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Anyone who’s a fan of streaming content with strong female protagonists is in luck next week, thanks to the new lineup that Netflix has in store.
Among the 30 or so TV shows and movies hitting the streaming giant over the next several days, the two that stand out (at least, to me) as the shows that are absolutely can’t-miss include a period drama as well as a West Wing-style political thriller — one of which has held on to a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score for over a year. We’ll take a closer look at both of those Netflix additions, new seasons of The Diplomat as well as The Law According to Lidia Poët, below.
The latter of those two shows actually hits Netflix first, on the day before Halloween. And I can’t stress this next point enough: The Law According to Lidia Poët stars Matilda De Angelis, who’s an absolute gem of an actress — and who can also be seen at the moment in a major Prime Video release, Citadel: Diana (an Italian spinoff of Prime’s futuristic spy drama Citadel from 2023).
De Angelis’ Netflix show tells the story of the real-life first female lawyer in Italy, and in Season 2, Lidia aims even higher than before. While continuing to collaborate on new cases with her brother Enrico, as well as fighting for women’s rights, she wants to convince him to run for Parliament so that she can change the outdated laws that were written by men. “Lidia is completely done with love,” Netflix adds about the new season, “especially with Jacopo, responsible for having sold the family villa and on a collision course with all the Poëts.
“But Jacopo and Lidia are forced to meet again to share, reluctantly, a secret investigation that concerns them closely, rediscovering the complicity and fun that has always bound them. Giving a hard time to the protagonists, the new King’s Attorney, Fourneau, a man of the institutions who unexpectedly treats Lidia as his equal, (prompts) her to question the complex and contradictory relationship she has with feelings, and the cost of personal renunciation that she is sustaining in the name of her ideals.”
As I say, De Angelis is positively effervescent in the show — a mix of beauty and steely determination. She’s fantastic in everything she’s in, but it was an especially inspired choice to have her play the courageous woman at the heart of this Netflix series who’s determined to break down the pieces of a world built by men, for men.
This next release also coming next week, meanwhile, is in my opinion one of the best original dramas that Netflix has released in years.
Season 1 of Debora Cahn’s The Diplomat certainly left me hanging at the end and desperate for more of this super-addictive drama about politicians and diplomats. It’s very much a descendant of The West Wing, with its walk-and-talk style and depiction of Very Important People doing important things (which tracks, given that Cahn actually worked on The West Wing).
Keri Russell plays Kate Wyler, a brilliant and perpetually multi-tasking career diplomat who finds herself appointed ambassador to the UK. The end of the first season that I alluded to shocked us all with a bombing that left some characters’ fates, and plot points, up in the air. “Kate’s colleagues and her almost-ex-husband (Rufus Sewell) are victims of a politically motivated attack in London that takes some lives and shatters the rest,” Cahn said during a Netflix promotional interview.
“The marriage she thought was over, the relationship she thought was beginning … all of it, in pieces.”
In Season 2, Kate will get to the bottom of that attack and the conspiracy behind it. Fans will also get their first look at a character who was alluded to during Season 1 but never shown — the show’s Vice President Grace Penn, played by Allison Janney. A veep, by the way, who thinks that Russell’s Kate Wyler is after her job (and who’s not entirely wrong in thinking that). So help me, though, there better not be a cliffhanger this time that’s as dramatic as that last one, or I might have a heart attack.
What else to watch
Meanwhile, in addition to that pair of new Netflix releases, there’s also plenty more that’s hitting the streamer over the next week that’s sure to appeal to all sorts of streaming tastes and preferences.
For a comprehensive look at every title arriving next week, our monthly Netflix guide is the perfect resource to consult. The release slate over the next several days includes a variety of original releases and third-party titles, such as a new comedy special from Tom Papa (Tom Papa: Home Free) as well as Martha — a documentary about lifestyle mogul Martha Stewart from director R. J. Cutler. Titles that dropped at the end of this week and which I also expect to rack up viewership next week include a new season of the popular K-drama Hellbound, as well as my favorite Netflix doc of 2024: The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.
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