The cast and creator of "The Diplomat" on Blowing Everything Up in Season 4: "How F*cking Cool?"

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Season 4 of The Diplomat, now streaming on Netflix. Formerly, the US ambassador to the UK was one of the most prestigious posts in the foreign service, held by figures such as John Adams and James Monroe, both of whom went on to become […]

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for The Diplomat Season 4, now streaming on Netflix.

Formerly the US ambassador to Britain, it was one of the most prestigious posts in the foreign service, held by the likes of John Adams and James Monroe, both of whom became presidents of the United States.

These days, the ambassador has to deal with a series of challenges, such as managing the fallout when the boss criticizes the British prime minister on social media.

In Netflix's The Diplomat, Kate Wyler, played by Keri Russell, finds her relationship in tatters after an attack on an aircraft carrier, and now in season four, the result of an assassination attempt on the President of the United States on British soil. RELATED STORIES Netflix Fires Executives: Casting and Unscripted Programming Executives Influenced by Natalee Holloway's Disappearance Documentary, Netflix's First Documentary Series

She also has to deal with all this as her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell) is the Vice President of the United States and begins to attract his boss President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) and worries her husband Todd Penn, the first gentleman of the United States (Bradley Whitford).

It is an unpleasant situation to say the least.

Deborah, creator, "I have yet to meet a married couple that isn't awkward in the public eye, or at least feels like they are. From the inside, it's always like a full-on show as a couple to the world," Kahn tells Deadline.

Kate and Hal and Grace and Todd try to sort things out, as do US Embassy Deputy Stuart Hayford, played by Ato Asando, and Idra Park, head of the CIA's London station, played by Ali Ann.

"The idea [of Season 4] was how do these three couples, who are all at different stages of a relationship, handle similar situations differently? What does it look like when you have your first really big fight? Getting to know Grace and Todd, Kate and Hal a little bit better, what happens when you mix those pairings up and kind of create new lines of communication?" what does it do

It's a "constant power struggle," Russell tells Deadline. For Keith, I don't think he's ever been told as succinctly as, "This is what you do now, if you want to be in it." I don't think it bothers him. She's been young and vibrant with the party, but now she's hearing [from Hall], “No, I need my strength to be in a real situation. As a couple, they wanted to be in that room to affect the change that they want and so he has to play it differently than just being a jerk, he still does that a little bit, but he really tries not to.

Soule admits that there is a "kind of rigor to that arrangement." "We love the twist that way, it's so fun and interesting for us, and every season there's a new twist, a new change in the dynamic between us, and we always enjoy them. This awkwardness, we love it. There are different types of awkwardness. I love how awkward the president is, with all the weird schoolyard nonsense we have to go through. Bring it on," he adds.

Some of this is down to Hall's charm, which is described as drug-like, and his growing relationship with President Penn.

Russell says Kate is warning the president as a "service." "He's incredibly persuasive. He's attractive. He's good-looking. That's what happens, everybody believes him, they're along for the ride. That's what's funny about it, he tells the president of the United States that he's attracted to her husband. Men, women, animals, they all love this guy.

Sol, on the other hand, tries not to pay too much attention to it. "That's what really gives me the chills, it's like you're playing a king and you walk into a room and everyone stands up," he says. "It's a great opportunity for me to kind of inhabit someone who just has the kind of confidence that I feel like I should have, but something is attacking in reality."

Season 4 picks up immediately after the end of Season 3, where it is revealed that the Americans have recovered the Poseidon nuclear weapon from a Russian submarine that was in British territorial waters, without informing the British government.

Kahn jokes that he doesn't know where his interest in battleships came from. "The goal was to see some small things happen and then generations later, we're dealing with the consequences. I don't want [The Diplomat] to be a show that references its own mythology. It's honest to say that these events don't happen in a vacuum. 15 years ago something happened that creates an interaction that we know what you're seeing, today you don't. Watching, you don't know what you're looking at in the real world. do," he adds.

There are also moments that feel eerily real-world, such as the assassination attempt on President Penn that came shortly after another attempt on President Trump.

"A couple of actors have accused me of being a psychic witch, which I wish I was. But we're talking to people who know what's going on in this world, and they know what's going on. We always ask one question: 'What are you worried about that I don't know to worry about?' They can answer that question, and we'll pick one of those questions." In a newspaper if I knew where to look for it, and apparently it only takes two years to bubble up.

This was particularly predictive of the relationship between the United States and Great Britain. Earlier this month, British police arrested five men on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack outside RAF Fairford, which is operated by the US Air Force and has been used to attack Iran.

One of the first conversations we had was with our British adviser [former British ambassador to the US] Kim Darroch, who has been at the center of the swamp for decades. We said what's the worst thing that could happen in US relations, and he said there's always the fear that the US will strike for it, and then do it. So that was a dynamic that we were trying to create and use in the pilot in the first episode, and now we're on the front page with the US Air Force base in the UK."

"We'll have to get Deb to write something really good," Sol jokes. "We have to write him who we want," adds Russell.

The end of season 4 is undoubtedly one of the most dramatic. Keith Weiler resigned in the middle of the G7 meeting, abandoning negotiations and now ending his role as a diplomat, soon to be joined by others, including Vice President Hal Weiler, bringing the pair closer than they have been in some time.

Kahn says, "I always go into the writers' room knowing what the end of the season is going to be, and I'm always happy that the writers' room can come up with something better than that. Except for season four, I knew what I wanted to do at the end of the season, and that didn't change everything. Way through. It was just a question of how to get there."

"I think they're two people who fell in love based on a shared sense of mission and a shared sense of values, and that overlapped quite a bit at the beginning of their relationship. Over time, it feels like that happened, and it either really slipped, or they had, in the beginning, a kind of rosy honeymoon glow where they liked all the same things, thought the same thoughts, and finished each other's sentences. Over time, you realize that from "It's not as close as you'd think, and the cruelty of small differences can really wreak havoc on a relationship. We've seen that play out over the years we've spent together." "It was important for me to take a moment to let them know, this is a situation we can both recognize is unbearable, and sometimes you need someone else to stand up for you to somehow recognize and remember what you believe," Kahn adds. For Hall and a number of people, there is tremendous power in seeing this position. "The moment he walks out of that room, thinking he's going to fart, he's overcome with fear, shame, regret, and dread that won't go away until he turns around and sees someone else walking out the door."

It's the ending that impressed Russell and Sewell. "How cool," says Russell. "How great to blow things up," Sol adds.

Where's next for the pair? "They're just going to go somewhere weird, trouble in Fiji," Sol jokes. "A tiki bar," Russell adds.

Kahn doesn't hate the idea of a beach tiki bar. He has a plan where these characters will inevitably end up, but he doesn't know how long that plan is. "I don't know legitimately, and I don't know if I'm going to stick with it. I knew where I wanted to land this season. But if we find something better, I'll follow it or if we find that these characters have evolved into something that I didn't envision. When I first pitched the show, I want it to be a living document. I want it to be a living thing."

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