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overthinking entertainment

The Diplomat: Full Season 2 - Season 2 (Full Season)

In which Kate Wyler, U.S. ambassador to the UK, deals with the consequences of her staff being injured and killed in the car bombing intended for Merritt Grove (at the end of Season 1), investigates the conspirators behind the bombing, and gets fashion tips from the Vice President. Her husband Hal continues to be a wildcard, telling himself that his freelancing is in support of his wife, but maybe isn't. PM Trowbridge continues to be an asshole.
My main complaint about this season is that there wasn't enough of it. It builds to another boffo ending that leaves numerous threads untied.

The Diplomat is available on Netflix.
posted by adamrice on Nov 07, 2024 at 10:47 AM

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I have watched the first few eps and def enjoying it so far. I had forgotten that Lucy Pevensey is in it :)
posted by supermedusa at 12:42 PM

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I enjoyed this. Keri Russell is such a fantastic presence here (I'm still annoyed she never landed an Emmy for The Americans).

It all feels absurdly expensive! They filmed four days in St Paul's Cathedral, apparently a record for that location.

I found the British prime minister's development fascinating: he managed to be completely loathsome while still winning me over just a tiny bit as the plot progressed.
posted by simonw at 3:47 PM

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Enjoyed it until the final episode, which was completely ridiculous and actually annoyed me. Great acting throughout though. Allison Janney is masterful.
posted by oneirodynia at 8:41 PM

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I agree with everything said so far: too short, Janney is wonderful, the Prime Minister (Rory Kinnear) played a very fine line between arrogant ass and sympathetic fool, and the last moments of the finale stumbled into farce (which I will inevitably forgive in order to watch the third season). I also appreciated the quiet moments of loving support between Wyler and her husband during his physical and mental recovery.

But I missed the comedy of the first season. There were still a few funny moments to relieve the tension, even one or two laugh-out-loud scenes, but I felt the second season lacked the strong seasoning of humor that originally drew me into the series.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:32 AM

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Yay, thank you for this post!

I liked the fact that they paid some attention to the emotional and physical aftermath of the car bomb and didn't just move directly from cliffhanger resolution into the next big plot point. I liked the line from Hal mid-fight: "Katie... I can't reach my shoes."

The conversations between Eidra Park and Stuart are amazing — especially the confrontation where she walks out and says, with a steely face, "Despite my placid appearance... I have lost my composure in the workplace." Everything is in a vault with her, it's infuriating and delicious and actually very relatable.

They did misdirection with Hal very well. I ended last season believing that he has to be "a good guy" in terms of being on the same side as the viewer, or else the writers wouldn't have given him the Chatham House speech. But there were still moments this season where I wondered. Like when he buys a burner toward the end of E4 and goes off to the garden to make a secret call seeking dirt on someone. (Are we to imagine that he's called Carole Langetti, who shows up in E6?) The ambiguity of that relationship, in the context of bedrock love stuff like the line about the shoes, is what makes it so great to watch.
posted by eirias at 3:50 AM

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If anyone knows of a website that explains all the political stuff going on, I'd appreciate it, because god knows that isn't my strong suit.

Eidra is a hard player. No sooner is everyone going, "Oh, you and Stuart are a couple? THAT'S SO CUUUUUUTE," then she dumps him while recently injured out of nowhere and he's a weeeee bit cranky. I about choked on the sex tape bit. Stuart is all, "you're being avoidant" and I am all HELL YEAH YOU TELL 'EM STEVE DAVE.

Allison Janney in a BLONDE BOB is just wrong. "Gimmick," indeed.

Kate's hair and headlights and paperclip...I mean, yeah, she is bed-head-y, "I don't care as long as I'm not technically naked..." is her usual attitude.

"The vice president called me a sloppy hussy." LOL on the latter.

Kate is all HERO WORSHIP, love it. Hal is all, nobody's on your side. Which figures, since woman (sigh)....

"You needed six months in London to learn how to hold a teacup."

Between the female VP talk and how Hal always wins and falls up, I'm triggered AF in episode 5. Followed by "democracy is going out of style."

"We killed Scottish independence?!?! Who gives a fuck about Scotland? They're nice, sweet people. They are cold all the time." LOL

"Oh shit. I have to be vice president of the United States."

HAL LITERALLY KILLED THE PRESIDENT. THAT IS CRAZY ASS. Of course, this show is crazy ass.

Kate needs to be Grace's VP, I want to see this. I dunno if you can still call it "The Diplomat" if she does that, though.

The global politics of hair in The Diplomat: The show's hair and makeup designer helps us break down the meaning behind Kate Wyler's locks.

You can't talk about Kate Wyler's bedhead and beyond without talking about Keri Russell's actual hair. Although she wore many wigs across her six seasons as Soviet superspy Elizabeth Jennings in the 1980s period piece The Americans, what you see in The Diplomat is always Russell's own hair. Hair and makeup designer Roo Maurice, who is now in her third season of work on the show and the artist responsible for Russell's look on a day-to-day basis, explains that the now-iconic "disheveled, scraggy" hair waving this way and that as it brushes past Russell's shoulders is "probably one of the hardest types of hair looks to achieve."
Russell and Maurice collaborated to bring down the volume and ringlets her famously "naturally, very, very curly" hair would form if left to its own devices. The design they settled on involved "focusing the curl in the center of the length of the hair" and creating an alternating pattern of curls to the left and then the right, so that "the curls don't lock together and give that lovely wave." The technique relies on Russell arriving on set with wet hair, followed by Maurice using a high-powered dryer, curling irons, and texturizing spray, resulting in a purposefully messy "dysfunctional curl." The irony of the intentional chaos is that it takes time to so wholly subvert Russell's innate tendency toward elegance, but over two years of working together, Maurice and the show's lead have refined the process to a brisk 30 minutes.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:06 PM

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I liked this season, and I like the show, and was so disappointed it was only 6 eps.

Ali Ahn is incredible as Eidra. She has a way of saying things really casually - eg, "I thought we were going to keep the circle small." "I'm small." - when you know they're not casual at all. A vault indeed. What a great character.

I'm very entertained by how Keri Russel's character is characterized, especially around clothes and looks; her impatience for being made-up, dress-wearing, and put on display is funny and understandable; but I also feel like they're leaning on that as, like, her character's main defining feature a little too hard.

I found the bit with Stuart's PTSD to be moving, as well as Hal trying to brave the fireworks.

Enjoyed the growing respect between Kate and the VP, and of course it all went sour immediately.
posted by entropone at 10:11 AM

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