Netflix’s 12-Year Political Thriller Struggle Ends with The Diplomat Season 3

The Diplomat season 3 has officially arrived on Netflix, and its success is a sign that the streaming service’s 12-year-old political thriller problem has finally been addressed.

Over the last decade, Netflix has produced dozens upon dozens of original TV shows. These span a wide variety of genres, offering something for everyone. While there have been several quickly-canceled flops, the streaming giant has, primarily, found success in such programming. This includes political thrillers like House of Cards, The Night Agent, and, of course, The Diplomat.

The Diplomat‘s third season hit Netflix on October 16, 2025, continuing the story that got its start back in 2023. It stars Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell as political power couple Kate and Hal Wyler, whose careers become even more complicated in The Diplomat season 3. It’s all subtle suspense, shocking twists, and a touch of comedy, and critics and general audiences alike are in agreement that this installment is a winner.

Only a week after its release, The Diplomat season 3 boasts a “Certified Fresh” Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 95% and a perhaps even more impressive audience score of 87%. Unanimously pleasing both critics and viewers is no small feat, especially considering where The Diplomat started. Each season has performed better than the last, which can’t be said for Netflix’s very first original series.

Netflix’s First Original Series Was The Political Drama House Of Cards

Back in the day, Netflix was a mail DVD rental service and eventually evolved into a streaming platform for a variety of movies and TV shows. It was unheard of, at that point, for a platform like Netflix to produce its own original series. However, Netflix dipped its toes into that market with its 2013 release, House of Cards.

This political thriller was a significant success, and it opened the doors for Netflix to invest in a handful more original series that same year. If House of Cards hadn’t performed well, we might never have gotten masterpieces like Stranger Things, The Crown, Black Mirror, or Wednesday. The series will, therefore, always be iconic. Unfortunately, House of Cards‘ performance declined with nearly every season.

House of Cards started with a decent score, especially considering it was Netflix’s original series debut. Season 2’s score of 83% was fair, but we see another drop with season 3. While the political thriller recovered slightly with the next installment, its final 2 entirely committed to the drop in quality. Said and done, House of Cards simply lost momentum.

House Of Cards Started A Political Thriller Trend Of Steadily Declining Rotten Tomatoes Scores

House of Cards was still enough of a success that Netflix took a few more stabs at the political thriller genre. Just as with this debut series, many of these shows performed well overall, and their first seasons were especially successful. However, it has been a significant challenge to keep this up between installments. It’s an unfortunate trend that Netflix political dramas struggle with the second, make-or-break season.

The Recruit and The Night Agent are our prime examples here, especially in terms of audience scores. The former largely pleased general viewers, with 83% of them leaving favorable reviews. However, after The Recruit season 2, this score dropped to 78%, and Netflix canceled the series. The Night Agent‘s scores saw an even more dramatic drop, with an initial audience score of 78% dropping to 38% in season 2.

It seemed that this was the curse of Netflix’s political thrillers. We saw a shift toward limited series within the genre, and stand-alone stories seemed, overall, to perform better. However, The Diplomat has proven itself as the exception. Not only did season 2 perform admirably, but season 3 raised the bar even higher.

Netflix’s The Diplomat Season 3 Finally Managed To Keep The Momentum Going

Twelve years after House of Cards premiered as Netflix’s first original series, The Diplomat season 3 seems to have officially broken the political thriller curse. Not only are this season’s scores “Certified Fresh” and predominantly positive between both critics and general audiences, but there is also overall improvement over the previous two installments.

Critics have remained relatively consistent in their assessments of The Diplomat from one season to the next. Although Season 3 is currently a single percentage point lower than Season 2, it’s evident that the majority of critics have given it favorable reviews. Interestingly, it appears that general audiences weren’t quite on board with The Diplomat in the beginning, but their approval has only increased from season to season.

This upward trend is fairly shocking, as it’s typically general audiences who are the toughest to please. Critics gave positive reviews for both seasons of The Night Agent and The Recruit, but audiences gave devastating reviews for their sophomore seasons. The fact that their approval has grown so exponentially for The Diplomat seasons 2 and 3 indicates that Netflix has finally found the winning formula.

Why The Diplomat Is The Perfect Political Thriller

Shows like House of Cards, The Recruit, and The Night Agent all received similar complaints from viewers as their seasons went on. The stories grew weaker, which meant that the motivation and chemistry between the characters suddenly began to fall flat. Political thrillers are all about suspense, with a mix of thrilling strategy, scheming, and a real-feel environment. However, suspense for the sake of suspense will never keep audiences interested.

The Diplomat has found a way to make its ongoing, long-term suspense feel genuine. Going into season 3, the characters are still dealing with issues from season 1. The consequences are organic and make sense—why wouldn’t the bombing of the HMS Courageous continue to impact these governments? The characters aren’t faced with redundant, unrelated disasters; instead, they are part of a cohesive, ongoing story arc.

Still, the factor that really makes The Diplomat stand out is the on-screen chemistry of these characters. Russell and Sewel are absolutely spectacular. This show hinges on the relationship between Kate and Hal, and this wouldn’t have come across so well without these exceptional stars. This combines with excellent writing and a powerful supporting cast, resulting in a truly great series.

Netflix’s other political thrillers certainly have great casts. However, their stories tend to stray away from the characters themselves. The Diplomat uses the conflict between its central couple to parallel the political strife around them. Add in those touches of physical and intellectual comedy, and it’s perfectly clear that Netflix has finally found a season-after-season winner.

Release Date

April 20, 2023

Network

Netflix

Showrunner

Debora Cahn

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  Keri Russell

  Ambassador Kate Wyler

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