Diplomat
The other army
Season 2 Episode 4
Editor’s rating: 4 stars****
Image: Netflix
Is it possible, after the various physical and behavioral disasters witnessed in the past few episodes, that the work of the American Ambassador and her various allies will return to normal? Kate and Hal seem to work well together. Stewart found the means to honestly retract his impending sabotage of Kate’s vice presidential prospects; Kate, Hal, and Eidra develop a less-than-ideal but highly sophisticated plan to reveal new details of Roylin’s plan to Dennison and Trowbridge, while testing the latter’s response for signs of guilt and keeping Roylin off their hands. You know? Let’s take a road trip to the Highlands while we’re at it. Rugged landscapes, terrifyingly narrow roads and a buffet of beautiful Scottish outcroppings could be the icing on the first tea cake in this episode!
Even for a show that’s primarily about people talking in rooms, talking as they walk from room to room, and then talking to other people about what they’ve said in previous conversations they’ve had in previous rooms, “The Other Army” is noteworthy for how impactful it is. He draws attention to his conversations in rooms. They feel less driven and more process-oriented than they have recently, or maybe I’m noticing it more, especially since this is an episode where most of the conversations revolve around planning another, much more important conversation.
In Kate and Stuart’s reconciliation conversation, her office feels like a safe haven, which is quite appropriate for two people who admit that each has not been at their best and quietly contemplate their ability to work well together. Kate is particularly insightful about the challenges she faced being in Stuart’s shoes in the past, the awkwardness of being in Hal’s shoes, and dealing with the fact that each role is terrible in its own way. I’m glad that Stuart is making his way into the inner circle and that Kate is invested enough in their relationship that she carves out this quiet moment for them.
We see something similar at work after Kate’s conversation with Scottish First Minister, Gemma Dodd. She really admired Dodd and is upset that it went sideways in the end, especially since it was an interesting and substantive way to start their working relationship. What do you do in this job, Kate wonders aloud. It’s annoying to meet a political colleague who you think could be an ally and friend, only to reveal to him that you want to be a bad man’s servant. Can they ever bend evil people to their will, or are they “mere friends of evil people”? This is not a navel look as it may seem; In fact, it’s a plausible counterargument to Hal’s emotional assertion last season that in diplomacy, you have to talk to everyone. I like that The Diplomat questions and pulls strings in its own assertions and assumptions, and I’ll accept as much of that as it chooses to include.
This episode also makes the most of the CIA safe house where Margaret Rollin still…resides? They are detained but not detained? The gray area that Aidra navigates thanks to her detention of Ruelin after her entry becomes darker and larger with each passing hour, so perhaps the use of Ruelin’s bedroom, the house’s living room, and her kitchen reflects the malignancy of the situation. Once Kate convinces Edra to bring Hal into the mix as an intelligence-gathering firewall between herself and Roylin, we’re out of anything resembling safety or home, so naturally this conversation takes place outside on some sort of airstrip.
Once Hal is convinced of Rollin’s version of the story and believes that certain details can be put aside for the time being, Rollin shares more of the tale with Kate and Edra, explaining how the mission went so wrong. This seems to boil down to bad timing and negligence on the part of Lenkov and naivety on the part of Ruelin and Groff. She took responsibility for hiring Lenkov, pinned the bombing on Standage, and insisted that Troubridge had nothing to do with it. She claims again that she truly fears for Austin’s safety and wants him to read so he can stop teasing the cages about the situation. Obviously, any details that Roylin shared with Hal that she didn’t share with Kate and Eidra are pretty amazing.
Hal, Kate and Edra decide that their best chance to make sure Dennison knows Rollin’s side of the story and to test their hypothesis that Troubridge was involved would be at the retreat they are about to attend in Scotland. Sure, it will involve tapping Trowbridge’s phone to monitor his next move for signs of guilt or innocence, but what’s with top-secret and risky spying between friends?
