{"id":229132,"date":"2025-10-16T13:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/229132\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T13:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:49:08","slug":"keri-russell-rufus-sewell-shake-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/229132\/","title":{"rendered":"Keri Russell, Rufus Sewell Shake It Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT: This review contains a plot detail from the Season 3 premiere of \u201cThe Diplomat<\/a>,\u201d now streaming on Netflix. There are no other spoilers about the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason 3 of \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d is the first installment of the Netflix political drama to come out since the 2024 presidential election, which means the series is now even more of an escapist fantasy than it already was. Watching Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell<\/a>) stalk the halls of the United States embassy in London, earnestly working to satisfy Danish concerns over British oil drilling in the North Sea and gushing over bipartisan treaties as the key to domestic popularity, it\u2019s hard not to think of Elon Musk\u2019s minions laying waste to USAID or trade wars conducted via Truth Social. These pangs are only compounded by the cliffhanger that concluded Season 2, in which President William Rayburn (Michael McKean) suffered a fatal heart attack and elevated his vice president, Grace Penn (Allison Janney), to the top of the call sheet. If a female VP struggling to gauge how much distance to place between herself and her now-former boss while she attempts to fill his shoes gives you a sinking feeling, this season may be a tough sit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe good news is that \u201cThe Diplomat,\u201d still under the leadership of creator Debora Cahn, makes other changes that bring the series back to its core strengths. At just six episodes, and with a fast-paced plot unfolding in the immediate aftermath of an explosion that injured multiple major characters, Season 2 diverted its focus from the volatile marriage between Kate and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell<\/a>), also a veteran of the foreign service. The accelerated momentum was helpful in stabilizing \u2014 or perhaps acclimating viewers to \u2014\u00a0the show\u2019s mishmash of tones, which staple together motormouthed policy wonkery and combustible romantic chemistry. But Season 3 goes beyond extending the pre-existing story and meaningfully alters the status quo. Paradoxically, shaking up \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d also returns the series to its roots: the tug-of-war between the aspirations of two ambitious people, both straining against the gender dynamics of monogamous heterosexual marriage.<\/p>\n

\n\tGrace\u2019s sudden promotion creates many job openings in the new administration, chief among them her old gig. Hal spent the first two seasons of \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d scheming, along with White House Chief of Staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah), to get Kate promoted to VP. To Hal\u2019s mind, the plan was \u2014\u00a0along with moving to London \u2014\u00a0a mea culpa for subordinating his wife\u2019s career to his own for many years, even though she\u2019s a capable professional in her own right; to Kate, Hal\u2019s maneuvering behind her back was her husband once again going rogue to serve his own agenda. The question of just how sincere Hal is in wanting Kate to take the lead for once is one of the animating tensions of \u201cThe Diplomat.\u201d Which is why Grace offering the job to Hal over his better half is so good for the health of the show.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea that Hal\u2019s Richard Holbrooke-esque r\u00e9sum\u00e9 would land him in the line of succession is part of the series\u2019 alternate reality, where the only skill that matters is wielding American influence abroad with an expert knowledge of protocol. (The entire season premiere is dedicated to the minutiae and optics of Grace\u2019s swearing-in: where to stage the event, which Bible to use and who to administer the oath of office.) This institutionalist worldview, inherited from Cahn\u2019s old workplace \u201cThe West Wing,\u201d can grate in light of recent events; a casual mention of the Jared Kushner-negotiated Abraham Accords of the first Trump administration raised my eyebrows given ensuing developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It\u2019s also less tenable with Hal working out of the White House, an office with a much broader portfolio than that of a diplomatic mission \u2014\u00a0including domestic issues \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d still largely avoids.<\/p>\n

\n\tRegardless, there are real benefits to Hal\u2019s new workplace. One is simply expanding the world of the show, which has added a production outpost in New York (where Russell and Cahn both live) that enables setpieces like a \u201cSuccession\u201d-esque interlude at Grace\u2019s Hamptons retreat. Mensah, once confined largely to Zoom, FaceTime and phone calls as her character patched in from D.C., gets to join the ensemble in earnest as she spars with the Wylers face-to-face. Both she and the new environs are breaths of fresh air.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe shock to Hal and Kate\u2019s equilibrium, already unsteady to begin with, is even more rewarding. For two seasons, Hal tried and mostly failed to occupy the role of \u201cambassador\u2019s wife,\u201d as he introduces himself to Grace\u2019s husband Todd (Bradley Whitford). (With Whitford joining Janney and Cahn in the \u201cWest Wing\u201d reunion, one wonders if Richard Schiff is waiting in the wings for Season 4.) Now, he\u2019s once again in the higher-profile position, a shift Kate tries to spin as \u201call upside\u201d \u2014\u00a0he can negotiate a bigger role for her! she can get a meeting with any foreign dignitary she wants! \u2014\u00a0before admitting how she really feels. When asked if playing second fiddle is what she actually wants, Kate sighs: \u201cApparently. It\u2019s what I keep choosing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe season\u2019s second episode looks back on the early days of Hal and Kate\u2019s relationship as they contemplate this major change. It is, to this critic\u2019s mind, the finest chapter of \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d to date, because it centers the unhappy power couple that is the show\u2019s most singular creation. Sewell gives Hal a childlike quality for both good and for ill; he\u2019s as sincerely enthusiastic as he is reflexively selfish and petulant. Russell, for her part, can match Sewell\u2019s intensity without uttering a word, as in a scene where Kate silently unpins her hair while Hal spirals out over Grace\u2019s VP offer. And with Grace and Todd, \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d gives Kate and Hal a mutual foil, and perhaps a look into their future. Kate finds commonality with Todd as the spouse shut out of the room where it happens, but she doesn\u2019t want to be him.<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d doesn\u2019t have much to say about international relations, being too in love with surface pageantry and process to dive into the real power dynamics beneath. Rather, it\u2019s a story about the messy intersection of love, work and the battle of the sexes, with a setting grand enough to heighten both the stakes and the eroticism. In Season 3, \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d recommits to this core mission, a pivot that pays dividends.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Diplomat\u201d Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: This review contains a plot detail from the Season 3 premiere of \u201cThe Diplomat,\u201d now streaming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,78941,128122,76719],"class_list":{"0":"post-229132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-keri-russell","10":"tag-rufus-sewell","11":"tag-the-diplomat"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}