The Diplomat (TV Series)
May. 13th, 2023 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAka whqt Keri Russell did next. (After The Americans, that is.) This is a slick and suspenseful new series, the first season of which I managed to finish before starting the next ten days‘ vacation in beautiful Portugal. The series was created by Deborah Cahn, Keri Russell is the lead, career civil servant Kate Wyler who due to various plot machinations and the central first season mystery doesn‘t end up getting the Afghanistan related job she expects but the London US embassy, Rufus Sewell is her husband, former ambassador Hal Wyler, and there‘s a great supporting cast, among others Ali Ahn as the London CIA chief, Atto Essandoh as Stuart whose job is to be Kate‘s Trusted Lieutenant, David Gyasi as British Foreign Secretary Dennison, Rory Kinnear as the British PM who definitely is not Boris Johnson just because he works in his education in casual conversation as much as he can while also indulgng in irresponsible populism and grand pseudo Churchillian gestures, and Michael McKean as definitely not Joh Biden just because he‘s old with a younger female VP and an ominous predecessor US President Rayburn.
Deborah Cahn was one of the writers from The West Wing, and it shows in a good way in that this is a series where the great drama is all in tense conversations and political intrigue. Sure, there‘s the opening set piece (a British ship attacked out of the blue by what appears to be, emphasis on appears, Iran), and a short kidnapping, but this is not an action show where one of the leads ends up in a gun fight. (The only time anyone points a gun at anyone else is when the London head of the CIA branch is woken up in the middle of the night, and that‘s a brief scene.) Otoh, it‘s definitely the kind of show where scenes keep getting additional layers in retrospect. As, for example: in the opening episode, Kate‘s husband, Hal (more about their marriage in a moment) attempts to introduce her to a (female, older) Daily Mail journalist, which is intercepted by Stuart as the first photo of the new US Ambassador to Britain at an official reception can‘t be with a notorious right wing hack. The viewer approves. Except a few episodes later it turns out said Daily Mail hack who was intrumental in getting Kinnear‘s Not Boris Johnson PM into Downing Street is still prodividing him with intel, strategy and agenda, so in order to get the PM not to do something totally bonkers, Kate needs to negotiate with her, and suddenly Hal‘s gesture in the pilot looks quite different.
The „what exactly happened with the destroyed ship, and who is behind it?“ question is one red thread through the season, another is Kate and Hal‘s marriage, which is on the one hand one that‘s falling apart (she wants a divorce, he doesn‘t), but on the other still pretty intimate (you can see why they got together iln the first place). To its credit, the show while addressing the traditional gender reversal where Hal, who used to be an envoy until he burned too many bridges, is now „the ambassador‘s spouse“, doesn‘t make the problem between them hurt manly pride; it‘s the infinitely more interesting question of trust, as both Kate and the viewer can never be certain that Hal supports her just because he wants her to succeed or because he‘s cooking his own agenda. (And this is why she wants a divorce. The sex is good, the conversation better, but if there‘s no basic trust…) (Also, she has great UST with the British Foreign Secretary.)
The show repeatedly points out that Kate used to have Stuart‘s job, being the behind the scenes person hard at work to make connections, summarizing and present agendas in brief fashion to the people in charge, and that having to represent is relatively new for her by contrast, and better yet, it doesn‘t just say so in dialogue but shows us Kate excelling at behind the door confrontations where she can argue or cajole or both and score with her knowledge while being awkward when asked to smooch and sparkle in public which is of course what ambassadors need to do. At the same time, she learns, and she‘s the right kind of very talented and not perfect to make a good heroine.
The show takes place in a weird mixture of our reality (there‘s an ongoing war in Ukraine thanks to the Russians, Brexit happened, SOMEONE was US President) and that universe that feels vaguely related but not identical with the Sorkin/Wells-Verse in The West Wing in that not all, but most people are reachable with good arguments, including conservatives, that the desire to prevent wholesale slaughter of nations is present in most (not all) people, and the pettiness of wanting obstruction and destruction for its own sake to „own the libs“ is strangely missing on both sides of the Atlantic. (I didn‘t miss it.) Oh, and you know, most public servants are competent. (The British PM and the American foreign secretary may be the two exceptions.)
All in all, I enjoyed this season a lot - I‘m not in love yet, and my heart won‘t be broken if it‘s not picked up, but I hope it will, because I missed having a political not cynical show that‘s mostly about clever dialogue instead of action scenes, and I felt somewhat let down by the last season of Borgen, so this was just right for me.
