The Diplomat (Season 2)
Nov. 16th, 2024 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI watched and enjoyed the second season of The Diplomat (the review for the first season is here, which I wasn't sure I would, given that back in the day when we all thought it couldn't come worse than the Bush administration (insert hollow laughter here), I found myself unable to marathan The West Wing and had to wait for the Obama era to watch it; the divergence from reality being too great. Welll, the divergence in the case of The Diplomat still is enormous - it's not that the poliictians on either side of the Atlantic aren't also capable of dastardly deeds, that's what drama consists of, after all. It's that humanity itself is by and large better in this show. (As it was in The West Wing, for which showrunner Deborah Cahn used to write back in the day.) I don't just mean the fact that most people in public service (again, on either side of the Atlantic), independent of political persuasion, are really dedicated to the public good - of course they're also ambitious, but the show doesn't treat this as an either/or thing, which I like - , and even the villains are 100% convinced to act in the general best interest and are workoholics. It's that I don't think the US electorate in showverse would ever vote for the Orange Menace, twice. He probably would not even have gotten through the primaries, and since so many more people with spines and ethics exist in showverse, there would not have been the transformation of his party into an authoritarian personality cult. You know, showverse might be uncomfortably close to WW3 at times, but I'd still rather live there. (Showverse does have a past questionable US president who was terrible, but not to the same degree.)
Anyway: the second season picks off where the first left off and and contiinues with its mixture of pulpy political thrillerness, walk and talk intrigue and confrontations and personal relationship drama, with the later not getting as much room as in season 1 due to this season being two eps shorter. The cast is the same as last year, minus the people who died in the s1 finale and plus Alison Janney as Vice President Grace Penn in the last few episodes, which was awesome. In terms of personal relationships, I continue to wonder if Keri Russell starring media can now guarantee me messed up, complex marriages designed to prove wrong the old tv assumption that people are only interested in the UST and the getting together part and as soon as a pairing actually is together, they lose interest. I mean, Elizabeth and Philipp in The Americans are very different form Kate and Hal in The Diplomat, but it's true for both relationships that the audience gets introduced to them as already existing, and it's one of the core emotional axis' on which the entire show revolves. (Meanwhile, Kate's UST ridden relationship with the British Foreign Secretary, alas, is much less interesting than in s1, but that fits with what happens, plot wise.)
Having just seen Ali Ahn as Alice in Agatha All Along and Rory Kinnear as Tom Bombadil in Rings of Power made it a bit odd to return to them as the London CIA station chief and the Not Boris Johnson British PM, respectively, but of course they're great in their parts. Since Not Boris Johnson ended up as the chief suspect of the false flagg operation in the s1 finale, but as it turns out there are more twists in store, Kinnear has to sell the audience on someone who could or couldn't have done it (until the mid season reveal clarifies whether or not he did) while simultanously offering a bit more insight on what makes him tick in general, and he does a great job. (Mind you, I also enjoyed the scene where Kate manipulates him into doing what she wants in one particular instance by buttering him up via praising his intelligence, where you can both see why he swallows it and why it's completely faked.) Speaking of intelligence, one of the reasons why the Foreign Secretary loses points is that he thinks the cabinet will turn against Not Boris Johnson after Not Boris Johnson has very publically gotten the supposed Russian bad guy executed, thus presenting himself as the patriotic avenger. I mean, showverse and our world aren't that different in terms of everyone's moral compass. (Or lack of same.)
(Why yes, I think killing Osama Bin Laden wasn't the right thing to do. Capture him and put him on a public trial would have been. If it was good enough for bloody Eichman....)
In terms of one on one confrontations, though, the show reserved the best to the last with the Kate and Grace Penn scenes. I mean, I have a bit of a problem with the way the last episode had Kate change her mind three times on whether or not she wants to become VP depending on whether she talked last with Hal or Grace, but then again Grace as played by Alison Janney is just that good. (Also given the show's premise - it's not called "the VP", after all - , I think we're meant to see Kate simply wouldn't be good as one, and that this is one reason why. She's great at many other things and keeps learning from her mistakes, but she wouldn't be a good VP, let alone President.) And the show doesn't give her just strawman arguments but actually hard hitting ones in all her confrontations with Kate - including the one after the big reveal. Which doesn't mean she's right (real life offers several examples of how Scotland is prevented from leaving the UK not involving a false flagg operation turned bloody, after all), just that she's written as someone able to make her case and do so with passion and conviction - the best type of opponent. And finishing the season in a situation where due to President Not Joe Biden has died due to a heart attack, making Grace President just after Kate has finally committed herself to ousting her and knows about what Grace did, and they both know Kate knows, made for a great cliffhanger. (While also extricating the show on having to change its premise and letting Kate actually pursue the VP job.) Not to mention that Grace instead of Not Boris Johnson as the main antagonist makes for more Alison Janney in season 3, which is always a plus.
