In The Diplomat Season 2, women rule
The diplomat who doesn’t comb her hair smooths out world issues.
By the time this column comes out, the winner in the US presidential elections would have been crystal clear, and if the trend at press time (Wednesday afternoon in Manila) continues, the president-elect won’t be a woman.
But in The Diplomat Season 2, it is the women who rule, who make the difficult calls, who do the spadework and work the room in their designer gowns and chignons. They rock.
For those who missed Season 1, The Diplomat centers around a career diplomat Kate Wyler (Keri Russel) poised to take on the post as head of mission in Afghanistan, but is assigned instead to London where she runs smack into a crisis: 40 Royal Navy personnel are killed in an attack on a British aircraft carrier and British Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) thinks it’s a certain Middle Eastern country behind it.
If you haven’t watched Season 1, there may be spoilers ahead.
Kate is married to another career diplomat Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell), at present unemployed officially. Sometimes, he is a thorn in her side, sometimes, his reading of the situation saves the day for Kate and perhaps, the world.
While Kate was dispatched by US President Rayburn (Michael McKean) to help smooth out things over in London, Kate succeeds in smoothing out everything but her hair and her clothes.
She always has wardrobe malfunctions and in Season 2, uses a paper clip to hold up a defective zipper.
A source said staffers in the US Embassy in London cringed after watching a scene in The Diplomat 1 where the lady ambassador had no time to take a bath and asked her husband to sniff her armpit for hygiene clearance.
In Season 1, we learn that the Oval Office had a secret motive for sending Kate to London: it wanted to know if she had the chops to make vice president of the United States. The current vice president, Grace Penn, is not in the president’s good graces because her husband (why, oh why, is it always their husbands?) has been caught engaging in inappropriate activity.
It’s a maze of leads and paths to the real culprit behind the terrorist attack on the British aircraft carrier and Kate has to figure it out to protect US and world interests. The US, is after all, just across the pond from London.
“The high-stakes world of foreign relations is the most delicate of political dances. One slight misstep and allies turn into enemies, lives are cast onto the line, and nuclear war becomes an imminent reality,” says an article on Tudum.
French Ambassador to the Philippines Marie Fontanel, an accomplished ballet and modern dancer as well as a career diplomat, says that just like in dance, “balance” is essential in diplomacy.
As Kate duels with obvert and covert forces in the name of diplomacy and democracy, she also has a domestic duel — a love-hate relationship with her husband and a flirtation with a very powerful man.
Season 1 ends with a cliffhanger, when Hal, Kate’s deputy Stuart Hayford (Ato Essandoh), Ronnie, a US Embassy staffer, and British member of parliament, Merritt Grove (Simon Chandler) walk into a blast. Who survives?
We get to know in Season 2.
Kate, who was in Paris during the attack that may have killed her husband, is unscathed but only physically.
In Season 2 she dives right into the web of alliances behind the attack on the British warship and it seems she is completing her OJT for vice president. But no spoilers here.
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In The Diplomat, the men who pull the strings, to my mind, are the women, starting with the White House Chief of Staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah). She’s the gatekeeper. Everyone who needs the President’s okay, clearance or favorite song goes through her. It was her idea to send Kate to London to see if she had what it takes to be VP.
Another powerful woman in the series is the London CIA Chief Eidra Park (Ali Ahn). In my mind, she’s just as powerful as the ambassador, though spared of the latter’s ceremonial duties.
The third chillingly most powerful woman in the drama is the British Prime Minister’s adviser Margaret Roylin (Celia Imrie). The fourth is the Prime Minister’s wife, his former professor.
And last but not the least is Vice President Penn herself, portrayed with poise and aplomb by multi-awarded actress Allyson Jayney.
She tells Ambassador Kate, “You don’t want people to know there’s a crisis till you’ve got it under control.”
Grace also tells Kate the importance not just of policy, but also of packaging. And that people may not take a leader seriously if she doesn’t have time to fix her hair, and that the care of her trousers was something she couldn’t manage.
Grace Penn is no spare tire, but is probably grateful that she is the spare tire.
All the women are involved, some way or another, in either causing or managing the crisis. Who emerges with her head on top of it? You’ve got to watch The Diplomat 2 (which ends in another cliffhanger) to find out. (It’s official, there will be a Season 3.)
If Kamala Harris doesn’t become commander-in-chief, I would be flummoxed. I thought the United States was ready for a female boss, not only because the vice president seemed to be more than capable, but also because I tend to believe that what happens in fiction is actually fact in disguise.
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