Cinema News: Allison Janney is sworn in as President ... in ‘The Diplomat’

October 17, 2025 | View in browser

Two women in pantsuits face each other in a hallway

By Yvonne Villarreal, Robert Lloyd and Amy Nicholson

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who spent the week belting "You Don't Own Me" with the same gusto as an empowered ex-wife dressed in white.

Diane Keaton died this week at age 79 at her Los Angeles home. The L.A. native had a career that spanned more than five decades and included a wide-ranging and indelible list of performances in films such as "The Godfather" saga, "Annie," Baby Boom," "Father of the Bride" (and its sequel), "The First Wives Club," "Something's Gotta Give," "The Family Stone" — the list goes on and on. Take a moment to read film editor Joshua Rothkop's illuminating snapshot of Keaton's life. Of course, her legacy goes far beyond the performance. Times film critic Amy Nicholson wrote how Keaton showed us how to dress up our insecurities and embrace the kooky. And if you want to take a dive into her oeuvre, we have a roundup of 10 Keaton performances worth watching. Pluto TV is featuring an on-demand collection called "Remembering Diane Keaton," with 15 of her most beloved films available to stream anytime.

And speaking of women who leave a lasting impression — this week saw the return of Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, the highly competent seasoned foreign service officer, with the arrival of "The Diplomat's" third season. The Netflix series has spent its time tracking the career diplomat's journey being primed to assume the role of vice president. Its backdrop storyline of an aging president who is expected to pass the torch to a younger female vice president — and the chaos that ensues when the plan is upended — may have real-world parallels, but the show's creator, Debora Cahn, whose other credits include "The West Wing" and "Homeland," insists the series is not a commentary. She stopped by Guest Spot to discuss the political thriller.

Also in this week's Screen Gab, our streaming recommendations are an eclectic pair: a documentary that chronicles the 60-year movement to convert abandoned railroads into public spaces around America and, for those looking to make their viewing of Guillermo Del Toro's take on "Frankenstein" a double-feature kind of night, we make the case for a '90s gory horror-comedy twist on the legend.

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Must-read stories you might have missed

Diane Keaton, film legend, fashion trendsetter and champion of L.A.'s past, dead at 79: The Oscar-winning star was known for films including 'Annie Hall' and 'The Godfather.'

Can the DMV make you laugh instead of cry? With Harriet Dyer, it's possible: The Australian actor plays a sunny driving examiner in 'DMV,' the new CBS workplace comedy premiering Monday that's set in East Hollywood.

What's there left to say about the Murdaugh murders and 'killer clown' John Wayne Gacy? A lot: Hulu's 'Murdaugh: Death in the Family' and Peacock's 'Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy' are based on notorious slayings that received reams of news coverage in their day, but each tells a captivating story.

'Grey's Anatomy' reaches its 450th episode. Meet the people who've been there from the start: The long-running ABC medical drama reached a rare milestone this week. Meet three cast and crew members who have been with the show from the beginning.

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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

"From Rails to Trails" (PBS.org)

Trains ran close to where I grew up, and I'm still stupidly excited whenever I see one in action. There are fewer now than there were then, but part of their romance is the alternative routes they carved through the land. "From Rails to Trails" documents the 60-year movement to transform abandoned rail lines — which is to say, most rail lines — into paths for biking and hiking, turning them into linear public parks, making the countryside accessible but also remaking urban spaces. It's a movement not without its opponents, its reversals and consequences, including the gentrification that can follow them. But this often moving hour-long documentary is a paean to old-fashioned coalition building and community activism — needed now more than ever — and the success of a new idea many now take for granted. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean and former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg chime in. New voice of the everyman Edward Norton narrates. — Robert Lloyd

"Frankenhooker" (Pluto TV, Tubi)

The lament of "The Bride of Frankenstein" is that the heroine herself is only onscreen for a few minutes. Get your fix by watching Frank Henenlotter's "Frankenhooker." This sleazy-brilliant 1990 romp is so clever it ranks (severed) head and shoulders with the black-and-white classics. An inventor, Jeffrey (James Lorinz), is bereft over losing his fiancée Elizabeth (Patty Mullen) to a freak lawnmower accident. He vows to rebuild his future bride — but hotterr. "I can make you the centerfold goddess of the century," Jeffrey says with a leer. The real vanity is his. He wants a sexy, mindless babe. Henenlotter (also of the schlock hit "Basket Case") claimed he didn't think deeply about the subtext of his horror movies, a feint that dates back farther than George A. Romero pretending "Night of the Living Dead's" martyred Black hero wasn't a comment on race. They're both fibbers. "Frankenhooker" is a giddy, popcorn-chomping comment on the disposability of women, especially the sex workers Jeffrey murders for spare parts. But what brings it to life is Mullen's uproarious resurrected sexpot. Stomping around wearing a purple bra and a ghastly sneer, she belongs to no man — ring on her finger or not. Make it a double feature with Guillermo Del Toro's terrific new "Frankenstein" in theaters this week. — Amy Nicholson

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A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they're working on — and what they're watching

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Will the U.S. ever be ready for a female president? Time will tell. But "The Diplomat" has provided its contribution to the list of fictional ones. The Netflix drama, a fast-paced look at the art of diplomacy, stars Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, a newly-appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom who is tapped from the ranks of career diplomats to be quietly prepped to become vice president. The plan, of course, hasn't gone as expected. In the whirlwind final moments of last season, the president dies and suddenly the person Kate was enlisted to push out, Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney), is whisked into duty — just as Kate has discovered the VP is responsible for hatching a terrorist plot. The show returned for its third season earlier this week and explores the aftermath as Penn is sworn in as president. Here, creator Debora Cahn shares what she was interested in unpacking in Season 3's marriage dynamics, orchestrating a "West Wing" reunion and the time she met former Vice President Kamala Harris. There are some mild spoilers ahead, so bookmark for later if you haven't begun the season! — Yvonne Villarreal

What did you want out of Kate's journey this season? Her professional ambitions are once again tested by her marriage. Hal keeps claiming it's Kate's time to be in the spotlight and yet he manages to steal it.

