The Diplomat Season 4’s Bombshell Ending Explained by Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell

6 min read

Spoilers ahead for The Diplomat season four.

In the last moments of The Diplomat, both Kate (Keri Russell) and Hal (Rufus Sewell) resign from their roles in the Penn administration in front of the G7 Summit in Italy. It’s a shocking ending, but the escalation makes sense as both grapple with their complicity in morally and legally questionable decisions made by President Grace Penn (Allison Janney).

“I wanted to start with the question of what happens if you get an order that you don’t like and you think is illegal?” creator Debora Cahn told T&C about the what drove the storyline this season. She added, “I wanted to try, in an honest way, look at what is it like to be inside moments like that and how do you know when you’re in one? When are you overreacting and when are you under-reacting?”

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The Wylers’ relationship is front and center in season four.

Here, Russell and Sewell break down what happens in that jaw-dropping season four finale, and speculate where the Wylers could go in a possible fifth season.

This season begins with their vow renewal in St George’s Chapel and ends with Hal following Kate out the doors after she resigns. How do you both view the evolution of their relationship?

Keri Russell: It’s really, this show, about this long-term relationship and people constantly changing and the power dynamic constantly shifting to stay in this relationship. It’s not about someone leaving to go be with somebody else and it all dissolving. They have this insane connection that will never go away, or never be challenged to the degree that they would ever actually leave each other. They both come from a world where they want the same thing so much in their own jobs: To be in that room and to affect change. And sometimes to get into that room, well… [to Rufus], I’ll let you talk about that.

Rufus Sewell: It’s the same for both of us though, isn’t it?

KR: You have to lose little parts of yourself and what you started out believing was right—how far can you be pushed? How much of those little pieces of yourself can you lose before losing yourself altogether?

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The Wylers in the finale.

RS: [Kate and Hal] have a similar course, but we’re different characters and we go about it in different ways. For a long time—before I knew what was happening at the very end—it was a very different challenge for me because I was having to play things that I felt Hal knew, but not show the audience because he’s always someone… I believe the things that Kate starts noticing and complaining about and warning, Hal doesn’t give her any satisfaction of saying, “I agree, I can’t afford to.” But what he privately knows and calculates is a different matter.

I was trying to reckon with the idea of [for Hal]: “How much am I going astray? How much am I losing?” Then, I got to the end, read the final bit and I realized what my job was and it was a great opportunity. At this level, there is no easy wrong and right. You have a choice and you’ve got to decide which innocent people are going to be hurt from this. These are the big decisions; you live in these gray areas. Once you have access and once you’ve cajoled your way into that position, how much of your initial principles have you given up? You think, oh, “I’ll be able to bring them back at the last moment. It’s not always the case.” And we end up in a situation which is very exciting. It’s somewhere we’ve never been before.

I feel like The Diplomat has really perfected the art of a cliffhanger over the past four seasons. When Kate says, “The Vice President now has something to say,” and then the season ends… What do you imagine are the words that comes next?Netflix

Kate brings reporters to attention in the final moments of The Diplomat season four.

KR: I mean, who knows? Thank god we have talented writers and it’s not us.

RS: I think I’m just going to a sing a little song. A country song I’ve been working on.

KR: [laughs] Just a little ditty! No, I mean, it’s so thrilling and I love that it ended there. I love the exploration. I never knew the protocols with what happens to Stuart’s character at the end. You have to leave, your house gets packed up for you. You’re that much of a threat because you did this decent thing? I feel like that’s where we’re at in this country too. It’s such a weird… We always say that [The Diplomat] is meant to be a love letter to the foreign service and we absolutely include people like USAID in that. My wish would be that if any of them were to ever watch our show, that they would feel seen and heard in some small way by some of these stories, and what happens to Stuart, and the outrage and injustice of it all.

RS: Also, hearing you describe it as a cliffhanger, I don’t think it’s a cliffhanger—it’s more of a Wile E. Coyote moment, when we’re actually off the cliff and scrabbling, I can’t do that sound effect. We’re over the cliff, we just don’t see where we land.

KR: We have no idea where we land, but we jump.

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Kate realizes her husband has resigned alongside her.

The start of the season saw Hal as acting president. Is that something you’d want to explore again?

RS: Listen, I’m open to anything. My worry has always been, you don’t want to become too powerful, you don’t want to have conflict removed. And the idea of playing a president for a set period of time, to me, isn’t as exciting. You want to be hungry and losing, et cetera. But the prospect of having it temporarily and seeing how you play that and what that brings out in you, that was a great opportunity. And to deal with it going away again. I thought it was great to explore that for both of us—for both of the characters to experience that dynamic was very revelatory.

You’ve embodied these character for four seasons. What are you still learning about them?

KR: It just keeps getting better and better. Truly, it just keeps getting better and better. I love where it ended. I really love how unsentimental it can be. I love, as hard as doing that scene with Stuart was, I remember Debora [Cahn, the creator] came up to me she said, “No, no, no, you can’t be upset at all. It’s one, two and three. He has to do these things. It’s not your drama. Get him out of here. Get him out of there safely.” And that is the best thing: Do the job. It’s unsentimental. I like that aspect of the show a lot.

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Kate pushes Hal to think about what he would want to do as president in the second episode of the season.

If you could sit down with Hal and Kate, what advice would you give them?

KR: None!

RS: None!

KR: They’re so good!

RS: We want to keep the show going! We don’t want to fix them.

KR: Right, because if you fix them, there’d be no fun friction. No fights in bushes!

RS [in an American accent]: “Keep doing what you guys are doing, you’re perfect,” is what I would say.

KR: Keep going!

RS: Keep on making the mistakes.

What has surprised you about the reaction to the series over the last four years?

RS: It does feel like it’s grown, which it’s hard to tell from the inside to what extent it has grown, but I always felt that we were very proud of what we had and it was a very particular thing, and 1792363695 more and more people get it.

KR: Or when people who are actually career diplomats or used to work in the foreign service come up to us, that is really cool. It happens a lot, actually. In an airport, someone will kind of sidle up to you and go, “I used to…”

RS: They’ll have notes. But they all seem to watch it, and I think they do appreciate being represented. I hope so.

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The actors at the season four premiere in New York City.

What do you hope to explore next in Hal and Kate’s marriage in a possible fifth season?

KR: If we were to get a fifth season, which I would love, I have no idea. I mean, if I were to guess anything of these… I would’ve never guessed any of this. It always takes such a turn, a sharp turn.

RS: What is going to happen? Whatever it is I’m expecting, I want something else. And that’s the way I am career-wise, too. I have no idea. I don’t want it to be my idea.

With Kate no longer working in the foreign service, should the show still be called The Diplomat?

RS: Well, with either of them! The Person.

KR: I have no idea. I become like a hiking guide. I’m stuck in Italy in the Dolomites. Hut to hut.

RS: The Barista.

KR: I go back to Dean and DeLuca and I get curly hair again!

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Deputy Digital Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.