On Screen: “The Diplomat, Season 3”
The Diplomat
If you enjoyed “TheWest Wing” and/or “House of Cards,” you’ll want to start bingeing “The Diplomat: Season 3” tonight!
This London-set political thriller revolves around Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), America’s ambassador to the U.K. and her meddlesome career-diplomat husband Hal (Rufus Sewall).
At the conclusion of Season 2, visiting Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) learned that POTUS William Rayburn (Michael McKean) died of a heart attack, making her the new U.S. president.
Whom will she choose as her Veep? Hal is determined that it should be Kate but perhaps steely, devious Grace has other plans — as creator-showrunner Debora Cahn delivers more twists and turns than a pretzel, leaving Kate in freefall.
Since the complicated Wyler marriage has always been on rocky ground, change and conditional compromise provide additional conflict as geopolitical events escalate and their union slowly implodes when Kate embarks on an affair with British MI6 agent Callum Ellis (Aidan Turner).
Then there’s Grace’s snarky husband, Todd Penn (Bradley Whitford), whose career was derailed by financial malfeasance. At one point, he introduces himself as “an increasingly insignificant house-husband married to a supernova.”
Intrigue intensifies as British Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) and Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi) grow increasingly suspicious about the bombing of a British vessel in the Persian Gulf and the arrival of a disabled Russian submarine armed with a nuclear weapon called The Poseidon off the coast of England.
Plus there’s a continuation of the dedicated work of those in the Foreign Service like Stuart Heyford (Ato Essandoh) and CIA station chief Eidra Park (Ali Ahn), along with White House Chief of Staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah).
As for stunning locations, add the British PM’s posh country house Chequers to Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire, standing in for Winfield House, the U.S. Ambassador’s residence, and the Penns’ magnificent beach house in Amagansett is actually the Seacroft Estate on Centre Island, Long Island.
Fortunately, production plans for the fourth season are already underway.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Diplomat: Season 3” is a tantalizing 10 as all eight episodes stream on Netflix.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.