David Farnor | On 01, Jan 2025

This review is full of spoilers. For our spoiler-free review of Season 1, click here.

There aren’t many TV shows that can make someone walking across a lawn into nail-biting television. The Diplomat is one of them.

The political thriller was one of the best TV shows of 2024, as it introduced us to Keri Russell’s US ambassador, Kate Wyler. Kate, a veteran of navigating difficult political waters, is thrown into the London-based role without warning, leaving her cluelessly at sea amid a circuit of dinner parties and social drinks. Accompanied by her scheming husband, former ambassador Hal (Rufus Sewell), we swiftly learn she’s been put in her post to help train (read: gloss) her up for a potential run as the next US Vice President. Her appointment gets a whole new level of importance, though, when a British aircraft carrier is attached in the Persian Gulf.

Season 1 ended with the revelation that UK PM Nicol Trowbridge (an impeccably loathsome Rory Kinnear) was behind the whole thing, as a false attack to boost his own popularity. It was a cliffhanger that promised to up the tension even higher, and showrunner Debora Cahn doesn’t disappoint, building and building the suspense to skyscraper heights.

The show’s success lies in its ability to root us firmly in Kate’s perspective of events. That means we feel each twist as it unexpectedly blindsides us – and, as the conspiracy begins to unravel, sucks us into a distracting possible romance with UK Foreign Secretary Austin (David Gyasi). David Gyasi is wonderful as the brooding politician, sparking a natural chemistry with Russell without undermining his earnest passion for reversing the right-wing direction Trowbridge has set out for the country.

Thickening the plot further are two key female players: Celia Imrie playing beautifully against type as the meddling Margaret Roylin, who has influence over Trowbridge and connections in all kinds of shadowy corners; and Alison Janney as the icy Grace Penn, the current US Vice President whose career is about to be prematurely ended by a scandal waiting in the wings. Amid it all, Michael McKean is amusingly blustery as US President William Rayburn, and Ali Ahn and Ato Essandoh give us an adorable romantic subplot as will-they-won’t-they colleagues CIA station chief Eidra Park and US embassy deputy chief Stuart Heyford.

The latter are part of why the show is so entertaining: Cahn’s background in everything from Homeland to Grey’s Anatomy means she is adept at both thrills and human drama, and The Diplomat skilfully dissects the pressure placed on a relationship by geopolitics, from Ahn and Essandoh’s struggle to keep each other in (or out of) the loop as required to Kate and Hal’s eternal tussle over whether to trust each other. Rufus Sewell steals every scene going as the perma-preening Hal, who simultaneously always looks out for himself yet never fails to have his wife’s back. They know each other better than anyone else ever will, which is both their strength and their greatest weakness – it’s a dynamic that would be fun to watch even without everything else going on around them.

Season 1 hinged on a number of expertly executed crisis points – including poison tea and a possible kidnapping – and Season 2 does the same, from trying to smuggle Roylin out of a funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral to ultimatums delivered in not-so-secret places at an Independence Day part. By the time we’re watching Penn deliver a lecture about a nuclear naval base in Scotland, we’re watching scenes on several layers at once, feeling like we know everything about international security and trying to work out what we don’t know about the people on screen.

The whole thing is condensed down into six episodes, compared to Season 1’s eight episodes, which gives events an even tauter pace, and directors Tucker Gates and Alex Graves assemble each exchange and location jump with a slick spectacle that rivals the high standards of fellow espionage hit Slow Horses. Russell anchors it all, allowing the momentum to speed up without us losing sight of her wit, her humour and her determination to find her own path through each problem – ideally in trousers with pockets. Even her fashion choices carry weight, something that we and the other characters around her appreciate, and it’s that level of familiarity and understanding that speaks volumes about the precision of Cahn’s creation.

It all boils down into something beautiful come the finale, as we realise that Penn was the one behind the aircraft carrier incident, using Roylin as a mouthpiece to arrange the whole thing behind the backs of Trowbridge and President Rayburn. It’s a timely, plausible tale of corruption for one nation’s self-preserving gain – and, even more chilling than that, a logical move to try and ensure global nuclear stability. By the time the credits roll, like Kate, we’re still trying to work out if we agree with the decision or not.

But we have more pressing things to worry about: when Hal takes it upon himself to inform Rayburn of this, the President has a heart attack due to shock – leaving Penn becoming the de facto President just before she can be exposed, but not before she discovers that Kate knows all about it. With another astonishing final flourish to close out its confident sophomore chapter, The Diplomat is two for two – and one of the best shows on TV right now.

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