The United States has an aging male president who should pass the torch to his young female vice president. But something happens that disrupts those plans, and the White House scrambles to find a solution that will allow it to build on the legacy of its commander in chief.

This is the political landscape of Netflix’s fictional Washington. The diplomatWhile viewers learn at the start of the first season of the Netflix series that the series’ vice president, Grace Penn (played by Allison Janney in the series’ second season, release Thursday), is experiencing a scandal which, according to White House aides, will force her to resign. Aides are also secretly vetting Keri Russell’s career diplomat, Kate Wyler, newly appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, to replace Penn.

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Despite markedly different circumstances around The diplomatSuccession drama, fans could be forgiven for thinking about the political thriller of the summer as the real US president, Joe Biden, 82, was set to pass the torch to his young vice president, Kamala Harris. , and faces increased pressure to abandon his 2024 re-election bid following Biden’s disastrous performance in the first televised debate against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Ultimately, Biden, who had initially insisted on remaining in the race before abandonment during a surprise announcement in mid-Julypassed the torch to Harris, ending her own presidential campaign and endorsing her as his successor.

Now in real life and in The diplomatall eyes are on the vice president since Harris is the Democratic presidential candidate and Penn is featured prominently in the second season of the Netflix series.

It’s a turn of events that showrunner Debora Cahn recounts The Hollywood Reporter was “not deliberate”.

“I didn’t want to mirror it,” Cahn said of the similarities between the show’s succession drama and what unfolded over the summer. “I mean, we were certainly dealing with similar dynamics, and we were aware of that when we came up with this story two years ago, but we thought we were in the same neighborhood, just not in the same house. And we ended up sleeping in the same bed for a bit while it was all over the news.

And Cahn describes as “a little unnerving” the way things that happened on the show seemed to echo real life.

“We’re commenting on a world where there are certain problems, but we’re not really commenting on a specific situation,” she said. “But we reached a point where, for example, we recorded a scene where a character came out in a powder blue suit, and then two days later Kamala Harris was at a rally in Georgia with hundreds of thousands of people and (wearing) a powder blue suit.

She added: “It all seems much more deliberate in the dialogue than it actually was. »

Asked about real-life parallels to the show’s political dynamics, the actor who plays The diplomatRayburn President Michael McKean said it was “interesting,” but he pointed out the differences between the two worlds.

“It’s different enough that (when there was talk of passing the torch to Biden this summer) it was like, ‘Oh, that’s quaint.’ It’s an interesting thing,” he said THR during the season 2 premiere of the series in New York. “We still can’t see around the corners. Comparisons are rare, and distant projects are numerous in this kind of political world. »

In addition to Penn, whose viewers see for the first time in season two after she was widely discussed but not seen in season one, The diplomat the second season explores the fallout from explosion at the end of the first season this seemed to affect both Kate’s husband and former ambassador Hal, Rufus Sewell, and his colleague Stuart (Ato Essandoh). Additionally, Kate and her team spend the second season investigate his theory that the British government was behind the attack on the country’s own transport ship that started the series.

The six episodes of DiplomatThe second season of will be released on Netflix starting Thursday, with the series already available. renewed for season three.

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