THE DIPLOMAT SEASON 3 ENDING — FINALLY EXPLAINED! After weeks of wild theories and sleepless nights, the creators of Netflix’s most intense political thriller are breaking their silence on that jaw-dropping cliffhanger that stunned fans worldwide.

Power shifts. Secret alliances. One betrayal that changes everything.
The truth behind that final scene is even darker than viewers imagined — full breakdown in the comments below.

Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Season 3 Has Gone Too Far in One Major Way

Netflix may have found its biggest successes with genre programs like Stranger Things, The Witcher, and Wednesday, but it is easy to forget that the streaming service first rose to prominence thanks to the appeal of House of Cards, a series that presented a frank and disturbing approximation of contemporary politics. While making a cutting-edge political drama has been a greater challenge in light of the chaotic events of the last decade, The Diplomat has proven to be a highly bingeable, exciting thriller that takes a look at the behind-the-scenes of major decisions. However, The Diplomat has begun to develop flaws in Season 3 which may compromise later story arcs. Even if the performances are as good as ever, The Diplomat has broken any suspension of disbelief when it comes to the decisions made by those in power.

Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Broke the Dynamic Between Hal and Kate

The Diplomat is the story of the newly-minted United States ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), who is in a complex marriage with her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell), a highly ambitious political insider. Although Kate’s intention is to use her position to mend the country’s weak international alliances and avoid potential conflicts, she finds that her husband may be using her to get into the inner circle of the White House. The Diplomat is much better at depicting American politics than it is with international affairs, and the third season has simply become unbelievable in how it portrays the scheming and ignorance of foreign officials. Additionally, the cat-and-mouse game between Kate and Hal has become derivative in a way that suggests that the show is remaining stagnant in developing their relationship.

The Diplomat pulled off its biggest twist yet in the third season, in which the newly appointed President Grace Hagen Penn (Allison Janney) is supposed to name a new Vice President after her successor, President William Rayburn (Michael McKean), unexpectedly dies in office of a heart attack. Hal has been setting up a situation in which Kate would take the coveted position of VP, so they are both shocked when Penn names him as her selection. The switch involving the Vice Presidential selection puts Kate and Hal on the same playing field for the first time in the show’s history, as it’s the only scenario that he did not plan for ahead of time. While this theoretically would have given them a chance to form a tighter bond because they were working with the same degree of information, it results in a fissure in their marriage that leads Kate to having an affair with the British journalist Callum Ellis (Aidan Turner), who turns out to be a spy. Even for a show that is reliant on coincidences, this may have stretched the logic too far.

The Diplomat is at its best when Kate and Hal are united in their goal, but conflicted on how to solve a given problem; while Hal is willing to step over any ethical or legal barriers to get a desired solution, Kate believes that they could set dangerous precedents if they willfully defied the constitution. The breakdown of Kate and Hals’ marriage isn’t an interesting story direction because the show is unlikely to turn him into a true villain, even if he does end up supporting some of Penn’s schemes. At the same time, Kate’s relationship with Ellis is also unbelievable; not only is it unlikely that Kate would so quickly be infatuated with someone else, but the notion that Ellis is a secret agent feels a bit hackneyed. If anything, the flashbacks that show how Hal and Kate first met are a reminder of how great Russell’s chemistry with Sewell is, and how much her dynamic with Turner is lacking.

Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Has Become Unrealistic With Its International Politics

The Diplomat may have caught fire among American viewers because it paralleled events in the ongoing Presidential elections and administrations in a manner that was borderline eerie. However, The Diplomat jumped the shark with its depiction of the British government, as Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) is a loose canon who has basically become a caricature. While there was initially something interesting about how plain-spoken, blunt, and diplomatically inept Trowbridge was, it no longer feels believable that he would retain his power without getting any pushback from inside the government.

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Given how closely Kate and Hals’ behavior is monitored, it seems unusual that Trowbridge has seemingly earned no backlash for nearly choking a woman to death, revealing details of a conspiracy, and showing up uninvited to major diplomatic events. Kinnear’s performance is just as entertaining as it’s ever been, but he feels like a character who may have been better suited for Veep. That’s all without mentioning the show’s Russian characters, which feel so silly that they could have been taken out of a Cold War-era James Bond movie.

The reveal that Penn and Hal planned to steal a Russian nuclear weapon has pushed The Diplomat further into the espionage and action genre, even if the show is at its best when it revolves around intelligent conversations between characters. Although the notion that Kate’s confidence was betrayed is an intriguing setup, The Diplomat moves at too quickly of a pace for complex political conspiracies to be pulled off in a realistic period of time. Each season of The Diplomat has ended with a significant cliffhanger, but the show will eventually run out of steam if it’s purely interested in shock value. Given that many of Netflix’s most popular shows have either ended or have fallen in popularity, it is more important than ever for The Diplomat to retain its active audience. Since The Diplomat has already been renewed for a fourth season, there is hopefully time to bring the show back down to Earth and remember the realistic, bracing style that had made it such a phenomenon in the first place.