(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
Betrayal comes in all shapes and sizes on The Diplomat. The Season 3 finale doesn’t hold back, dropping a bombshell and matching the show’s previous audacious cliffhangers.
Sure, there are zero explosions, and a world leader doesn’t die. But Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) learns her husband’s relationship with the president has gone to the next level.
No, Hal (Rufus Sewell) isn’t sleeping with President Grace Penn (Allison Janney), but the Brits are getting f—ed again, and Kate has unknowingly facilitated the whole thing.
Going into the finale, relations with the British government are frosty. Okay, that is putting it mildly. They are at an all-time low, and Grace doesn’t want to be the first sitting president since James Madison to fight the Red Coats. Still, nothing unites two allied countries quicker than the threat of nuclear war. Or rather, that is typically what happens. All bets are off when ego and jealousy are battling for attention.
The Diplomat creator Debora Cahn continues to use the Season 1 attack on the Royal Navy aircraft to pull the threads of the U.K. and US special friendship. Every season brings a new jaw-dropping compromise made by a powerful figure to justify their quest to prevent the world from falling apart. In this case, Grace performs a sleight of hand, revealing one ballsy move that could be considered an act of war against the U.K. while concealing something far more brazen.
On the surface, this finale is a lot of pensive talking in rooms. It is a high-stakes affair in which perceived disrespect has the potential to start World War III. The Diplomat is at its best when the flames are metaphorical, and Grace continues to throw gasoline on this fire. Returning to eight episodes (Season 2 was only six) also aids the pacing and tension building, giving Hal and Grace time to build their dynamic from deep mistrust to intense scheming.
It is these ever-changing alliances that add to the twists and turns. More spice is injected into Kate and Hal’s back-and-forth thanks to a separation. New love interest Callum (Aidan Turner) gets the brush-off in the finale after Kate thinks she made a mistake ending things with her husband. I groaned at this choice even before Kate realized Hal and Grace had used her.
But it isn’t Kate and Hal working through their issues that gives this finale its spark. Nope, that would be the president and vice president huddling late at night, forming a plan that sets the story alight. Ah, how the winds have changed from Hal wanting to keep an eye on a deeply flawed president to cooking up a secret plan with Grace to sneak one past the Brits for a second time.
Given the fraught circumstances surrounding the doomsday weapon that have led to this summit at Chequers (the country house of the prime minister), it would be too easy if it were all solved by pouring literal concrete on the problem.
The Russian submarine that lies 12 nautical miles off the north-east coast of Britain contains a dead crew and a nuke capable of sinking the entire country. Referred to as the Poseidon, Grace helpfully describes its specs: “It’s an underwater drone powered by a small nuclear reactor armed with a nuclear warhead and designed to contaminate an unusually large area with radioactive fallout.” Did no one watch or grasp the message of Oppenheimer?
Ego, as it often does, plays a significant role in how the negotiations unfold. At first, British Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) doesn’t believe that the terrifying device even exists, let alone sits this close to his country’s shores. Even when he has visual proof, Trowbridge refuses to let the U.S. take the reins with their superior equipment. Knowing that Trowbridge will listen to Kate, Hal tells her to suggest a Runit Dome approach. The real method solves the problem by covering the vessel and its cargo with concrete. No one will have access to the weapon. Okay, maybe Kate watched Oppenheimer.
The happily ever after doesn’t last too long. Callum unknowingly drives a stake in Kate and Hal’s reunion when he alerts the ambassador that the weapon has gone. While the Brits can’t extract the nuke, they can monitor the levels of radiation, and those have significantly decreased. Callum thinks the Russians have located their missing sub, a scenario that seems entirely plausible and doesn’t raise eyebrows. Well, not straight away.
While ego informs the negotiations, it is first gentleman Todd’s (Bradley Whitford) jealousy that will eventually be the catalyst for Kate’s climactic lightbulb moment.
It took me a beat to push memories of Josh and CJ aside when I first saw the reunited West Wing co-stars as husband and wife. One downside this season is not enough Janney and Whitford sparring due to their other acting commitments (Whitford was shooting The Handmaid’s Tale, Janney was doing Palm Royale). Nevertheless, they will be regulars in the already announced fourth season, and their handful of episodes have been dynamite. Not only that, but without Todd, Kate might have been left in the dark.
Todd is feeling unmoored as the job issues that almost killed Grace’s political career have left him unable to continue his academic work. Instead, he now spends his free time analyzing how much Hal makes his wife laugh. A jealousy storyline isn’t breaking the wheel, but in Whitford and Janney’s hands, it sings. Todd is made to feel irrelevant at dinner by the PM’s wife (“Lydia Trowbridge is a c–t,” Grace says later), increasing his resentment.
The following day, Todd asks Kate if Hal and Grace’s “extremely productive working relationship” bothers her. Kate is highly amused by the suggestion that the president and her VP are sleeping together. However, Kate’s demeanor shifts as soon as Todd notes that Grace “assured me it wasn’t intimacy, just the quiet plotting of world domination.” Kate realizes that she is the one getting cheated on in the scheming department.
Yep, Kate has put the late-night fireside chat pieces together, realizing that it isn’t the Russians who have taken the nuke but the U.S. government. Getting Kate to suggest Runit Dome was part of the top-secret plan, making her an accessory to this act of war on the UK. Not only that, but if the Russians discover the weapon is missing, they will attack the UK. Does spousal privilege cover subterfuge?
Further adding to the affair-like reaction is Hal whispering “she knows” to Grace as if they have been caught with their pants down. Hell hath no fury like an ambassador—who is also second lady—scorned.
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