The Diplomat (American TV series)

The Diplomat (2023–) is an American political thriller television series, airing on Netflix and created by Debora Cahn, about the new United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, as she helps defuse international crises, forges strategic alliances, and adjust to her new place in the spotlight. She also manages her deteriorating marriage to a fellow career diplomat.

The Cinderella Thing [1.01]

 * Hal Wyler: No one with the temperament to win a campaign should be in charge of anything. It's the most obvious rule in the world, No one who likes power should have it.


 * Kate Wyler: You know who you can't fire? Cinderella.


 * Hal Wyler: [to Gate Guard] Could I trouble you for a lift?
 * Gate Guard: Wish I could, official business only. Might I book you a cab?
 * Hal Wyler: Oh, I'm gonna take a walk.
 * [Deliberately walks into oncoming traffic and is nearly hit]
 * Gate Guard: [comes running] Sir! Sir!
 * Hal Wyler: Oh, my goodness. I am so sorry. Of course, you drive on the other side of the road.
 * [Hal gets his ride in the Gate Guard's auto]


 * Kate Wyler: [about her dress] How is this a sixteen hundred dollar piece of clothing? It doesn't even have pockets!

Lambs in the Dark [1.03]

 * Kate Wyler: Shahin wants to modernize his country. He's one of the only people in the regime who gets along with the reformists and the military and the mullahs, because his father rode bikes with the supreme leader when they were 10. And inexplicably, he doesn't believe we're the great Satan.
 * Billie Appiah: I understand he's valuable.
 * Kate Wyler: You don't. An Iran deal can be revoked. Clearly. What we are really doing when we negotiate with them, or with anyone, is looking for one or two friends we can call when the world is truly fucked. It is a flimsy web of relationships. But sometimes it holds. Do not tear it. Do not be an infinitely ravenous American. Use what he already gave you.


 * Billie Appiah: The President needs someone to stop him from rambling about chicken tariffs when he needs an arms deal. The VP spends more time in the Oval than anyone who doesn't have a desk in there. First in, last out of every meeting.
 * Kate Wyler: Guys...
 * Billie Appiah: You wanna know why you're on the list?
 * Kate Wyler: Uh, because I have a uterus.
 * Billie Appiah: That's not - Not the only reason.
 * Kate Wyler: You spent seven years building a ticket where an elderly guy could hand the baton to an electable woman and deliver us the first female president. Now you want someone with no voting record, no baggage, no opinions. Clean me up, put me in a dress and hope I never speak.
 * Billie Appiah: Yeah, I had a plan. Turned to shit.


 * Billie Appiah: [to Kate Wyler] Really. It's almost embarrassing. Never even occurred to me.
 * Stuart Heyford: Pick someone good at the job, not the interview?
 * Billie Appiah: I mean, it's bad for the guys, but for the women? Fuck me. Is she pretty but not too pretty? Appealing but not hot? Confident but not bitchy? Decisive but not bitchy?
 * Stuart Heyford: Cute bitchy, but not bitchy bitchy.
 * Billie Appiah: We had to come to an agreement about how many days a week the VP would wear a thong. She doesn't like them. But her team doesn't like panty lines. Weeks of my life. And then an agreement. Yes, she will wear ass-floss, but only two days out of seven, and days cannot be banked week to week. Can you imagine hiring someone for a key governing position just because you think they'd be good at it?

Some Lusty Tornado [1.06]

 * Kate Wyler: Because people do things for people they like. We exist in a marketplace of favors. That has lubricated your journey through the world... . If everybody hates you, it all stops.


 * Nicol Trowbridge: One year passed between the German invasion of Poland and the start of the London Blitz. My country does not see the destruction of Ukraine as a heartrending regional conflict. It will come here. We need not imagine it. We remember it.


 * Eidra Park: [having almost shot him in the night time kitchen] You hungry?
 * Stuart Heyford: I'm not hungry. I just stared down the business end of a Glock. My adrenalin's kind'a high.
 * Eidra Park: It's not a Glock.
 * Stuart Heyford: How much do I give a shit right now?

Cast

 * Keri Russell - Kate Wyler, newly appointed US ambassador to the UK
 * Rufus Sewell - Hal Wyler, Kate's husband and a former ambassador
 * David Gyasi - Austin Dennison, UK Foreign Secretary
 * Ali Ahn - Eidra Park, CIA station chief
 * Rory Kinnear - Nicol Trowbridge, UK prime minister
 * Ato Essandoh - Stuart Hayford, deputy chief of mission of the US embassy in London
 * Celia Imrie - Margaret Roylin, a former campaign manager of the Conservative Party
 * Miguel Sandoval - Miguel Ganon, United States Secretary of State
 * Nana Mensah - Billie Appiah, White House Chief of Staff
 * Michael McKean - William Rayburn, President of the United States
 * T'Nia Miller - Cecilia Dennison