Netflix Unveils ‘The Diplomat’ Season 2 Release Date and First-Look Photos
Netflix’s The Diplomat is heading back to its situation room.
The Keri Russell-led drama released two first-look photos of season two on Thursday and announced the next installment’s release date.
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Season one of The Diplomat, released in 2023, saw Russell star as Kate Wyler, “a seasoned foreign service officer more at home in a crisis zone than an upper-crust atmosphere,” the release reads. In the series’ first installment, she was set to take her next post in Afghanistan before a change of plans sent her to London as the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. Out of her element in aristocratic England, Kate was forced to push her diplomacy skills to the limit as multiple wars pressured United States foreign policy and, closer to home, competition brewed with her husband, Hal (played by Rufus Sewell).
“In this high-stakes political drama, the transcendence and torture of long-term relationships between countries and people takes center stage,” the release continues.
In an interview with Netflix’s Tudum, creator Debora Cahn reveals more of what to expect from season two.
Season one ended with Russell’s Kate realizing that the British prime minister was involved in the attack on the British warship that started the series, after she and her colleagues had spent the season trying to determine the foreign adversary.
“Now she has to prove it,” Cahn teases.
But that could be challenging due to the “special relationship” between the U.S. and U.K.
“The U.S. and the U.K. don’t spy on each other,” Cahn adds. “In fact, they share all their intelligence. So how do you investigate the PM? Who do you trust?”
Cahn also shares more about the literal bomb that exploded in the finale, appearing to hit Kate’s colleagues and estranged husband, saying the “politically motivated” attack “takes some lives and shatters the rest. The marriage she thought was over, the relationship she thought was beginning … all of it, in pieces.”
Though Cahn doesn’t specify which “relationship,” the first season teased a mutual attraction between Kate and the British foreign secretary, Austin Dennison (David Gyasi).
Cahn also says that in season two, “everything we thought we knew about the Wylers changes, as does everything they think they know about each other.”
At the time of season one’s release, The Hollywood Reporter critic Daniel Fienberg wrote that the show was “a pure star vehicle for Keri Russell” and “superb at exploring the context of diplomacy.”
Less than two weeks after the series debuted, the streamer renewed The Diplomat for a second season.
Season two releases Oct. 31, about a year and a half after the first installment hit Netflix in April 2023.
The Diplomat also stars Ali Ahn, Rory Kinnear and Ato Essandoh, and is executive produced by Russell, Cahn, Janice Williams, Peter Noah and Alex Graves. Allison Janney will join the cast for season two, playing Vice President Grace Penn.
As for Penn, who viewers didn’t meet in the first season, but learned there was an effort underway to replace her with Kate due to a possible scandal, Cahn says, “The VP thinks Kate’s after her job. She’s not entirely wrong. Kate thinks she understands the VP. She is mistaken.”
Hilary Lewis contributed to this report.
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