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Eight episodes of a series created and co-written by a former White House and Homeland screenwriter, and starring the gentle Felicity Porter (Felicity) and the fierce Elizabeth Jennings (The Americans) were all it took in the spring of 2023 to win us over to this Netflix original production. So much is expected of this second season of The Diplomat, released a few days before the US presidential election. The timing is not insignificant, as it is largely a question of a woman's ability to carry out the duties for which she is being considered.

In the wake of the car bombing that nearly claimed the life of her soon-to-be ex-husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), American ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) suspects the British prime minister (Rory Kinnear) of being involved in both this explosion and the one that, in the previous season, hit a British aircraft carrier, precipitating Kate getting parachuted to London just as she was about to put down her bags in Kabul.

The brutal methods of the British leader, who finds and expeditiously executes the Russian mercenary responsible for torpedoing the aircraft carrier, seem to prove her right. Unless the source of these revelations, a shady adviser with dubious motives, is herself being manipulated. It remains to be seen by whom – in The Diplomat, one revelation always leads to another.

Since its first season, the series has functioned on an ambiguity: Kate Wyler has been sent to London less for her in-depth knowledge of Middle Eastern issues than to test her ability to replace the incumbent vice president, threatened by a scandal the nature of which we don't really know. The arrival of this vice president, portrayed by Allison Janney (it's a brilliant idea to entrust the role to the woman who, for seven years, was President Jed Bartlet's press secretary in The West Wing), in the fifth episode relieves the series of a tedious season start, tangled up in its own complexity, and reconnects it with the headiness of its beginnings.

The simmering confrontation between the two women that ensues, breathes new life and energy into the season, making us forget the implausibility and haphazard pacing of its beginnings. However, Debora Cahn and her writers cannot be totally forgiven for having removed almost all sexual and romantic tension from the story, depriving the series of the charm and humor that made it an heir to Hollywood marriage comedies.

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