Fans of The West Wingare in for a good bit of wish fulfillment from the new trailer for The Diplomat. Bradley Whitford is joining the cast of the political drama this season, reuniting him with his old co-star Allison Janney. And that’s not all! The two play husband and wife; Janney is now POTUS after the death of President Rayburn (Michael McKean) in season two, while Whitford plays the first husband.
But while this happy reunion is going down, Kate (Keri Russell) is living “the particular nightmare that is getting what you want,” per season three’s logline. “She just accused Vice President Grace Penn (Janney) of hatching a terrorist plot and admitted she’s after the VP’s job. But now the President is dead, Kate’s husband Hal (Rufus Sewell) may have inadvertently killed him, and Grace Penn is leader of the free world,” it continues. “None of this slows Hal’s campaign to land Kate the vice presidency. Kate steps into a role she never wanted, with a freedom she never expected, an increasingly complicated friendship with Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi), and an unnerving bond with First Gentleman Todd Penn (Whitford).”
Whitford’s character has clearly been thrown into the mix to shake things up. We can see him doing it just in this short clip, as he wryly asks the very tense group, “How was everyone’s day at the office?”
“Brad was the fantasy version of Todd—for all of us… We still can’t believe it came true,” creator Debora Cahn said of what she also characterized as a season that “flips the chessboard.” We’ll see who comes out on top this time around when The Diplomatseason three premieres this fall.