“There really are some twists that occur.

Political thriller series The Diplomat is returning to Netflix later this month, and for fans it’s not a moment too soon, as they have been waiting desperately for answers after season 1 ended on a major cliffhanger.

The first season’s finale saw Keri Russell’s Kate come to the realisation that Rory Kinnear’s Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge was behind the attack on HMS Courageous, while her husband Hal, played by Rufus Sewell, was left fighting for his life when he got caught up in an explosion, and the apparent assassination of a Conservative MP.

Sewell and Russell spoke exclusively with RadioTimes.com ahead of the show’s return, and Sewell has teased long-lasting, unpredictable repercussions from what happened to Hal.

Asked about Kate and Hal’s journey in season 2, Russell said: “I think the ever-evolving nature of Kate and Hal’s relationship was, at the end of season 1, really reaching a precipice of breaking up.

“And I think that giant explosion happened, and that’s going to change probably a lot of the relationship.”

She continued: “I think that’s going to be pretty monumental, as it is in life when a big life moment like that happens. And I think it raises the stakes of every single thing Kate is dealing with professionally.

“And we just get right into it, you know, versus season 1 – you’re building a whole world, you’re introducing characters, you’re introducing style and language and jargon and a world of diplomacy and kind of teaching people about that, and season 2, we just jump head first right into it.”

Meanwhile, Sewell added: “Yeah, well, she does – I’m lying around for a bit longer than that!

“Things can happen in a relationship – I don’t speak from experience – when something huge like this happens, you can’t really predict what the repercussions will be, but they take a long time to unfold.

“And there can be positives and negatives, like, things can draw you together but ultimately bring you apart, and vice versa.

“This takes a while to play out, and there’s an immediate reaction, where there’s this very visceral sense of need that you’re reminded of when you’re confronted with the possibility of someone’s loss, that immediately pulls you together.

“But then things are also brought about that complicate it.

“So there’s a lot of back and forth. It’s a very complex dynamic, it’s a very, very complex situation. What can I say? There’s a lot [that] happens.”

Later, Sewell also teased that “there really are some twists that occur” in season 2, revealing that he was originally drawn to the series for the “wit, the dialog, the truthfulness of the relationship”.

“Actually, what I loved about it was that – story, yeah, very interesting, because you want extreme environments to give rise to character, to show it,” he explained.

“But for me, the fact that the story is… it’s really quite a story, the things that happen are extraordinary, which, for me, is just such a bonus that the story is so strong.”