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As it turns out, the British prime minister didn’t have any blood on his hands … until now. When Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) learns his former advisor Margaret “Meg” Roylin (Celia Imrie) is the one who ordered the attack on the British carrier HMS Courageous, he lunges for her neck in anger. She falls back in her chair, head bleeding.
The fallout from learning that Trowbridge didn’t order the bombing sets off a fresh round of drama as alliances and understandings between all the key players shift.
American ambassador to the UK Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) has always been about conscientiously serving the people, but she’s quickly learning there are serious exceptions when it comes to dealing with nuclear powers. She’s aware that Roylin is “Our Lady of Immaculate Deception,” as Trowbridge puts it, but there may be some other deceptive people among them. The intel Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) has been filtering out is about another shady lady — and the truth could alter the entire state of world affairs.
Read on for everything else that happens in this episode of The Diplomat.
Things would have gotten a lot messier if Trowbridge’s spontaneous choke hold killed Roylin. But a sigh of relief kicks off the episode when his former adviser is heard breathing. She may be bleeding profusely, but she’s alive.
Trowbridge’s reaction was far beyond what had been expected — the plan had been to tap the prime minister’s phone to see who he called after hearing Roylin’s confession. One thing’s for sure: Trowbridge may have almost committed manslaughter, but he did not set the bomb off on his own warship.
Since this is all happening under one roof during a diplomatic visit to Scotland, no one can openly discuss the bloody wrench in the plan. Kate, Trowbridge, and British Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi) quickly return to the cocktail party with the Scots, where price caps are the biggest point of contention.
The prime minister is in a state of shock. Kate attempts to rescue him, bringing him champagne. He raises a toast “to everything I don’t want.” Kate tells him to put down his arm — he literally has blood on his sleeve.
Meanwhile, Roylin defends herself by saying, “I did it for my country.” But CIA Chief Eidra Park (Ali Ahn) reveals the harsh next step: Now that they’ve gotten the information they need from Roylin, the Americans are no longer responsible for her. Her fate is in the hands of the prime minister, but Trowbridge doesn’t want to take her in until he knows who he can trust in his government. So the Americans decide to continue sheltering Roylin in the safe house.
Kate and Hal debrief during a quiet moment. Hal seems most hung up on what Dennison is going to do, pumping Kate for details.
She summarizes everything she knows about the evening’s activities: “Trowbridge is a hitter, Roylin is a bleeder; at dinner, the trout was dry, and Trowbridge was catatonic.”
The prime minister may be innocent, but Kate realizes she no longer is — she wrongly accused him of being a mass murderer.
When Trowbridge calls for Kate, he’s in the middle of writing play-by-play notes of the evening for the imminent inquiry. He’s furious with Kate, accusing her of trapping him one-on-one with a terrorist, calling Roylin “Our Lady of Immaculate Deception” who was behind the entire plan.
Now knowing that Trowbridge is innocent, Kate admits it wasn’t the smartest idea. As they talk through what happened, Trowbridge also thinks Dennison was in on it, since he was the first one who ran into the room and threw Trowbridge against the wall to protect Roylin.
To clear her ally’s name, Kate convinces him otherwise. But in doing so, she reveals that she and Dennison were waiting in the surveillance room.
“You and Austin waited in the hall?” Trowbridge asks her. “What did you think you’d hear?”
Kate realizes she just outed herself for suspecting him as the evil perpetrator behind the attacks on his own country. “You thought it was me,” he says. “You brought Roylin here to entrap me.”
There’s no doubt his logic is as sharp as his vocabulary. Kate is forced to confess that’s exactly what the plan was.
This Scottish getaway has been anything but relaxing. As everyone tries to sleep their worries away, Kate’s deputy chief of mission, Stuart Hayford (Ato Essandoh), gets a call in the middle of the night and goes to wake Kate and Hal. (Side note: They’re in the same bed, so maybe their marriage isn’t on the rocks anymore.)
What could possibly warrant this kind of wake-up? They need to get back to London pronto, because US Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) is on her way.
There’s no time to prep, and there’s not even time to put on functional clothes. Kate’s forced to fly by the seat of her pants — and in a comic twist — the fly on her pants suit has broken off, so she searches for a paper clip to hold it up. It’s all about improvising, both with strategic and sartorial matters.
Kate’s time is even more compressed when the eight hours she should have had on the drive back is abbreviated — the VP sends a helicopter.
No one knows why Penn is coming. Stuart tells Kate that Eidra sent a report to CIA headquarters last night. He doesn’t know its contents, but thinks something in it was upsetting enough for the White House to send Penn to support the Brits.
But also, does Penn know that Kate is gunning for her job? Kate isn’t sure, but the fact Penn is waiting on the Winfield House balcony when she lands seems like a clear sign she knows something.
