So this is what happens when I try to watch something that isn't nerdy and/or belonging to a global franchise. Not that I didn't have a good time with the miniseries The Diplomat on Netflix: it had a zingy script, some tense will-they-stop-world-war-three-in-time drama, and good performances, especially from Rufus Sewell as the titular diplomat's husband. I'm just not convinced, given the season's ending, that it's so clever and mature as it thinks it is.
The set-up of the series is that Kate Wyler, a successful American diplomat on her way to do some serious damage limitation in Kabul, is instead hoisted off to become the new US ambassador in Great Britain after a British ship has been torpedoed at sea and an international crisis looms. What Kate doesn't know is that she's being vetted for the position as Vice President, and her political assignment serves as a kind of test. Her husband Hal, who has also had a stellar diplomatic career but is now on the back burner because the Secretary of State doesn't like him, accompanies her. However, it's understood that he's supposed to leave after Kate has settled in as they're divorcing. That is, it's understood by Kate. Hal is a loose cannon and his motives are unclear at the best of times, but one thing is certain: he has no intention of divorcing Kate.
While finding her feet, Kate has to figure out how she can keep an irate British Prime Minister from blowing something up. Forty-odd British sailors have lost their lives in the attack and it looks like Iran is responsible. So of course, this being the kind of show it is, it's not Iran.
Now, to be fair, it's been a staple of political thrillers for a long time that the most likely suspect is not responsible. While it's harder to deliver surprises on the culprit front in this genre than in, say, a classic whodunnit, without looking silly, it doesn't stop writers from trying. The Sinister Third Party is a trope often used, for instance in Agatha Christie adventure stories such as The Secret Adversary and They Came to Baghdad and in James Bond films (I haven't read Ian Fleming's novels, so I can't be sure that his Soviet spies are always so blameless as in the films). And I can see why political thriller writers strive to introduce some kind of twist, even when it doesn't make a lot of sense. It just feels a little flat to simply point the finger at a country that's already considered a major military threat in the real world.
But what do you do if there is no organisation à la Spectre to blame? With The Diplomat I was along for the ride until the final episode. I had no problem with the usual suspects being discarded, especially as the series doesn't pretend that they're innocent little lambkins (with reactions to accusations ranging from "We didn't do it! I'll call off this assassination attempt we've been planning for ages just to prove it" to "Yeah, that sounds like us, but funnily enough I didn't give the order"). But then the reveal comes, and it's so forehead-slappingly stupid I found myself feeling less forgiving towards the show's other missteps.
It's not a solution you haven't thought of: it's one you briefly consider before thinking "no, this show is too clever to do something daft like that". Like I said, the script is good. I was lured into watching it by a trailer full of West Wing-style zingers (well, that and Sewell). But if you scrutinise The Diplomat more closely, you'll find some odd creative choices which make you wonder if the writers are as read up on, for instance, British politics as all that.
Why does the British PM Nicol Trowbridge (the "Nicol" being a dead give-away that the character is modelled on Boris Johnson – at least he doesn't have the hair) gate-crash a diplomatic meeting behind the wheels of a red sports car? Is it likely that his Foreign Secretary Dennison (to whom Kate is attracted) would refer to Brexit as a "self-inflicted wound"? Dennison is supposed to have been a front-runner for the leadership post, yet when does he sound like a Tory at all? Why does Kate's second-in-command Stuart sniffily refer to Trowbridge's erstwhile spin doctor as someone who can make "racists" look cuddly? Who exactly is she supposed to have been working for?
Celia Imrie does her best as the cardigan-clad spin doctor, but nothing about her character feels the least bit credible, and she is responsible for the biggest head-scratching moment apart from the finale reveal, when she claims that Trowbridge is tense because not only Scotland, but also Northern Ireland and Wales are on the verge of breaking out of the United Kingdom. What kind of weird parallel universe is this?
That a political drama has a certain political slant isn't to be wondered at. The West Wing certainly had. But its writers did try, for the most part, to understand the opposition's arguments, not least so they could script characters not belonging to the Bartlet crew in a credible way. There's none of that nuance in The Diplomat, and it does feel like its odder moments are at least partly caused by the writers' blank incomprehension of political opinions other than their own.
Still, I enjoyed the series, and I'm hoping for a second season. Kate is a bit annoying (I'm not big on hairbrushing, but even I thought she looked aggressively scruffy), but her complicated relationship with Hal is interesting, and there's some amusing back-and-forth between Stuart and his sassy CIA girlfriend. Plus, they can easily retcon some of the silliness from the season finale. Hey, maybe we Swedes did it? We made it look like the Russians framed the Iranians so that we'd be welcomed into Nato with open arms? Believe it or not, that explanation would be less ridiculous than what the series has come up with so far.
