‘The Diplomat’: How Kate & Hal’s Seismic Shift Could Define Season 4

Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) realized she can’t live without Hal (Rufus Sewell) in The Diplomat Season 3 finale. This came after their most serious separation ever, one that lasted months and saw Kate connect with a new lover, Callum (Aidan Turner). But there’s always something going on with Hal.

The now-Vice President of the United States hatched a scheme to acquire a Russian nuclear weapon in secret with President Grace Penn (Allison Janney), a plan that knocked the air out of Kate’s lungs when she figured out what they did. Hal knows that she knows, and he told Grace. The ink wasn’t dry on the Wyler’s reunion when Kate was hit with a reminder of why she struggles to trust her husband. Can their relationship survive this potentially fatal blow?

The Diplomat Season 4 will soon start filming. Series creator Debra Cahn told TV Insider that, like the ones before it, Season 4 will pick up right where the finale left off and seemingly show the immediate aftermath of Kate’s discovery. This show is all about showing how the sausage gets made between the governing bodies of the United States and the United Kingdom, so the dramatic intrigue of uncovering every detail of these ongoing diplomatic and personal struggles is too juicy to skip over with a time jump. Sewell told TV Insider that Hal had no idea Kate was going to ask him to take her back. If he had, he might have handled the Poseidon plot differently.

“Otherwise, if they were estranged, it would be a different thing,” Sewell explained. “But that is something that’s happened that makes it seem more of a betrayal because that’s moments before that has happened.”

Kate and Hal are no doubt going to be reevaluating their marriage (again) in Season 4. But one massive change that can’t be ignored this time around is the fact that Hal is the vice president. With that job comes new, higher-stakes responsibilities. It’s very possible that his new position is going to force another evolution on the Wyler duo. The context of the requirements of his job can’t be extricated from this particular issue.

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“Luckily, with good writing, it’s not going to be a blip that disappears,” Sewell told us. “It will have a reverberating effect. I’m sure it won’t be the case that now he’s just an entirely different person, but that is an element that has been brought to life that might not have been so much at play before. And we’ll see how much that continues. But it’s very interesting.”

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Hal isn’t the only one with a seismic shift because of this position. Now more than ever in Season 4, Kate will have to think long and hard about how her personal feelings for Hal could have a real global impact. Their relationship has never existed in a vacuum; how they feel about each other has always impacted their diplomatic work, in good and bad ways. Now the stakes are higher than ever, with Hal just one seat away from the most powerful office in the world.

Russell said that Kate’s feelings for Hal having a real-world impact “might be a big topic for next season.” When it comes to how betrayed Kate feels by Hal in this moment, Russell says it all depends on “how far ahead [he was] thinking,” noting, “That’s where the gray lies.”

How much is Kate blaming herself for this latest shocking development?

“Like all women, probably a lot,” Russell told us. “At the initial point of impact, I think it’s just a gut punch, so I think it’s still figuring it out, but probably a lot, and that she’s let herself get wrapped up in it again, but who knows where it’s going to go from here? We’ll find out.” She added, “I think she’s going to feel like he used her, but we’ll find out.”

The Diplomat, Season 4 Premiere, TBA, Netflix

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