes last year, but whatever the reasoning behind the reduction to six episodes, it’s a choice that pays off. We’re whisked away into embassy adventure and then, with a merry swiftness, are served an even better finale shocker than the first season’s.
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Oct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
“The Diplomat”—eight parts in 2023, and a penurious six parts now—is utterly entertaining, absorbing and a novel construct populated by characters with whom you want to spend time, who seem eminently human and who operate under one perfectly plausible principle: No one can trust anyone else.
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RogerEbert.comOct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Russell and Sewell are the center, but “The Diplomat” doesn’t work without a great ensemble. Standouts this season include an empathetic portrayal of PTSD by Essandoh and a wonderfully feisty performance from Kinnear. However, the show-stealing thief of the season is someone who worked with Cahn on “The West Wing”: Oscar and Emmy winner Allison Janney.
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The Daily BeastApr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
The series is a tough nut to crack at first, and many will find that exterior completely impenetrable. This is not a 1.5x speed background watch. But once you remember that every line in an esoteric drama like this isn’t supposed to make sense the moment it falls out of someone’s mouth, The Diplomat transforms from palatable to remarkable.
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Oct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
The dialogue remains crisp and snappy, and the pacing is nonstop in the very best way. Season 2 is only six episodes long, compared to Season 1's eight, and the brevity becomes a strength, allowing for the focus the show needs to pull off the main storyline. But more than anything, it's the performances that really sell this series.
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The PlaylistOct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
How that narrative is resolved is fascinating and well worth not being spoiled on. The show provides a multitude of red herrings that are truly absurd in the best way. An escalating series of twists in the back half of the six-episode season had me rolling my eyes while simultaneously hitting ‘next episode’ immediately once the option came up.
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Oct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
By fusing their relationship to its larger political plots, The Diplomat makes some goofy choices, especially in the season’s eye-roll-worthy finale. But the fast-paced storylines, while perhaps not grounded in reality, result in an entertaining, easy-to-watch thriller with one hell of a Russell performance.
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Apr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Intertwining the dueling demands of idealism and pragmatism with the equally pressing interpersonal dynamics that inevitably shape realpolitik outcomes. It makes for a rich stew of international intrigue and rolled-up-sleeves diplomatic finagling, all held together by a talented ensemble.
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Oct 31, 2024
Season 2 Review:
It’s a well-acted show with some reasonably intricate foreign relations plotting at its core that would have been right at home on network television in the 2000s or 2010s, save for a few f-bombs here and there. Our opinion of the show hasn’t really changed in that regard, though we do think that the plot is now getting so intricate, the show may be nudging itself more towards the “prestige TV’ end of the spectrum.
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Oct 31, 2024
Season 1 Review:
The pace is crisp; the acting is fine, striking a balance between dramatic immersion and wink-and-nudge rom-com. I went with it, binged all eight episodes of Season 1, and didn’t hate myself afterward (except until the very end of the final episode, with its three cliffhangers, none of which makes the slightest bit of sense).
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Oct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
For fans of this kind of twisty, soap operatic show (characters are constantly talking about their romances even in the midst of global tension), season 2 delivers many of the charms of the first season. Russell is still great, and the show continues to zig when you think it’ll zag. But it’s a high churn plot machine, and the twists are starting to overwhelm the characters.
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Oct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
The new season is also a more confident and convincing version of itself. It’s still not without flaws, chief among them an uncritical reverence for both the American security state and Kate as its avatar. (The first is a political concern, which may lie beyond the scope of a review; the second is a dramatic one, and thus fair game.) But “The Diplomat” now satisfies its own brief more successfully than ever.
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Apr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
A political thriller laced with romance and written, with some success, in an Aaron Sorkinesque high-comic, high-velocity style. ... Russell is not as funny as the show needs her to be. ... Luckily for “The Diplomat,” Sewell has no trouble getting in touch with his inner Barrymore, and he walks away with the show.
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Apr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
“The Diplomat” loses a bit of its luster every time Russell and Sewell are kept apart too long, which becomes a more glaring issue when the international crisis reaches its climax in the final two episodes. Even so, I can’t help rooting for a second season of ”The Diplomat,” which ends with a satisfyingly twist and game-changing, if emotionally manipulative cliffhanger. As long as you go into your next binge looking for a series more akin to “Scandal” than “Bodyguard,” you’re in for an entertaining ride.
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RogerEbert.comApr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
It’s an extremely talky show. ... Luckily, the creators hired an ensemble of performers to make this kind of intellectual discourse genuine. So even as “The Diplomat” circles the same drains of dissent and diplomacy, it remains interesting for anyone intrigued by what makes the political world tick.
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Apr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
The series leans a little more than I would like into the perfunctory and escalating thrills of the plot, reaching a contrived cliffhanger that I’m weirdly confident will be poorly resolved. At the same time, I want to see how it’s resolved because The Diplomat makes it clear that Kate and the audience still have a lot to learn about this world.
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The TelegraphOct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Janney is this series’ saving grace, because until her arrival things are too gloomy. There is also too much of a focus on the romantic relationship between Stuart and Eidra, the deputy chief of mission and the CIA station chief, because only devotees of the show will give a fig about them. And stick around for the final scene, which sets us up for series three. It’s a corker.
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Radio TimesOct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
In its second season, The Diplomat continues to actually be a slightly mindless thriller, with a plot that's twisty but, ultimately, easy to follow. It feels as though it was designed so you can leave the room, get a cup of tea, come back, and still be able to catch up with where everyone is at fairly quickly.
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Apr 20, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Created by Debora Cahn (whose credits include “Homeland” and “The West Wing”), the series exhibits a savvy and timely ear for international relations, introducing tensions involving Iran and Russia along the way....Yet it’s told with the vaguely comedic spin of a “West Wing” walk-and-talk sequence that’s difficult to sustain.
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Radio TimesApr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
The Diplomat's greatest weakness is that it feels as though it is grasping for ripped-from-the-headlines relevance, with numerous references to semi-recent real-world events, but instead ends up feeling a little bit lame and dated. But once you accept the series for what it truly is, rather than for what it appears to be aspiring to, it's actually a fun ride with engaging characters and an easily digestible plot.
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IndieWireOct 16, 2025
Season 3 Review:
“The Diplomat” Season 3 shouldn’t prove too disappointing to established fans. The dense dialogue is still snappy, the cinematography is still crisp, and the cast is still game. But the cracks in the surrounding story are starting to show. .... In Season 3, “The Diplomat” simply leaves too much to the imagination. Sometimes, those dark corners need a little more light.
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ColliderApr 19, 2023
Season 1 Review:
For every grounded and harrowing development it introduces, The Diplomat becomes a hollow theatrical performance based upon shaky dramatic developments that only end up undercutting the tension it seemed to be going for. ... Through all of this noise, Russell still manages to find some way to bring emotion out of the clunky story.
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Oct 30, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Janney brings such an interesting energy to the series, and Grace’s interactions with Kate elevate the series entirely, as neither woman behaves how you would expect under the circumstances. Unfortunately, as exciting as it is to watch, there are two major issues. First, as I have already said (but it cannot be overstated), there just isn’t enough time to explore the characters, their dynamics, or this story. Second, and more importantly, the series can’t seem to decide what it wants to be.
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