I just finished watching the six episode second season of The Diplomat, which went up on Netflix on the last day of October. Here's a review with no specific spoilers, and therefore no warning.
Let's begin at the end. It's got the best surprise ending I've seen in at least the hundred seasons of any television show, on traditional network, cable, and streaming. I don't know ... maybe make that five hundred.
Now, it's important to state the obvious, and keep in mind that this second was finished before the results of our election for President a few days. So think of this second season as capturing the ambience and reality of the American President, VP, and staff maybe a year or six months ago, replete with a pretty old old American President, and a somewhat younger female VP.
I say American, even though the story takes place in Britain. But American leaders appear in person and on video calls, And of course the central characters are Kate Wyler, recently appointed US ambassador to the UK, and her husband Hal Wyler, former ambassador to Lebanon. Unsurprisingly, both parts are played to perfection by Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell (who sounds, as always when he wants to, as American as I am).
Indeed, every bit of the acting was top-notch, especially Rory Kinnear as the British PM, and Allison Janney as the US VP. But don't get me wrong. I didn't love every last scene in this second season, such as when one character explaining something to another character says it's a case a correlation not causation, and the other smugly says no one really gets what that means. In off-screen fact, that's actually a very easily comprehensible concept, with an obvious example: there may be sunspots when the stock market crashes (correlation) but that doesn't mean the sunspots caused the crash (causation). (Here's a video from CNBC in which I explain the concept to an anti video-game crusader.)
Now banter like that, whether clumsy or astute, serves in this series to give it a cutesy, savvy flavor. But the story is so bold and powerful, it doesn't need any help from the cutesy side. Further, honestly, it couldn't have come along -- this second season -- at a better time for we Americans, and a lot of the world, as we try to make sense out of what just happened in our election.
See? No spoilers. And do see this second season of The Diplomat. After you've seen the first (and maybe read my review, see the link below). You'll be in for a treat.
See also The Diplomat 1: West Wing Meets Bond
No comments:
Post a Comment