In The Diplomat‘s first trailer, Keri Russell isn’t into the whole Cinderella thing
Keri Russell stars in new Netflix series The Diplomat as Kate Wyler, a US Ambassador to the UK who's quickly inundated with personal and political fires
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Whether it’s espionage or fending off an amphetamine-happy bear, Keri Russell has a certain affinity for playing the tough who get going when the going gets tough. But the first trailer for Netflix’s The Diplomat places Russell in a setting that finally makes her break a sweat: international relations.
In the series, Keri Russell plays Kate Wyler, a new US Ambassador to the United Kingdom who finds herself immediately inundated with putting out political and personal fires. Although Kate has experience in crisis and war zones, she’s much greener when it comes to navigating parliament and rubbing elbows with the Prime Minister (Rory Kinnear). Plus, as one of Kate’s embassy confidantes (David Gyasi) tells her: the house is already on fire.
The teaser also finds the weather looking stormy on the home front: although Kate’s husband Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) has left his ambassador days behind to cultivate his political rising star, he’s not exactly ready to relinquish his area of expertise. “I’m not doing this the way you would,” Kate tells Hal.
“That’s fine,” he responds. “Just don’t do it wrong.”
What Kate seems most uninterested in is what she calls the “whole Cinderella thing:” Unlike a certain luminous SUNY Purchase grad, Kate isn’t interested in playing Princess Diana (as her uncomfortable grin-and-wave during a photo shoot in a literal horse and carriage indicates).
Showrunner Debora Cahn, whose previous credits include both The West Wing and Homeland, clearly knows her way around a political drama. Cahn also serves as an executive producer on the series, alongside Russell and Janice Williams (Pieces of Her, The Magicians).
In her own tease, Cahn previously described The Diplomat “as a show about the transcendence and torture of long-term relationships.” If it’s capturing the long-term distress onscreen Cahn is after, she seems primed to deliver: the first trailer fits in roughly two dozen tortured glances in just two minutes.
The Diplomat arrives on Netflix Thursday, April 20.
16 Comments
Keri Russell stars in new Netflix series The Diplomat as Kate Wyler, a US Ambassador to the UK who’s quickly inundated with personal and political fires.“Inundate” means to flood. You’re saying she’s being flooded with fire. This is the danger of thesaurus talk. “Inundate” is related to words like “overwhelm” or “consume” but they’re not interchangeable.
I approve of this next level Volunteer Proofreader post!
It turns out “Liebkartoffel” is German for “volunteer proofreader”!
God forbid someone speak relatively naturally and slightly mix implied metaphors in the process. Call the word police.As for “thesaurus talk”, you to realize petty sniping like yours is the primary reason “thesaurus talk” exists, right?
God forbid the folks who are paid to write put some care and effort into their craft. And no, “thesaurus talk” emerges from the mistaken assumption that a large vocabulary indicates superior writing ability. I don’t have anything against $10 words per se, but one should have a clear understanding of when it’s appropriate to use them.
Holy wow, this is the weakest grammar nazism I’ve seen in a long time.Inundate is interchangeable with overwhelm. Yes, it did historically have a relation to flooding, but if you’ve ever used, say, “myriad” to mean anything other than exactly 10,000 of something then you’re guilty of the exact same sin you’re condemning here.
*diction nazism
I can’t wait for the twist where she’s revealed to be an undercover Russian spy!
Currently rewatching The Americans and was just thinking I needed more Keri in my life, seems at least worth a look
Of all the series that could have a follow-up series that would be both interesting and high quality, The Americans is up there. I would love more stories of what the Jennings (and the Beemans) are up to post-Cold War. Did Elizabeth and Phillip stay in Russia? How did Stan deal with the aftermath of losing his best friend? What happened to Paige and Henry? Was Renee a spy? There’s so much they could explore with those characters and the real-life history that happened between the end of the show’s timeline and the present.
As much as I would love answers to those questions, I think any follow-up to The Americans would be kinda bleak. Philip and Elizabeth in poor-as-shit post-Soviet Russia? Paige was surely arrested, right? She wasn’t a well-trained spy and to what resources might she have had access after ditching her parents? Is Oleg still in prison or did the fall of the wall get him out early? Did he flip? And the “is Renee a spy?” thing probably gnawed away at Stan’s brain, leading to their divorce.
Also, poor Henry and Martha.
That all sounds great!(and Martha is no longer Poor Martha after her happy step-mom ending)
(and Martha is no longer Poor Martha after her happy step-mom ending)Child-aside, her life in the USSR wasn’t great and I doubt it might have been better after the wall fell (1990’s Russian poverty and whatnot).
Paige escaped to Latin America to be a fixer for Pastor Tim’s ministries while he pretended not to know that his ministries depended on her probably being a killer. His wife tried to get them to have an affair to cover for her own infidelities since everyone thought they were having an affair anyway, but it never even occurred to him.
Lost in all the Krasinski-Blunt discourse overlooks just how bad-ass it would be if Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell were Reed and Sue Richards.
I’m always here for Russell, but the trailer is like tense political thriller and then a couple of times random goofy moments. I have a feeling whoever made the trailer went through a lot of antacid.