The Diplomat is a great watch. There are NO DISHWASHERS. There are NO CHILDREN. There are no taxi companies. No domesticity. No Ocado shop. No. I mean for £12 million pounds an hour you want something a bit slicker...And this show delivers an escapist masterpiece. Put your feet up. Pour some wine. This show couldn't be any further away from real life of most couples, and yet, I think, it captures something real about relationships. Who gets the plumb jobs in the couple? Who is more deserving? More talented? Who gets to be somebody, who gets to be nobody? Who gets to clear up all the rubbish? Who is a leader? Who is a follower?
Large, glossy, impossibly square, black orbs - which are nothing like the cars ordinary people drive - punctuate the beginning and end of many events. I am sure you could stand upright in those cars and have a shower. They are no doubt bullet proof. They symbolise the inflated Ego.
Flashing lights. I am not sure why they are using flashing blue lights down an empty gravel drive - wide enough for several tanks - except to say hey we are the apex predators coming for tea make sure you polish the cutlery. Power. Huge ornate buildings. Beautiful, perfectly fitted clothing. Buff, polished skin. I mean they got a Big Bang for their buck in my opinion. Twelve million quid for all that seems like the producers really did some pretty hot wheeling and dealing.
This Netflix drama, now in its third series, has a seemingly inflating and infinite budget. I guess the producers and cast must have got infected by their portrayals of power. It happens. You're making a show about presidential politics and intrigue, and heck, you feel like you don't have to stick to the budget. In this series the new President recruits a new Vice President. She hatches a plan to steal a Russian missile from a submarine, but does not disclose this to her closest allies. Her Vice President is in on this. Although it is not a sexual relationship, it is highly charged and intimate. The President and Vice President are tied together by the heady nature of power. They both have a vulnerability to bending the rules. The Vice President is ambitious, and falls under the sway of the President.
The Vice President's wife is a much more accomplished individual with a well honed political radar and expertise. She would have made a much better Vice President. And yet, she was passed over. The President liked her husband better; or maybe she sensed he was more open to her manipulation and power than she would be.
The Vice President's wife finds herself marginalised and unvalued. She finds herself unable to play second fiddle to her husband, and manages to create a new identity. It is a vague and uncertain identity. She creates a new post as Special Envoy. She is the discarded feminine. Yet, in her role, she finds herself at the centre of a diplomatic storm. Once the British find out that the Americans have stolen a Russian missile in a covert operation in British waters, the political drama escalates. The Russians and Americans finds themselves on a course of direct confrontation. The Special Envoy has to diffuse the situation through simultaneously managing the egos of the US President and the UK Prime Minister. She keeps the both in the dark about the full picture using her mercurial and trickster like aspects to buy more time. Like the Greek goddess Athena, she is strategic; yet she is also like Hermes, shape shifting in the twilight.
She finds herself driven not by by power, but by ethics. She is animated by her quest to figure out how to avert war, and how to ensure the American superpower conducts itself ethically. The plot thickens when she finds herself hosting the President's husband. Just like her, he finds himself overshadowed in Washington by his powerful spouse. He seeks out a role alongside her as another Envoy. He explains that his wife (the President) has become short tempered and impulsive ever since she was almost assassinated on British soil. He wonders aloud to what degree she has been psychological impaired. And yet he is also devoted to her. We find out that he has split loyalties. He reports back conversations he has with the Special Envoy back to the President (his wife). The President then speaks to her Vice President who then speaks to his wife. Both couples talk about the other couple. Suspicion, jealousy, misunderstanding and intrigue abound.
In the end it becomes apparent that the President is not just being a strong and decisive leader. No, she is descending into a paranoid state. This is most clearly suggested when she asks a member of staff to leave. In her view he had betrayed her through raising some legitimate concerns. But she is no longer able to tolerate any difference of views. She is no longer amenable to influence. Any dissent is viewed as seditious. She is becoming tyrannical. During an international conference of the G7 her staff walk out in a very public forum, one by one. The President remains undeterred. They give up their professional identities. They surrender their name badges. They move from the collective, the persona, and into their own identities, closer to their actual consciences and values. Visually, they walk outside an imposing gate, leaving the centres of power. Leaving behind the ego for the Self. Moving from the inauthentic political stage into a stage where they are able to integrate aspects of the shadow material they have encountered. Only the Vice President remains, addicted as he is to power at all costs. It looks as though he values power over and above his marriage. Is he married to the office? Yet, in the final scene, he walks free, blinking into the light.
In the end, the over reaching and over bearing President is unable to control her subordinates. She tries to repress them, but in the end the stand up to her. In the next series, will it be the lowly Special Envoy who runs against the President. Or will the ex Special Envoy and ex Vice President leave behind politics and set up a B and B in in the Cotswolds? Who knows, but I have a feeling that things are just hotting up.