Deborah Cahn was one of the writers from The West Wing, and it shows in a good way in that this is a series where the great drama is all in tense conversations and political intrigue. Sure, there‘s the opening set piece (a British ship attacked out of the blue by what appears to be, emphasis on appears, Iran), and a short kidnapping, but this is not an action show where one of the leads ends up in a gun fight. (The only time anyone points a gun at anyone else is when the London head of the CIA branch is woken up in the middle of the night, and that‘s a brief scene.) Otoh, it‘s definitely the kind of show where scenes keep getting additional layers in retrospect. As, for example: in the opening episode, Kate‘s husband, Hal (more about their marriage in a moment) attempts to introduce her to a (female, older) Daily Mail journalist, which is intercepted by Stuart as the first photo of the new US Ambassador to Britain at an official reception can‘t be with a notorious right wing hack. The viewer approves. Except a few episodes later it turns out said Daily Mail hack who was intrumental in getting Kinnear‘s Not Boris Johnson PM into Downing Street is still prodividing him with intel, strategy and agenda, so in order to get the PM not to do something totally bonkers, Kate needs to negotiate with her, and suddenly Hal‘s gesture in the pilot looks quite different.
The „what exactly happened with the destroyed ship, and who is behind it?“ question is one red thread through the season, another is Kate and Hal‘s marriage, which is on the one hand one that‘s falling apart (she wants a divorce, he doesn‘t), but on the other still pretty intimate (you can see why they got together iln the first place). To its credit, the show while addressing the traditional gender reversal where Hal, who used to be an envoy until he burned too many bridges, is now „the ambassador‘s spouse“, doesn‘t make the problem between them hurt manly pride; it‘s the infinitely more interesting question of trust, as both Kate and the viewer can never be certain that Hal supports her just because he wants her to succeed or because he‘s cooking his own agenda. (And this is why she wants a divorce. The sex is good, the conversation better, but if there‘s no basic trust…) (Also, she has great UST with the British Foreign Secretary.)
The show repeatedly points out that Kate used to have Stuart‘s job, being the behind the scenes person hard at work to make connections, summarizing and present agendas in brief fashion to the people in charge, and that having to represent is relatively new for her by contrast, and better yet, it doesn‘t just say so in dialogue but shows us Kate excelling at behind the door confrontations where she can argue or cajole or both and score with her knowledge while being awkward when asked to smooch and sparkle in public which is of course what ambassadors need to do. At the same time, she learns, and she‘s the right kind of very talented and not perfect to make a good heroine.
The show takes place in a weird mixture of our reality (there‘s an ongoing war in Ukraine thanks to the Russians, Brexit happened, SOMEONE was US President) and that universe that feels vaguely related but not identical with the Sorkin/Wells-Verse in The West Wing in that not all, but most people are reachable with good arguments, including conservatives, that the desire to prevent wholesale slaughter of nations is present in most (not all) people, and the pettiness of wanting obstruction and destruction for its own sake to „own the libs“ is strangely missing on both sides of the Atlantic. (I didn‘t miss it.) Oh, and you know, most public servants are competent. (The British PM and the American foreign secretary may be the two exceptions.)
All in all, I enjoyed this season a lot - I‘m not in love yet, and my heart won‘t be broken if it‘s not picked up, but I hope it will, because I missed having a political not cynical show that‘s mostly about clever dialogue instead of action scenes, and I felt somewhat let down by the last season of Borgen, so this was just right for me.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-13 06:37 pm (UTC)I also enjoyed it. Keri's character sums up one of the fundamental beliefs of the show in the finale when she says, "there's nothing you can't talk out." Perhaps it's naïve, but I appreciate the optimism of that, the belief that both people and nations can solve problems by talking to each other and working through things. It feels like a refreshing contrast to the long-term trend of deeply cynical shows out there. These are mostly good people trying their best to do good, which is nice to see.
I particularly enjoyed her dynamic with the Foreign Secretary. The show does a neat little thing in showing the extreme (justified!) lack of trust Kate has in her husband, which then negatively impacts her dynamic with Dennison, who doesn't deserve the same suspicion but is essentially collateral damage because of how terrible Hal is. It's tiny, but a nice nod to how experience in one relationship colors completely unrelated ones.
Overall, it's a fun watch and I'm glad the show will live for at least one more season.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-14 09:18 am (UTC)I appreciate the optimism of that, the belief that both people and nations can solve problems by talking to each other and working through things
Same here. So very much.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-13 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-14 09:17 am (UTC)