Keri Russell hive, we are winning big time. Netflix has renewed her latest political drama, The Diplomat, for a second season. It’s a good thing, too, as season one ends on quite a potent cliffhanger. Debuting on April 20, the series landed the #1 spot on the streaming platform’s global top 10 English TV shows list. According to Netflix’s press release, The Diplomat logged 57.8 million hours of viewership in its first weekend. But hey, who wouldn’t want more of Russell on their screens?
The actor returns to TV in a leading role five years after the end of FX’s The Americans, a Cold War spy drama that should’ve landed her multiple Emmy wins. Since it wrapped in 2018, Russell has starred in a Star Wars flick, Scott Cooper’s Antlers, and most recently, Cocaine Bear. She also appeared in episodes of Running Wild With Bear Grylls and Apple TV+’s Extrapolations. Thankfully, The Diplomat gives her a protagonist worth her talent; Russell told The A.V. Club last month that she was drawn to the role because of the writing.
Created by The West Wing’s Debora Cahn, the breezy eight-episode first season follows Russell’s Kate Wyler, the newly appointed ambassador to the U.K. Kate travels to London with her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), a former diplomat with an ego the size of the moon. Their marriage is on the rocks, but they must navigate those complexities because Kate is a strong candidate to replace the current United States Vice President. She’s also tackling difficult political situations with the unpredictable U.K. Prime Minister and forming an emotional connection with Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi).
Russell shares excellent chemistry with both Sewell and Gyasi. That said, the actor also told The A.V. Club that if The Diplomat were to be renewed, she’d love to get her real-life husband and The Americans co-star Matthew Rhys aboard. “When we were filming last summer, I asked him, ‘Don’t you want Debora to write something for you? What would you do?’ Matthew likes tough guys because I think, you know, he’s an actor and wears makeup for a living, so when I said, ‘What do you want to play?’ He said some army or military soldier. So you never know,” Russell said. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, huh?
The Diplomat also stars Ato Essandoh, Ali Ahn, Rory Kinnear, Michael McKean, Nana Mensah, Celia Imrie, and T’Nia Miller. No word yet on when season two will air, but sometime in 2024 feels like a safe bet.