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“The Diplomat” reminds us that political couples used to be smart
Say what you will about the first and second couples at the heart of “The Diplomat” – and by now they’ve generated plenty of gossip fodder – but nobody would question the resilience of their unions. Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), have certainly had their ups and downs; the series begins with them contemplating divorce just as Kate is thrust into an ambassadorship to Britain.
The more politically seasoned Hal manipulates Kate into staying with him, kicking off a multi-season barrage of wheedling and scheming that culminates in President Grace Hagen Penn (Allison Janney) picking him as her vice president.
Over four seasons of Debora Cahn’s transatlantic political drama, Kate has been instrumental in keeping the highly tenuous special relationship between Britain and America from crumbling, even as her boss and husband insist on taking jackhammers to it.
Grace is indubitably corrupt, and yet her devotion to her husband Todd (Bradley Whitford) is nevertheless true. Sure, occasionally Todd must scream underwater to keep his head from exploding. And yes, a fourth-season subplot finds the first gentleman hightailing to London to find some purpose beyond perusing wallpaper swatches. Well, that and placing some distance between him and his wife’s unnerving autocratic behavior.
Even so, during their daily check-ins, Grace and Todd still call each other babe and exchange declarations of love. When Grace finally sets all of America’s alliances aflame, Todd remains standing by her side.
It’s a miserable political and marital state of affairs when a Netflix hit’s radioactive relationships make a person nostalgic for eras when first and second Ladies were intellectual forces respected by their husbands. Neither Dr. Jill Biden nor Michelle Obama dimmed their light to appease right-wing sexists bent on characterizing their professional achievements and eloquence as emasculating.
In that respect, Hillary Clinton showed them and us the way: When her husband Bill won office, the first lady chaired a task force that delivered a massive health reform proposal doomed from the jump. We will never know if we’d have universal healthcare by now if a man had run the task force, but Republicans taught voters to distrust any first lady who aspired to do more for Americans than bake cookies and tend the roses in the White House garden.
( Clifton Prescod/Netflix © 2026)
Contrast those misty memories with Monday’s connubial proof-of-life photo-op featuring Donald Trump and his oft-absentee wife, Melania, signing an executive order creating a task force on women’s health. This was a rare appearance for the first lady, who many assume can’t stand her husband. One can’t imagine why.
“Look at her. You think she’s easy? She’s not so easy, but she’s very smart,” the president assured assembled reporters before signing the order and remarking, “I don’t know if her signature means anything,” while handing the pen to his wife.
When he tried to seal the moment with a kiss, the first lady turned her head, leaving him to lip-lock her hair instead. He then patted her hand, mumbling, “Good job.”
And Kate? All she does is clean up her husband’s messes. Following his advice to blackmail a loose-cannon Prime Minister into resigning causes her reflux to erupt with a vengeance. Hal’s part in a secret plot to purloin a Russian doomsday weapon from a sunken sub and her efforts to keep the enemy from finding out trap her in a perpetual cycle of dashing to bathrooms. America’s president named Kate to be her sin eater, and occasionally she has to barf up her guilt to keep her prevarications straight.
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Working for the Penn administration is an ambassador’s nightmare and hell on the esophagus. Without a partner, it would be untenable. Without Kate, Hal and the stalwart staff surrounding them, our international relations may very well be in tatters.
The Penn administration will never be confused for Kennedy’s Camelot, and nobody in their right mind would characterize the Clintons’ or the Wylers’ marriages as ideal.
Like Bill and Hillary, Kate and Hal are working on their relationship despite Kate’s extramarital flings and Hal’s penchant for skullduggery. Their marriage is on thin ice. But their shared devotion is more plausible than whatever deal the Trumps have struck.
To watch these real and fictional partnerships play out without doubting their credibility is… I don’t know, is uplifting the word? Soothing, maybe.
It makes us fondly recall a past when first ladies competently delivered coherent speeches from podiums and made strong policy advocates. When presidents reached for their wives’ hands and their spouses responded in kind. It was a nicer, smarter time.
(Netflix © 2026)
Yet Kate and Hal’s working partnership earns them few points with Grace and Todd. The thing is, Todd isn’t stupid. He’s malleable and clueless about a lot of things, including whether it’s appropriate to interpret a female colleague’s nervous vomiting as an indicator that she’s pregnant. But when Grace survives an assassination attempt, Todd is genuinely shaken. When the president requires an emotional backstop and perhaps a bit of reining in, the first gentleman exercises his own version of diplomacy. When it suits him.
Hal’s mastery of persuasive dark arts makes him a perfect partner for a president who surreptitiously and proudly moves to upend the international power structure. Still, Todd doesn’t like the way Hal and Grace giggle together in secret.
We’re attracted to “The Diplomat” for many of the same reasons Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” kept liberal viewers rapt during the George W. Bush years. The Penn administration has none of the idealism or conscience that drove Martin Sheen’s Jed Bartlet, whose vision Janney’s press secretary, C.J. Cregg, and Whitford’s deputy chief of staff, Josh Lyman, worked to preserve as best as they could.
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It’s both entertaining and frightening to see the same actors portray an effective marital alliance devoted to trashing norms and weaponizing American exceptionalism.
But that’s also why this show works. In real life, the political class favors men like Hal much more than women like Kate, although (and because) Kate is truly Hal’s better half, morally speaking. In Britain, the charismatic Todd embraces his special envoy status with verve even as he suspects he’s out of his depth.
As America watches the president’s wife treat him with the same disdain he shows the rest of the world, a competent political union, however strained, is somehow reassuring. If the Wylers can survive the nightmare of American politics, maybe we have a chance too.
“The Diplomat” is streaming on Netflix.
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The post “The Diplomat” reminds us that political couples used to be smart appeared first on Salon.com.
