TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. "The Diplomat," the Netflix drama series starring Keri Russell as a career American diplomat and ambassador to Britain, has returned for its third season. One of its prominent guest stars from Season 2, Allison Janney, who plays Vice President Grace Penn, has been promoted this season on screen and off. Janney is now a series regular, and this season she welcomes a new guest star, Bradley Whitford, her former costar from "The West Wing." He plays her husband, and our TV critic David Bianculli says it's a fabulous example of stunt casting. Here's his review.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: "The Diplomat" is one of those rare TV series that manages to get even better every season. Season 1, introducing and establishing Keri Russell as diplomat Kate Wyler, was really strong and impressively intelligent. It had to be if it was to work. Any one of the characters who populate "The Diplomat" - the politicians, the support staff and advisers, even the spouses and significant others - would, in most environments, be the smartest person in the room. Except, as with the classic NBC series "The West Wing," they're all in the same room. This means the arguments had to be equally strong on both sides, and the jokes and snide comments had to crackle and pop. Check and double check.
Kate's push-and-pull relationship with her husband Hal, played by Rufus Sewell, was the highlight of Season 1. Season 2 upped the ante by reaching deeper into "The West Wing" bag of tricks and hiring Allison Janney, who played C.J. Cregg on that show, to play Vice President Grace Penn on "The Diplomat." And the Season 2 cliffhanger, a brilliant one, had Hal telling Kate that he had just been on the phone with the president, informing him that his own vice president had been involved with planning a covert attack on a British military vessel. And when the president heard that news, he dropped dead of a heart attack.
So now we're at Season 3, and suddenly, Vice President Grace Penn is about to experience the orderly transition of presidential power, except it's not so orderly. Janney's vice president, like Russell's diplomat, was in London when the president died, which makes the transition more difficult. So does the fact that Kate recently had made moves to oust Grace from her job as VP. So their relationship at this point is at best tenuous. But what saves Kate, with both the team in London and their American counterparts patched in from the Situation Room, arguing about what to do next, is that she's still the most informed and level-headed person of all, much as the next president may hate that.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DIPLOMAT")
ALYSIA REINER: (As Ivy Griffin) We can't put the president on the plane we have here.
ROSALINE ELBAY: (As Nora Koriem) What?
REINER: (As Ivy Griffin) It doesn't have the comms package. We're scrambling 747-9000.
ELBAY: (As Nora Koriem) It's in...
REINER: (As Ivy Griffin) Washington.
ELBAY: (As Nora Koriem) Billie...
NANA MENSAH: (As Billie Appiah) Fourteen hours until she's back?
REINER: (As Ivy Griffin) More like 16.
ELBAY: (As Nora Koriem) No, not OK.
MENSAH: (As Billie Appiah) We need to swear her in, like, now.
ELBAY: (As Nora Koriem) And not on foreign soil.
ALLISON JANNEY: (As Grace Penn) On the plane?
ELBAY: (As Nora Koriem) Is the plane America?
KERI RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) The plane is not America.
ELBAY: (As Nora Koriem) Then when we hit American airspace.
MIGUEL SANDOVAL: (As Miguel Ganon) That's still 12 hours from now.
MENSAH: (As Billie Appiah) The embassy is, right? It's American soil.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) It's not.
ELBAY: (As Nora Koriem) People come to the embassy and claim asylum because it's American soil.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) And then they don't get asylum 'cause it's not American soil.
SANDOVAL: (As Miguel Ganon) She's already president. She was president the moment he stopped breathing.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) You don't want to explain the 25th Amendment to North Korea. You want to publish a picture of her with one hand in the air and another on a Bible. You have to do it here.
JANNEY: (As Grace Penn) I'm OK if you don't talk.
MENSAH: (As Billie Appiah) She's right. We need to do this within the hour.