The long-awaited reveal and confrontation of the final scene between Roylin and Trowbridge works because it is perfectly placed as the fulcrum for the entire season, and because of the narrative and character work in the episode’s earlier scenes between Trowbridge and Kate. It’s impossible to forget what poor Trowbridge can be, but his enthusiasm at the Fourth of July party softened him a little in my eyes. Back in Scotland, where he’s holed up in a library with his daily red ministerial letter box and holding a meeting with Kate and his chief of staff, Troubridge has a verbal flourish about things like woolen masks and three definitions of “dunning” (“relentlessly annoying; chalk on the teeth”; when Some mechanical devices go forward and produce near-inaudible moans that are colorful and entertaining at times, but they also remind us that he is an incredibly strong middle-aged man who is happiest when he is complaining and/or trying to bully others.
Who comforts the grieving parents of fallen sailors and then does it himself? Who conquers the biggest challenge of their political career and then can’t stop complaining about the Cabinet member they just failed to oust? Yes. Now, consider the possibility that this was also the man who may have had some role in purchasing the services of the Lenkov Group, and then you heard him say things like, “Someone has to talk to the families — they can’t.” Say “Thank you for killing this man,” the damned United Nations has got me around! If you need to, take a minute to use the free puke tub that accompanies this summary.
I like that everything leading up to the final scene offers another round of reminders that Kate wasn’t just created to wander around frantically managing crises and dithering over her relationships with Hal and Dennison. She is a skilled and smooth operator when asked to be one and overturns Troubridge’s earlier assessment of her as a useful disarmer. This guy is such an easy target that all she had to do was call him smart and successful and have his entire face light up with “She loves me!!!” Joy.
We see another version of the Pavlovian response of an authoritative woman when she encounters Ruilin’s semi-matriarchal palace. After telling her how well he had achieved success in her absence, his brain caught up with his mouth, causing him to close it, and as Ruelin had directed seconds before, he sat down and took a sip of water, waiting to hear what she had to say. I would love to see a readable article analyzing Roelin’s many renditions of her various confessions; A big part of what makes Celia Emery’s performance such a joy to watch is how she calibrates where to emphasize and where to downplay certain elements and the way the writers place them every time. For Troubridge, Roelin explains her rationale for arranging the attack in terms of the need for a strategy that would neutralize the threat of Scottish secession and ‘make a fuss and give you a reason to lead’. Who knows what Roelin expected her apprentice to react, but I imagine he went into a blind rage and jumped forward to try to strangle her to death while screaming, “You’re a fucking monster,” which wasn’t on her bingo card. evening. On the plus side, his horror is proof positive that Nicole Trowbridge is capable of healthy human feeling. Trying to kill Roylin is unequivocally bad. Providing Denison with an indubitable reason to rush into the room and wrestle Troubridge against the wall is a good thing; Roylin takes a very nasty bloody crack to the back of the skull which creates a hell of a bewildering suspense.
• Stewart gets the funniest lines of the episode, which is a useful reminder that, for my money, The Diplomat works best when it gets some support from small, everyday moments of silliness. It wouldn’t have been appropriate in the last few episodes to lean into his line about looking down on Edra “from a great height, as is my right as a dishonored man,” but here, it’s a sign that Stuart isn’t being subjective. He is fooled when he tells Billy, Kate and Aidra that he is in the right frame of mind to return to work.
• The second funniest moment was between Hal and Denison discussing back and forth about Denison joining the Wyler family and being the Prime Minister of Scotland. Hal puts an end to Dennison’s constant rejection by reminding him that he knows, Dennison knows, and Hal knows that Dennison knows that “the day I exploded here in your vaunted city, you were planning to fuck my wife.” Dennison’s “See You in Scotland” is perfect, 18/10, no notes.
• Is there a certain amount of “what’s wrong with you?” – Everyone who works at the embassy must present it at one time or another? It seems so, and in this episode it’s Aidra’s turn to deal with that particular hot potato. Locking up Stuart with honey to get to the bottom of why Billy was worried about him after he tried to torpedo Kate’s VP chances? What?! Aidra’s final apology is an unusually rickety and inelegant stop-and-start moment for her, but it rings sincere.
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