THE DIPLOMAT
by armen pandora
The title of Netflix’s new series is ironic, The Diplomat. Starring the incredible Kerri Russell as the title character who is anything but ‘diplomatic’ in the usual sense of the word, The Diplomat tries to be that unusual blend of thriller, comedy and witty drama - you know, the kind of thing that Alfred Hitchcock did twice a year.
Co-starring the equally incredible Rufus Sewell as her fellow diplomat/ husband, and including a cast of A-list British TV vets, The Diplomat strives to make you think as you watch - how smart these people are!
And just to show you that they aren’t too smart, too high-brow, its creator, Debora Cahn ( a West Wing alumnae who imitates the Sorkinesque banter style) and her fellow writers throw in references to blow jobs for a husband’s good deeds and every five minutes references to peeing.
The plot has a vague similarity to today’s headlines: an aging president played by Better Call Saul’s kookaboo brother, Michael McKean (it’s becoming his specialty) has a female VP he is soon going to dump because of some vague scandal and is looking for a replacement, who is not a politician and won’t be looking to run after her job is done. Yeah, right. Like a President doesn’t want to hand-pick a successor.
The plot involves lots of twists and turns about who bombed a British aircraft carrier and what should be done about it. To test if Russell can possibly handle the VP job, she is named Ambassador to the Court of St. James - one of the highest-profile diplomatic postings in the world. Reluctantly, she goes there - with her husband.
The series tries to make the politicians all so ‘human’ (like we need convincing) while the civil servants - the diplomats and their ilk, CIA station heads, chiefs of staff, etc, are all striving hard to save the world from the crazy politicians.
The joker in the pack is that Russell wants to divorce Sewell, but she can’t be VP if she does. They have a ‘she loves to hate him’ relationship that is as stable as an NBA lead with five minutes left in the game.
Russell and Sewell make a great match and are like a modern Tracy and Hepburn, but there’s no Garson Kanin/ Ruth Gordon writing team to make the center-court match as good as it should be. The music is the giveaway - a kind of slow beat that provides constant auditory winks at all the shenanigans - and that’s what the plot consists of mostly, shenanigans which is, as Webster defines the word, ‘secret or dishonest activity or maneuvering.’ It’s fun to watch at times, but could be so much more.