BIANCULLI: Debora Cahn, who created "The Diplomat," won an Emmy as part of the writing team for "The West Wing" in 2003. She also wrote for "Homeland," one of the best TV series ever at dramatizing two opposing or shifting points of view. So the complexity of "The Diplomat" isn't surprising, but it is impressive. She even has Alex Graves, a veteran director of "The West Wing," directing this new season's first two and final two episodes.
When the writing and the direction are this excellent and the actors every bit as good, scenes just soar. The silences are as powerful as the dialogue, and every conversation is bound to shift the interpersonal dynamics, often profoundly. As Kate helps Grace prepare for her swearing-in ceremony, adjusting Grace's outfit in the bathroom mirror, Grace takes the opportunity to confess, and Kate takes the opportunity to mend fences.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DIPLOMAT")
JANNEY: (As Grace Penn) I killed him. Not your husband.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) No.
JANNEY: (As Grace Penn) I killed a good man and a great president.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) That's not what happened.
JANNEY: (As Grace Penn) Of course it is. You heard what I did, and his heart halted. You can just agree with me. You don't have to kiss my ass. You're the one who accuse me of a terrorist plot.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) I never said that.
JANNEY: (As Grace Penn) That's right. You accused me of botching a terrorist plot.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) I said I would have done the same thing.
JANNEY: (As Grace Penn) And yet, you were trying to replace me with you.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) As vice president, you were replaceable. In your current role, you are not. You didn't kill the president, ma'am. You made a tough call. In hindsight, nobody likes it, you included.
BIANCULLI: After Grace is installed as president, her husband Todd, played by Janney's former "West Wing" costar Bradley Whitford, is flown to London and is reunited with her in the London embassy. They exchange a hug and swap disbelieving expletives, but it's not a private moment. Kate's husband Hal, who greeted Todd and escorted him to where Grace was waiting, stuck around so he could talk to the brand-new president about his own spouse, Kate.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DIPLOMAT")
RUFUS SEWELL: (As Hal Wyler) Hal Wyler, ambassador's wife.
BRADLEY WHITFORD: (As Todd Penn) Todd Penn, first lady.
SEWELL: (As Hal Wyler) They put her in the ambassador's office. It's in here.
RUSSELL: (As Kate Wyler) Hal.
SEWELL: (As Hal Wyler) I'll show you the corner of the office where the husband sits and tries not to look diminished.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR CLOSING)
WHITFORD: (As Todd Penn) Holy [expletive]. Oh, my [expletive].
JANNEY: (As Grace Penn) I don't know.
WHITFORD: (As Todd Penn) Yeah.
SEWELL: (As Hal Wyler) I'll get out of here. I'm so sorry. I just need to have a second. I need to make sure you understand that my wife is your vice president. Every misery you've suffered at our hands has been me, not her. Her play for your job, that was my idea. She hated it from the jump. The call to the president she knew nothing about. She would never have allowed it. She is the fiercest advocate you will ever have, and she is effective.
BIANCULLI: Bradley Whitford, as the new first gentleman, isn't around much. He vanishes after the first episode, but comes back strong, very strong, for the final ones. When he and Janney share scenes, they're lovely, even when the characters are fighting. Meanwhile, Kate's husband Hal is this season's secret weapon. Rufus Sewell, from "The Man In The High Castle," makes him likable, even when he's being extremely difficult, which is often.
I adore this series for its intelligence, its wit and its confrontations. But most of all, I love its unpredictability. All eight episodes of Season 3 are available now, and there are unexpected developments the entire way. All I'll tell you is the cliffhanger this season is one I never saw coming. When you get there, I hope you'll be as knocked out by it as I was.
GROSS: Our TV critic David Bianculli reviewed the new season of "The Diplomat," which is streaming on Netflix.
Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be Judd Apatow. His new book, "Comedy Nerd," is filled with never-before-published photos, handwritten letters and early script drafts. He'll share some related memories, including the childhood obsessions that led to comedies like "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Freaks And Geeks." I hope you'll join us.
To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair.
(SOUNDBITE OF SASHA MASHIN'S "SOME THOMAS")
GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our cohost is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF SASHA MASHIN'S "SOME THOMAS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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