***SPOILERS: This article and video reveal spoilers about the Season 2 finale.
“Tone on our show is the big thing in every scene. How serious, how dramatic, how funny, how clear is the story,” declares “The Diplomat” director Alex Graves. For our recent webchat, the two-time Emmy winner (out of seven nominations to date for “The West Wing”) adds, “we’re in the middle of filming Season 3right now, and it’s better than ever and it is intensifying, we’re moving towards real internal power struggles between everything from nations to the marriage. It’s so fresh and exciting to us as we’re doing it, and that’s a testament to Debora and the writers, just really challenging themselves with with hard story instead of doing the same old thing.” Watch our video interview above.
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions
“The Diplomat” was created by Debora Cahn (“The West Wing,” “Homeland”) and stars Emmy nominee Keri Russell (“The Americans”) as Kate Wyler, US ambassador to the UK, who is also on the shortlist to become the next Vice President of the United States. The political drama co-stars Rufus Sewell as Kate’s former diplomat and almost-ex-husband Hal, David Gyasi as British Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison, Ali Ahn as CIA station chief Eidra Park, Rory Kinnear as the UK Prime Minister and Ato Essandoh as Stuart Heyford, the deputy chief of mission of the US embassy in London.
The first season 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 Austin made a stunning realization. Season 2 picks up right where the action left off, in which Kate navigates an escalating international crisis while juggling the complexities of her marriage and her increasingly pivotal role in global diplomacy, all while facing new political and personal betrayals. The jaw-dropping season 2 finale (“Dreadnought”), directed by Graves, features a barn-burner performance from Oscar and Emmy winner Allison Janney (“The West Wing,” “I, Tonya”) as Vice President Grace Penn, ending with Secret Service agents charging toward Penn, as the chaos surrounding her is tied to a serious political crisis that’s spiraling out of control. This moment serves as a cliffhanger, leaving her (and the audience) questioning her role in the unfolding drama and what consequences await her, Kate and Hal.
Graves was thrilled to ramp up the tension on the Netflix drama in the finale, culminate with a shocking twist as Penn realizes in those final moments that her whole world is about to change. “We were talking about the fact that she would be the mythically dysfunctional vice president who’s mentioned in the pilot of the show. We got into a conversation about, wouldn’t it be crazy if she was very problematic, and if the last moment of the season finale was that the president died, which would mean she’d become president. I think Debra’s response was, ‘that’s a great f****** idea,'” he recalls. “But, as, as with every script on the show, you can’t really quantify how good the script is going to be until Debra writes it. And then you get the dialogue and the story and the way it’s put together. And each script really is a marvel. They’re just some of the best writing I’ve ever seen and I’m sure we’ll ever see. And, so then you start to just say, ‘don’t blow it.’ The pressure is huge and you want to set it up and stage it and photograph it and do your due diligence and to make it as great as you can. It was a joy to get the script, it was incredible to work with Alison again, and it was really fun to play that twist.”
