West East Wing – Weekend
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The Netflix series The Diplomat, which presents world politics as the result of behind-the-scenes games of people in power – they create problems that diplomats then solve.
Professional diplomat Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) specializes in the Middle East and is going on a business trip to Kabul, where the tense situation requires her presence, but at the last moment her superiors send her to London – to the post of ambassador. Kate is terribly dissatisfied with the prestigious appointment: “Instead of Kabul, I ended up in this hole!” There are reasons for this: she is one of those who are used to “working in the field”, and not shuffling around the parquets of high-society living rooms with a glued smile – and this, according to the authors of the series, is what the US ambassador in London does. But the art of undercover intrigue is perfectly mastered by Kate’s husband Hal (Rufus Sewell), who previously held an embassy position.
Unlike the cunning Hal, Kate is more of an anti-diplomat – such people often create than resolve problems: she is impulsive, cuts the truth in the face of her interlocutors, and also hates etiquette, dresses and high heels. And although his marriage with Hal is bursting at the seams, he travels to London with her to hedge. Upon arrival at the Winfield House residence (inside well-trained servants, outside the garden, the second largest private park in London after the garden of Buckingham Palace), Kate discovers that the case smells of kerosene. Someone blew up a British aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, the sailors were killed, the British prime minister is tearing up and slamming, suspecting Iran, and is ready to drag America into the war at any cost. Kate knows for sure that Iran has nothing to do with it. But instead of averting the military threat, she needs to put on heels and a dress and go to shoot in a Vogue photo shoot.
Writer Deborah Kahn’s series is like a hybrid of Homeland and The West Wing—she’s worked on both. The non-diplomatic diplomat Kate is like the ever-strung but effective Carrie from Motherland, and the witty dialogues that the characters pronounce on the go (“I went to the Foreign Office not to see the world, but to escape from Washington”; “A new generation of women “Apologies for everything! Gloria Steinem must be turning in her grave.” But the message here is completely different: the focus here is on populist politicians, whose activities are aimed at their momentary interests, and then the diplomats clean up after them. Unlike the ideal president from Kryl, these are politicians for whom the good of the people is not even in the top ten priorities.
First up is British Prime Minister Trowbridge, played by Rory Kinnear with all possible sarcasm: he looks like a toxic pile of rubbish that could trigger an explosion. In the parade of ambitions, which, according to Deborah Kahn, is the current British policy, the only thing that matters to the prime minister is personal power and popularity: he, as seasoned diplomats conclude, sees himself as the new Churchill and wants to go down in history in a hawkish manner. “But it’s not the most memorable prime minister played by Rory Kinnear,” the reviewers joke, referring to the legendary first episode of Black Mirror, where the prime minister had to copulate with a pig live (UK premieres, as TV tells us, very versatile). “Iran is a good target because the people are on edge and want revenge,” says Trowbridge. It will soon become clear that Russia is also a good target, even a better one. Therefore, for eight episodes, the embassy with the diplomatic corps, as well as the CIA, the White House with children and household members – the entire diplomatic army, led by the amazing Kate Wyler (after Keri Russell again shows a high acting class after The Americans) will rush about with bulging eyes to calm down one British prime minister. And in parallel to solve their own career and alcove tasks – not without it.
The result is an incendiary spy thriller, and if anyone in The Diplomat looks like an honest campaigner-president from the West Wing, it’s the undiplomatic Kate herself. There is an idea that any war is a consequence of the failure of diplomacy. It is from her that “The Diplomat” is repelled, which has already gained fame in the press of the first series, where, along with a fictional plot, current political realities are also mentioned. Kate comes from a non-new thought: “You shouldn’t joke with a country that owns nuclear weapons. We need to try other options.” — “Good idea!” – answers her interlocutor. Whatever Hollywood writers mean by this, sooner or later someone will have to come up with a really good idea.
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