- Network: Netflix
- Series Premiere Date: Apr 20, 2023
Critic Reviews
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Keri Russell has three strong male foils, but The Diplomat is still her show. .... The Diplomat should slot effortlessly into any list of the best dramas of the year.
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Returning drama “The Diplomat” is that Netflix rarity: A great show.
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The writing continues to be sharp and clever, with heart-pounding and laugh-of-loud moments alike, and the performances go even deeper than before. The Diplomat Season 2 is one conspiracy thriller definitely worth getting tangled up in.
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The Diplomat’s narrative tightens in season two with a precision that rewards close attention while leaving just enough mystery to keep you wanting more.
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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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The show remains a crackerjack entertainment. I just wish there was more of it.
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The Diplomat, one of Netflix’s biggest hits last year, is back for a second season, and like the first, it’s both gallopingly entertaining and risibly preposterous. In some ways, Act 2 is more entertaining.
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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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There’s a lot of fast, complicated dialogue and Cahn expects you to keep up. Yet, somehow, it manages to be an easy watch. That’s largely down to Russell’s consistently excellent performance.
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“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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Though Season 2 is a bit heavier than the first, it hasn’t lost that crucial core of fun.
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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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Aside from its guest star, everything that was great about “Diplomat” remains so, and even a smidge better. Russell is dynamic, magnetic and surprisingly hilarious, still the main draw even as her co-stars get deeper backstories and plots.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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In Season 2, “The Diplomat” feels like the same show, but a lesser version made by different people. Too much is flatfooted, from the performances to the phony-sounding exhortations about what it really takes to preserve democracy. What a letdown.
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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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