WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for The Diplomat!
Netflix’s new crime thriller series The Diplomat has plenty of major curveballs that defy viewer’s expectations. The show follows US Ambassador Kate Wyler as she works to maintain peace for an American allied nation, the United Kingdom, after one of its naval ships is attacked without reason. Kate works at the US Embassy in London where she and Foreign Secretary Dennison strategize how to handle a pridefully arrogant Prime Minister Trowbridge, who vows publicly to reign fire over whoever is responsible for the attack. As season 1 of The Diplomat unfolds to its shocking final episode, Dennison, Kate, and her problematic husband Hal start to realize that all is not how it may seem.
All eight episodes of The Diplomat season 1 can be currently streamed on Netflix. While there is no official announcement as of now for The Diplomat season 2, the positive feedback for the Keri Russell-led show makes it very likely to be picked up and continued. The shocking aftermath of season 1’s wild finale set up a major cliffhanger with one of the show’s main characters, and left viewers wondering what happened to Hal in The Diplomat. Kate and Dennison’s discovery in the final moments of season 1 will place them in immediate danger at the beginning of the presumed season 2, having figured out Trowbridge’s hidden agenda and how far he will go to maintain its secrecy.
10 Missile Attack on HMS Courageous
The explosive inciting incident occurs in the very first moments of The Diplomat and sets in motion the rest of its events to follow. The HMS Courageous is an enormous aircraft carrier part of the Great Britain’s Royal Navy that is stationed in the Persian Gulf between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In what is seemingly an unprovoked attack, an explosion appears out of nowhere in what appears to be just another typical day, striking the middle part of the ship of its port side. At least 20 soldiers are killed as metal groans, alarms sound, and black smoke fills the air in a potentially war-inspiring ambush.
9 Stylist Sedates Hal In Back Of Limo
At the end of The Diplomat’s first episode, Hal gets into a limo with an attractive stylist that seemingly works for the British fashion magazine that just completed a photo shoot covering Kate’s arrival to London. Hal asks if they can go to a tailor to make adjustments to his suit. The stylist obliges and gets in the backseat of a limo with him, where she slips a syringe into Hal’s neck, telling him it’s mild and he is safe. Hal is instantly sedated before he has time to respond. The stylist turns out to be an intelligence operative that is part of a covert plan to get Hal on the phone with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Iran.
8 Hal Reveals Iran Didn’t Attack The Ship
After Hal returns unharmed from the (kind-of) kidnapping in episode 2, he later reveals to Kate that he is absolutely certain that Iran was not behind the attack on the HMS Courageous. Kate has no idea how Hal could be so sure, until Hal reveals that he went outside standard protocol and unofficially approached a diplomatic connection that he had in Rome, Italy, who then reached out to the Iranian Ambassador (with the bad stomach) who he spoke with on the phone. Hal went around Kate and bent the rules by using an improper channel of communication, which infuriates Kate but provides helpful information that Iran is innocent.
7 Kate Finds Out She’s On A Shortlist For Vice President
Hal’s irresponsible antics and frustrating zaniness as prevented Kate from doing her job as US Ambassador. Even though her husband can prove to be helpful in the most irritating of ways, she realizes he is better to have around than to not because of his charm and connections. Even when Kate is so fed up with Hal that she asks him to leave London for good, Hal reveals that he can’t leave because it would look bad for Kate’s candidacy as Vice President of the United States. Kate is stunned by the news that she’s being vetted for the elite position and is one of the final candidates on an executive shortlist.
6 Trowbridge Declares Ship Is Sinking, When It’s Not
Prime Minister Trowbridge tells Kate that the HMS Courageous is sinking as a result of the unprovoked missile attack. This is unlikely because the ship is designed to stay afloat even after taking that amount of critical damage. Foreign Secretary Dennison tells Kate that the ship is not sinking and that Trowbridge is lying to satisfy his political desires, a key moment that foreshadows The Diplomat’s Trowbridge and Lenkov connection. Trowbridge lied to get military support from US President Rayburn in the Persian Gulf, but Kate is able to convince the President that Trowbridge is up to no good.
5 Kate Punches and Tackles Hal In The Woods
In another heated moment between Kate and Hal, the couple take a walk together outside that ends with Kate punching Hal right in the mouth and tackling him into a bush. Kate is now aware that she needs the image of a happy marriage if she ever wants to become Vice President, but this does not stop Hal from getting under her skin and enraging his wife. Kate asks Hal if he was even serious when he said he was going to leave her. Hal says he was never going to leave, and Kate socks him immediately after. She tries to hit him more, clearly fed up at Hal’s annoying antics and misdirections.
4 Iranian Ambassador Dies In Dennison’s Office
Foreign Secretary Dennison hosts a secret meeting between him, Kate and an Iranian Ambassador in his office. The Iranian Ambassador drinks tea, falls to the ground and dies within minutes after telling Kate and Dennison about Roman Lenkov and his group of Russian mercenaries. Kate flees the scene, not wanting anyone to find out about their private meeting, since the Iranian government never would have agreed to meeting with her. Paramedics arrive and take the Ambassadors’ body out on a stretcher, even though he is dead. It’s later revealed that the tea wasn’t poisoned as suspected, but the Ambassador died from a heart attack.
3 Russian Ambassador Offers Lenkov Info To Kate
During a meeting with a Russian Ambassador, Kate is directed to meet a secret operative at a wine store down the street. She quietly is able to get there without anyone, even her own staff, knowing. Once she’s there, an apparent Russian intelligence spy gives her information about where Lenkov will be in France for a short period of time. Kate is shocked that Russian would give up Lenkov, who is a mercenary and not part of their official government. Kate thinks that if the Russians wanted Lenkov dead, they were the ones behind the attack on the HMS Courageous.
2 Car Bomb Kills Grove, And Potentially Hal & Stuart
In The Diplomat’s season 1 finale, Martin Grove wanted to leak information about Trowbridge to Hal so that Kate would be aware of the truth behind the attack on the HMS Courageous. Grove most likely wanted to reveal that Trowbridge hired Lenkov in order to raise a false flag that would unite the United Kingdom against a common enemy. When Hal shows up late for their meeting, Grove becomes impatient and goes to his car just as Hal approaches him. Grove opens the car door, which sets off a bomb that certainly killed him, and might have killed Hal as well as two of Kate’s loyal staff members.
1 Trowbridge Hired Lenkov To Attack HMS Courageous
Kate and Dennison figure out on their own that Trowbridge must have hired Roman Lenkov because Trowbridge went around Dennison to authorize an assassination on Lenkov. Kate deduces that whoever wants Lenkov dead must have been the person who hired him. If Trowbridge didn’t hire Lenkov, then surely he would want to arrest and interrogate him to find out who did hire him to attack the HMS Courageous. There is also the possibility that Dennison was aware of Trowbridge’s plan to assassinate Lenkov, since his signature was required for authorization. He tells Kate he didn’t authorize it, but with so many unexpected twists in The Diplomat, Kate could find out Dennison is lying in The Diplomat season 2.
