TV Pick of the Week: The Diplomat - Review by Yvette Huddleston
Keri Russell is on excellent form as the lead in this accomplished and polished Netflix thriller. She plays Kate Wyler, an extremely competent, experienced American public servant, a specialist in the Middle East – Afghanistan and Iran in particular – who has worked in difficult situations over the course of a number of years.
She is about to go on assignment to Kabul, where she will be leading on a project to improve rights and opportunities for women and girls, when she is informed that the President and his chief of staff have decided instead to send her to London to become the new US ambassador to the UK. It is not a job she especially wants but she has little choice other than to go, with her troublesome husband Hal (Rufus Sewell), also a career diplomat and former ambassador, in tow. What the couple haven’t told anyone yet is that their marriage is on the rocks and they are planning to divorce. What Kate doesn’t know yet is that she is being considered for the vice president’s role since the current incumbent is mired in a scandal and about to step down – and this posting is a test of her ability.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdKate and Hal’s arrival in the UK comes in the wake of a British aircraft carrier being attacked, killing and injuring many of the crew. Relations between the Brits, the Americans and Iran, which is suspected of carrying out the attack, are tense and exacerbated by the self-seeking UK prime minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) who thinks tough talk will win him votes and doesn’t care that he might cause an international incident as a result. Kate is convinced that Iran is not, in fact, the perpetrator of the atrocity and has to find a way of proving it while keeping everyone on side.
She also has to deal with the very particular details that a woman the public eye, inevitably, has to. A practical, no-nonsense trouser-suit wearer, she is dismayed (and justifiably angry) at having to be ‘dressed’ by a stylist and being obliged to make herself available for photo opportunities. On top of which her maverick husband is getting himself into all sorts of scrapes. She finds allies in the form of feisty CIA station chief Eidra Park (Ali Ahn), supportive right-hand man Stuart Heyford (Ato Essandoh) and, unexpectedly, the UK foreign secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi). Pacy, well-scripted and extremely watchable.