, about, but this time I was smart: I checked for gay characters, and found Dylan Brady, who tells Pink News that the show "talks about his queerness in relation to his job, in quite a nuanced way.” Plus it's set in Barcelona, one of my favorite cities in Europe!
So I started watching. It took ten minutes to realize that there would be no Barcelona and no gay character. There are two tv shows called
The Diplomat, airing at the same time, both featuring young blond women who become diplomats, one the ambassador to Britain, the other the British consul in Barcelona.
Not confusing at all. Let's do the British one, on Amazon Prime. I reviewed Episode 5, which the Pink News article praises as centering on Dylan's queerness.
S
cene 1: Richard and Amanda, romantic partners, have just visited the Sagrada Familia, the iconic Barcelona cathedral. He hates it. They have also lost their "Hola Barcelona" card, so they have to buy regular metro tickets. Cut to Security seeing Richard getting into an altercation with security guards. They attack; Richard falls.
I thought these were main characters; but apparently they're this week's case. Scene 2: Laura gets a phone call from her friend, who is hung over in a cafe. She reveals the Sagrada Familia incident. One of the cops has broken ribs and a perforated eardrum, and the Brit is in the ICU after a heart attack.
Another call from downstairs, from Fabian (Philipp Boos, top photo). As she buzzes him in, a mysterious figure watches from behind a tree.
Scene 3: Fabian criticizes her Serrat CD: "It's for old hippies." An important composer of Spanish and Catalan music. He didn't know that the bouncer being set up to take the fall, and he wasn't there when Cabell arranged the girl to be a scapegoat at the party on the yacht. These episodes are not self-contained. In other news, "I really want to f*ck you again."
She says no. "I have a boyfriend." Tom (Ladi Emeruwa)
"But I'm better in bed, right?" He walks her out; they smooch, in view of the mysterious figure. Uh-oh, the British consul is going to be blackmailed.
After the smooching, he calls someone, says that he found the "skinny bitch," and this time there will be no screw-ups. Uh-oh, he's an enemy.
Scene 4: At the hospital, the Wife explains to Laura and her assistant Carl (Dylan Brady) that the ticket machine wasn't working, so her husband gave it a thump, and the cop came over and started yelling and hitting. "But you hit the cop hard. He has a major ear injury. They're considering criminal charges," "Um...well, I'm sorry about that, but he was acting like a mad dog."
It's apparent that these people are highly religious, and bigoted against various groups.
Meanwhile, in Ibiza, a woman is fiddling with a watch.
Scene 5: Carl is upset: the Wife called him "young man" in a dismissive tone that he feels is racist and homophobic. Laura did some research and discovered that they are Baptist. Her parents are progressive Baptists, but these two...not so progressive.
Back in the office, Laura gets a phone call from the Ibiza woman, but she hangs up.
Cut to La Rambla, where a guy who looks identical to Fabian, but is probably Steven Cree (Sam Henderson) wants to know if the wedding to Mariana is still on. They discuss the season-long plot. Neither Wikipedia nor the IMDB have any details about what's going on in the primary plot, so I'll skip over it, and stick with the metro altercation.
Scene 6: The mysterious stranger who's been stalking Laura is actually her coworker, Colin (Danny Sapani, left). Inspector Casells, their boss, has been "um..er...upgrading me on some things."
Inspector Casells is upset because his spy caught Laura smooching with Fabian. Then on to the Sagrada Familia case. The Wife is claiming that the cop assaulted her husband, but he's an excellent officer with a good record, and he volunteers for charity. "He should not become the victim of hate speech."
Wait -- what minority group does he belong to?Scene 7: Back in the office, Laura tells her assistants that two witness heard the Husband say "Get back to India, you stupid Gurkha." Nepalese soldiers who served in the British army, and have had trouble getting the right to settle in the UK. Officer Pereira is not a Gurkha, but he is of South Asian ancestry.
Carl thinks this is not surprising, since the Husband is from Leighton Buzzard -- a town in Bedfordshire, about 47 miles from London, which in the UK is a long way -- so he might have a big collection of Toby Jugs -- a jug in the image of a seated man in a tricorner hat -- and knock one out to pictures of Nigel Farange. A member of Parliament who authored Brexit, and has been accused of being racist and homophobic.
Scene 8: Laura and her friend discuss how the boss got "really defensive about the cop -- they look out for their own, don't they?" And some soap-opera plot about Laura's husband transferring to New York, so should she go with him, or stay in Barcelona?
They interview the British schoolgirls who heard the racist comment. It was hard to make out, because the Husband was speaking Spanish, and the cop Catalan, but he said something about General Franco being dead.
Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975, who suppressed Catalan culture. "Pretty cringe to say that to a Catalan, especially in Spanish."
When I was in Barcelona, many people were so invested in Catalan independence that they pretended not to speak "the colonial language."
Then he yelled "Go back to India, you stupid Gurkha," in English.
Wait -- they took a video of the whole thing. It's on their phone! Laura speaks Catalan, so she can understand what the cop said.
More after the break
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