What would be the odds that a Netflix Hollywood streaming series would come out a week before the election and remind the audience just how unqualified for President Kamala Harris is? I’d say looooooong. Yet that’s exactly what the second season of the smart, funny, astute series “The Diplomat,” starring Keri Russell is the role of her life and the always excellent Rufus Sewell, has done.

Oh, I don’t think it was intentional. I’m sure the scripts were written and shot too far in advance of the series’ second season debut on Halloween to have anticipated Kamala Harris being installed as the Democrats’ Presidential candidate via soft coup, then babble and duck her way to likely historical infamy. But the creative team—largely from the “West Wing” brain trust—did have time to intervene, stall the debut until after November 5, cut some damning speeches, something. It didn’t. These Hollywood progressives (redundant, I know) chose artistic integrity over the current woke mania for “making it look like it makes sense to vote for Kamala.” Well, good for them.

Without getting too distracted by the plot, I’ll just say that the Vice-President of the United States was an unseen but oft discussed presence in Season One of the series, which follows the adventures of newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain (Keri Russell) and her devious, ambitious, career diplomat husband. Some scandal has made it likely that the #2 (to a very Trumpish President, played by ace character actor Michael McKean) will have to resign, and Keri’s character has been floated as her possible successor. In the final two episodes of the new season, the Veep flies to London in an ambush during a diplomatic crisis of which, we learn, she was a primary behind-the-scenes architect. During the visit, the Vice President, played by the formidable Allison Janney (Martin Sheen’s press secretary in “The West Wing”), gives a lecture to Russell about what the job of the Vice -President is. It is a brilliantly-written speech, and is also accurate; it also describes the ideal Vice President as the opposite of Kamala Harris.

Notable among the points made in the speech: if the VP is handed an assignment, if it is successfully executed, the President gets the credit; if it is a failure, the VP takes the blame. This is the exact opposite of how Harris has framed her term as Veep, a job with, as Janney explains it, “soft power.” Then there is the unavoidable throbbing fact that Janney’s Vice President is everything Harris is not: smart, serious, articulate, quick-thinking, wise, gutsy and impressive. (She’s also tall and white. Russell’s character is short, but she also makes Harris seem like a girl scout working for her leadership badge by comparison.)

I am particularly impressed by the series letting this inevitable unflattering comparison see the living rooms of America before November 5 because in so many ways the show signals its woke credentials. The Ambassador to the Court of St, James has a black top aide and the CIA agent working with them is Asian. Keri has a non-binary individual on her staff. Both she and her husband have brief flirtations with black characters. Janney cites as a key crisis point the fact that the “Earth is burning.” The Secretary of State is veteran Hispanic actor Miguel Sandoval.

I recommend the show highly, and except for the rather contrived “shock ending” of this season’s final episode, it has maintained high quality throughout. That it shatters any illusions about Kamala Harris is a bonus.