‘The Diplomat’ showrunner Debora Cahn on how season 2 unintentionally mirrored real-life politics
“The real political landscape got a wee bit closer to what we were writing about than we initially anticipated,” admits “The Diplomat” creator and showrunner Debora Cahn about the second season of the Netflix political drama. “There’s a lot in this season that will sound like we’re making a direct comment on what’s in the headlines, but it was filmed long, long ago. It was all filmed before Kamala Harris became the [Democratic presidential] nominee.” Watch our complete video interview above.
“The Diplomat” follows Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), the newly appointed US ambassador to the United Kingdom, who is also on the shortlist to become the next Vice President of the United States. Season one explored the investigation into a deadly attack on a British aircraft carrier, and it ended with a bang: a car bomb went off just as Kate and UK Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi) made a stunning realization. Season two, which premiered October 31, picks up right where season one left off.
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“Season two is sort of like the gift that you get for having survived season one,” says Cahn. After establishing the setting and introducing the characters are done, “then you get to relax into that world, into those relationships, into the characters and live with them for a while.” She’ll get to live with them for a little while longer as the series was renewed for a third season before the second season even premiered. “I always have an end game and then it always changes,” she says about the direction of future storylines. She tries to stay responsive to “what’s happening on the stage, like what relationships are really thriving between these two actors and what is the story that in the editing room tends to get shuffled aside.”
The renewal was especially satisfying because “it’s really nice to know that we’re telling a longer story. It changes the way that you look at the story that you’re telling now if you know it’s got a long road ahead of it.”
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