In their meeting, Penn pokes holes in Kate’s explanations about the entire course of events that led to Roylin’s staged confession to Trowbridge. The VP is aware from the CIA report that the French secretly told a US interlocutor that the Brits’ plans to arrest Russian mercenary Roman Lenkov was actually a murder plot. Kate admits she was the interlocutor, a fact Eidra left out of the report.
Penn seems to be surprised by Kate’s bond with Roylin … and, in a way, starts to defend the British adviser’s actions, since they were meant to keep Scotland in the union. She asks the prime minister to meet with her.
Kate and Dennison may not have been as secretive as they thought with their flirty vibes — it seems like everyone is onto them. But ever since the Americans tricked him into going to Scotland for the Roylin confession, Dennison has been cold to Kate.
The foreign secretary and prime minister may still hold disdain for one another, but they leave the Scottish estate together in the back seat of a car. Ultimately, both men’s loyalties are to their country, which means also to each other.
Back in London, Trowbridge accepts Penn’s meeting request, with Dennison and Kate both in tow. Trowbridge admits it’s shameful that his own adviser Roylin betrayed him. He thanks the US for its support, but asks for distance.
Penn explains that’s not why she’s here. Trowbridge accused the Russians of a crime that the British themselves committed, and that bad blood may make it harder for the Brits to negotiate with the Russians going forward. “You may not want my help, but you need it,” Penn says.
This is a vice president who knows how to work people — at one point even calling her own interruptions “cooperative overlapping.” She goes on to lead Trowbridge and Dennison through their options: tell the public the truth and have Trowbridge resign, or bury the entire story and have Trowbridge stay in office. The Brits seem to want to tell the truth slowly, while they suss out whom they can trust in their own government.
Penn guides the Brits to realize it might be better to keep things quiet. The Russians may not mind — and more importantly, the families of the victims of the HMS Courageous will be able to go on believing their loved ones didn’t die in vain. Trowbridge leaves the meeting with niceties for Penn, saying they’ll consider the discussion.
Meanwhile, the Americans still have Roylin. Eidra pulls Dennison aside after the meeting to arrange returning her to British custody. Despite the fact that Trowbridge is still considering his options, Dennison tells Eidra they’re burying the story. He’s sure the prime minister will go with that option.
The Brits don’t want Roylin, telling the Eidra to send her home. “If she’s afraid, tell her to lock her door,” Dennison adds.
Penn pulls Kate in for chat, acknowledging she’s heard the American diplomat is interested in her job. The ambassador tells the veep she doesn’t necessarily want the job, but would step in if needed.
Kate clarifies that she’s no one’s first choice. She admits that Stuart has been training her well, but he’s more focused on the “packaging,” aka Kate’s look. The VP agrees since “it’s a visual world,” calling it “soft power.” The ever-honest Penn goes on to tell Kate her hair reads as bed head, she needs a padded bra, and she most definitely shouldn’t be holding up her pants with a paper clip. “If you’re representing the interests of 300 million Americans … it’s best to look like the care of your trousers wasn’t more than you could manage,” she says.
Despite the criticisms, Kate is impressed with the vice president. She and Hal join Penn for a private dinner. Even in her company, the couple have one of their bluntest conversations yet.
Kate wants to keep Penn in office, saying she’s “good for the country,” while Hal keeps trying to push her out the door. Kate points out that if Hal were in Penn’s position, he’d stay. But he’s looking at the bigger picture of why the White House is pushing for Kate: “You know how much they don’t want her? They want you,” he tells his wife.
Afterward, Kate joins Penn back in the library. She apologizes for Hal’s behavior, calling him power-hungry, since his best shot at “real power” is if his wife becomes veep.
There’s a quiet moment as Penn pours Kate a drink. But the vice president also apologizes, telling her she was too harsh earlier. It bothered her that Kate, whom she refers to as “the super trooper good sport dream girl,” didn’t actually want the job since she had been scolded for ambition.
Penn admits she promised herself she wouldn’t change for the role, but she now dyes her hair every month and has tattooed eyeliner.
Kate tells Penn that she was “inspiring” in the meeting with the Brits. Penn claims it was a “happy accident” that she led them to the plan of keeping quiet. The ambassador is in awe, telling her, “You’re killing yourself, and you’re still on your way out.”
Fangirling even more over the vice president, Kate returns to her room and tells Hal he needs to change his tune and help keep Penn in office. Hal is adamant that Kate is the next VP. She realizes it’s still working hours back in DC. If Hal won’t call, she will — and she starts dialing.
Hal’s reaction is over the top. Chasing his wife around the room, he furiously yanks the phone out of her hand and briskly pins her down on the bed. He insists that Kate has to stop rescuing Penn, revealing it’s not about the vice president’s husband.
Kate reaches for the landline to call DC, and Hal can’t keep the truth away from her any longer. He tells her Roylin did hire Lenkov to bomb the British ship, but she didn’t come up with the idea.
The big secret Hal’s been keeping: the HMS Courageous attack was the brainchild of Grace Penn herself.
Yup, the real culprits are the Americans.