We wanted to look at how it happens that someone like Hal winds up in the spotlight even when he's desperately trying not to; the circumstances that surround decisions like this, which make it such that even the people in the middle of them don't really have any control over it. You can look at what Grace is doing, and you can understand why she thinks Kate is fantastic, but that the choice, in terms of what's going to make it easier for her to get through the day, is Hal. And we didn't want to have a science fiction White House where there are two women happily running the country. That's just not the world that we're living in. And it felt like the most honest thing that we could do is tell a story about what it means to be really qualified and really experienced and really ready, and then watch it all slip away at the last second.

The season includes a delightful "West Wing" reunion, a show you wrote for. Allison Janney returns as VP-turned-President Grace Penn and Bradley Whitford portrays her husband, Todd. What was it like to see them back together onscreen? And what did you want their marriage dynamic to say?

It was like first day of school jitters for the first day that each of them was on set. We really wanted to make sure that this was something new and it wasn't a reference to the work that we'd done together in the past. And the second they started, it was just clear that we were watching a new relationship that these two great actors were building together and informed by the fact that they know each other quite well and that they've been good friends for 20 years, but using that to create something new and fresh and really, really satisfying.

This is a marriage that has some very similar structural dynamics to Kate and Hal, but there are some fundamental differences, which is, there was never an assumption that Todd's career could continue to function alongside Grace's once she became vice president; and certainly when she becomes president, there's no question that will become the focus for both of them. And so there are dynamics that Kate and Hal still wrestle with, which we see are kind of absolved with Todd and Grace. And in some ways that helps, and in some ways it doesn't help.

We're looking at a couple that's 10 years farther down the road in their marriage and have made, in some ways, a more pragmatic decision about what it means to have two smart, capable people with careers existing at the same time. Their decision is that one of them isn't going to exist right now. I think the thing that I enjoy most about both Hal and Todd is that these are people who really, really, really love their wives and really want to be supportive and they still fail or they struggle so, so mightily. We've talked about this before: I don't like writing villains. I don't want to write politicians that have bad values or selfish goals. I also don't want to write people in a marriage who don't give a s— about each other. I would much rather look at the much larger problem, which is, you do really care about each other. You do really want the best for each other, and you still can't manage to make it happen.

"The Diplomat" premiered in a different political climate from the one it's in now. The show is not a direct commentary on what's happening now, but how does the current reality, particularly as it relates to what those in civil service are facing, inform how you think about or build stories moving forward? What sorts of questions are you asking now of people who work in the government?

We write a story two years before the audience watches it, so we we don't want to be making a direct commentary. Even if we did, the world is moving so fast, we couldn't try and keep up. But we do want to be in the foreign policy headspace that the world is in, and try to be looking at what are the bigger questions and bigger conflicts that face people who are working in this field. We think a lot about the fact that 300,000 people were fired from the federal government. We think a lot about what it's like to work for this administration and — I'm trying to figure out what to say without getting into Season 4, which I don't want to do. It doesn't inform the specifics of any of the stories that we're telling, but it does inform the worldview and the bigger questions that face people in this field as the field changes. As the world changes.

You're writing about people whose job it is to make hard decisions every day. What was the hardest decision you had to make for this third season — either in the writing phase or the production phase?

We moved the base of production from the UK back to New York. The first two seasons we were based in the UK, and then for Season 3, we did half and half. There were a lot of really good reasons for that. It also meant that we had a crew that grew this organism with us — and we were very close to them; they had huge influence on the show — and leaving them behind was really, really terrible. It's a tough time in the film and television industry right now, and we felt pretty good about bringing jobs back to this community. That was something that was important to us and we really wanted to do. So, we are comfortable with the decision that we made, but, boy, it sure wasn't fun making it and going through it. It's people's livelihood. It's not a small thing.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris recently released a book chronicling her whirlwind and brief campaign as a 2024 presidential candidate. Have you read it?

I have not read it. But did I tell you about when we met her?

No. Tell me. You were also filming this third season during the election, right?

We were we were shooting it during the election. We were writing it during the election. And we we were worried about how it was going to look. We didn't want it to look like a commentary on this presidency. But we did have a female vice president that we liked a whole lot, and a male president that we really loved and was of a certain age and didn't make it through the process — the dynamics kept getting more and more troubling.

Keri and I were at the [White House Correspondents'] Dinner. And there was a receiving line, and we met and shook hands with the president and the first lady and the vice president and the second gentleman. And I said, "Ma'am, I'm writing a story about what it's like for a woman who's really experienced and really smart and really capable and really ready to do a job who then gets passed over for someone who is perhaps less qualified." And she laughed. Then she said, "Call me."

Have you called?

I have not called. I felt like she had some stuff going on. I didn't really want to bother her and say, "Heyyyyy ... let's talk about how that went ..."

What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?

"Dying for Sex" [Hulu, Disney+]. It was brutal and intense and very funny and extremely well-written. And I just thought what they did from a public health service perspective, sharing practical information about what it actually means to go through the process of death, I thought it was just a huge public service.

What's your go-to "comfort watch," the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?

"Postcards from the Edge" [VOD] — it is just so smart and so funny and both Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep are just absolutely to die for.