The Diplomat

 

Netflix's absorbing political thriller series The Diplomat has that stimulating feeling of cultural and political urgency that made The West Wing so successful.

Created by Debora Cahn -- veteran television writer / producer long associated with Aaron Sorkin's White House machinations series and with Shonda Rhimes' medical drama Grey's Anatomy -- The Diplomat stars Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, career foreign service officer to the Middle East who is reassigned as ambassador to the Court of St. James's and stationed in London with her fellow State Department operative and husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell).

The reassignment follows the bombing of a British naval vessel off the coast of Iran that killed more than 40 sailors; early surveillance suggests Iran was behind it but the Wylers, who know the region and the players, receive intelligence that is not the case.

The early episodes involve Kate finding her footing. Though brilliant, she has neither the background nor the temperament for what has essentially been a plush posting for presidential patrons that involved little, if any, diplomacy. The attack changes the game substantially, and Cahn and crew explore not only the complexities of foreign service, international communications and exchange but the interpersonal dynamics of the large number of players involved in these matters.

Adding to this absorbing narrative is the fact that the Wylers may or may not be in a middle of a divorce; their lives seem to be at once in tandem and fiercely opposed. There is heat but Kate doesn't trust her mendacious husband, whose ego is enormous. The scenes between the two are rendered flawlessly by Russell and Sewell.

Also outstanding in the early going are Ato Essandoh as American embassy attaché Stuart Heyford, Nana Mensah as presidential Chief of Staff Billie Appiah and David Gyasi as British Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison, three Black actors with whose work I am not familiar but who deliver wonderfully layered and refreshingly atypical performances.