In conclusion, perhaps not despite but because of its increasing lack of a resemblance to rl marathoning the second season of this show provided me with good entertainment, and I look forward to the third.
Anyway: the second season picks off where the first left off and and contiinues with its mixture of pulpy political thrillerness, walk and talk intrigue and confrontations and personal relationship drama, with the later not getting as much room as in season 1 due to this season being two eps shorter. The cast is the same as last year, minus the people who died in the s1 finale and plus Alison Janney as Vice President Grace Penn in the last few episodes, which was awesome. In terms of personal relationships, I continue to wonder if Keri Russell starring media can now guarantee me messed up, complex marriages designed to prove wrong the old tv assumption that people are only interested in the UST and the getting together part and as soon as a pairing actually is together, they lose interest. I mean, Elizabeth and Philipp in The Americans are very different form Kate and Hal in The Diplomat, but it's true for both relationships that the audience gets introduced to them as already existing, and it's one of the core emotional axis' on which the entire show revolves. (Meanwhile, Kate's UST ridden relationship with the British Foreign Secretary, alas, is much less interesting than in s1, but that fits with what happens, plot wise.)
Having just seen Ali Ahn as Alice in Agatha All Along and Rory Kinnear as Tom Bombadil in Rings of Power made it a bit odd to return to them as the London CIA station chief and the Not Boris Johnson British PM, respectively, but of course they're great in their parts. Since Not Boris Johnson ended up as the chief suspect of the false flagg operation in the s1 finale, but as it turns out there are more twists in store, Kinnear has to sell the audience on someone who could or couldn't have done it (until the mid season reveal clarifies whether or not he did) while simultanously offering a bit more insight on what makes him tick in general, and he does a great job. (Mind you, I also enjoyed the scene where Kate manipulates him into doing what she wants in one particular instance by buttering him up via praising his intelligence, where you can both see why he swallows it and why it's completely faked.) Speaking of intelligence, one of the reasons why the Foreign Secretary loses points is that he thinks the cabinet will turn against Not Boris Johnson after Not Boris Johnson has very publically gotten the supposed Russian bad guy executed, thus presenting himself as the patriotic avenger. I mean, showverse and our world aren't that different in terms of everyone's moral compass. (Or lack of same.)
(Why yes, I think killing Osama Bin Laden wasn't the right thing to do. Capture him and put him on a public trial would have been. If it was good enough for bloody Eichman....)
In terms of one on one confrontations, though, the show reserved the best to the last with the Kate and Grace Penn scenes. I mean, I have a bit of a problem with the way the last episode had Kate change her mind three times on whether or not she wants to become VP depending on whether she talked last with Hal or Grace, but then again Grace as played by Alison Janney is just that good. (Also given the show's premise - it's not called "the VP", after all - , I think we're meant to see Kate simply wouldn't be good as one, and that this is one reason why. She's great at many other things and keeps learning from her mistakes, but she wouldn't be a good VP, let alone President.) And the show doesn't give her just strawman arguments but actually hard hitting ones in all her confrontations with Kate - including the one after the big reveal. Which doesn't mean she's right (real life offers several examples of how Scotland is prevented from leaving the UK not involving a false flagg operation turned bloody, after all), just that she's written as someone able to make her case and do so with passion and conviction - the best type of opponent. And finishing the season in a situation where due to President Not Joe Biden has died due to a heart attack, making Grace President just after Kate has finally committed herself to ousting her and knows about what Grace did, and they both know Kate knows, made for a great cliffhanger. (While also extricating the show on having to change its premise and letting Kate actually pursue the VP job.) Not to mention that Grace instead of Not Boris Johnson as the main antagonist makes for more Alison Janney in season 3, which is always a plus.
In conclusion, perhaps not despite but because of its increasing lack of a resemblance to rl marathoning the second season of this show provided me with good entertainment, and I look forward to the third.
