Netflix The Diplomat season 1 recap guide: All episodes explained

Keri Russell takes on the perfect post-The Americans acting job in Netflix’s slick new political thriller The Diplomat, which also stars Rufus Sewell as her on-screen husband, Hal Wyler. The marriage between Hal and Kate (Russell) is just one of many pivotal relationships in this talk-heavy drama that keeps you hooked and guessing from start to finish.

The Diplomat season 1 recap

Though The Diplomat is primarily a show about talking and strategizing, similar to The West Wing in many ways, it’s also entirely engrossing, and all of the performances are top-notch. Russell plays a career diplomat who must juggle a new high-profile job amid an international crisis while potentially being groomed for an even more notable position.

The following slideshow features recaps for all eight episodes of The Diplomat season 1. Bookmark this page and follow along!

Spoilers ahead for The Diplomat

The Diplomat episode 1 recap: The Cinderella Thing

The first episode of The Diplomat is titled “The Cinderella Thing,” which happens to be a quote from the episode, which we’ll get to later. In the first scene, an aircraft carrier explodes off the coast of Iran, and we find out shortly after that it’s a British aircraft carrier.

Then, we meet Hal and Kate Wyler, a husband and wife diplomatic duo seemingly on the rocks. Kate is going to be the United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, but she’s called in for an emergency briefing in the White House to give an update on the attack on the aircraft carrier, or so she thinks. She’s actually being assigned to be the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom. She accepts, and she and Hal are on a plane for London that day.

Kate thinks it’s going to be an easy trip for optics, but clearly, there’s something more to this story and a reason for her to be sent to the UK. What is it?

Seconds later, White House Chief of Staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah) confirms, via video chat with Stuart Heyward (Ato Essandoh), that the Vice President is resigning and Kate Wyler is in consideration for the position. She needs Stuart’s help to see if Kate is the right person for the job, although Kate is still in the dark about the potential gig.

After arriving in London, she is hustled through Winfield (where she’ll live in the UK) and briefed by her new team on the situation before speaking with President Rayburn (Michael McKean) and Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear), but first, she checks the sheets on the bed in the guest bedroom. Trouble between Hal and Kate? It appears so.

Her team wants her to do a photoshoot, but Kate bails on that with the magazine because she’s all business. In the chaos, Kate makes Hal sniff her armpit before going to the memorial for those killed in the attack on the aircraft carrier. It’s pretty weird, but then she asks if she’s okay, and it’s clear it’s just insecurity talking. She’s in a very different environment from where she thought she’d be a few hours ago and in the middle of an international crisis after all.

Eidra Park (Ali Ahn), the CIA Chief of Station, briefs Kate on the situation with the aircraft carrier, and then she takes a call with the President and the Prime Minister. From the jump, it’s clear that Kate plays by her own rules, but her team is trying to reel her in and keep her from going rogue. She also seems to be having this inner conflict about how much to do her own thing without pissing everyone off in the process, and she seems like she’s trying not to have a panic attack on her first day at a new job, something we can all relate to I’m assuming.

She’s pulled into a meeting by Austin Dennison (David Gyasi), the UK Foreign Secretary, with the Prime Minister, and she’s told how the UK wants to play this crisis. They didn’t appreciate that the spread alluded to bombing Iran, and Kate thinks Hal is behind it somehow, pulling the strings from afar.

Kate meets with Secretary of State Miguel Ganon (Miguel Sandoval), who sucks, and she convinces him that the UK wants the President to keep his mouth shut about everything for one day.

Kate, then, attends the memorial, which Hal is also attending after sneaking out of their accommodations. He’s with someone called “Meg Roylin” (Celia Imrie), who is a political operative and not a good person. For some reason, Hal wants to introduce them, and Stuarrt is not letting that happen. He asks security to pull the Ambassador before Meg Roylin arrives with Hal.

Ganon is trying to get Kate fired, while Stuart and Billie hash a plan to try to turn Kate into a viable VP candidate, and there’s the underlying story of the season, I think. Kate is there to fix a problem, but she also has a very bright future. Where the story goes from there, we’ll have to see in episode 2.

At the end of the episode, Kate goes through the “Cinderella Thing,” as it’s dubbed by Kate, with a photo shoot for British Vogue to keep her job and sway the public so Ganon can’t fire her. It’s a great political move, and we finally see how Kate is going to survive and navigate the trials and tribulations of the season.

Kate also reveals that Hal is leaving and not coming back after she is set up in London. Stuart confronts Hal over this, and they have a quick chat about what a divorce would mean for Kate’s potential VP position, which she still doesn’t know about because she hates the public-facing part of the job. They try to work together to get Kate where she needs to be.

During the photoshoot, Hal gets into the back of the car and is drugged via needle to the neck. He passes out, and the car drives away.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

This episode is such a strong start for The Diplomat. Few shows have shown the ability to balance chaotic anxiety and witty banter and humor like The Diplomat’s first episode. It makes the show so enjoyable, and I don’t hate any characters yet. I’d call it a success.

Written by Bryce Olin

The Diplomat episode 2 recap: “Don’t Call it a Kidnapping”

“Don’t Call it a Kidnapping” begins with everyone looking for Hal. It’s revealed pretty quickly that he was kidnapped, but don’t call it that.

Hal was “kidnapped” by the Iranians to tell him, through an unofficial channel, that Iran did not attack the ship, according to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Shahin. The operatives were in London to kill a former US General and war criminal. They backed out of the assassination to make sure that the US/UK know they are not escalating the situation. Since Iran didn’t claim responsibility, they would view any provocation by US/UK as an unprovoked attack and respond accordingly.

Obviously, when Hal says this, no one was buying Iran’s story, so they are trying to make it clear that Iran didn’t attack the British ship. So, if it wasn’t Iran, who was it? The other kicker is that they can’t reveal Hal as the source of the intel yet. Kate jokingly asks Stuart to offer to resign for allowing the security breach that led to Hal getting kidnapped, but she would never accept it.

In the meantime, Prime Minster Trowbridge tells a widow that the UK will more or less bomb Iran, which is not good for anyone. Attacks on Muslims start happening in the UK.

Eidra tries to figure out how to use the intelligence Hal provided without naming her source for political reasons. Kate and Stuart go back and forth about what it means to have Hal involved in this, which seems very complicated.

To top it all off, the President decides to make a quick trip to London for lunch at Winfield with the Prime Minister, and when Kate finds out, she bails to make a few phone calls in the toilet of a grocery store. She calls someone who is trying to locate if Hal made any calls to Iran. It’s clear that Kate doesn’t exactly trust Hal after something terrible happened in Afghanistan.

Later, Kate calls Hal out. She figured out that Hal called Niccolo, a contact in Italy, who then got in touch with Shahin in Iran. Hal is pulling the strings on this whole situation, and he’s keeping Kate in the dark. Kate puts Hal in her place, and she tries to put the pieces back together, but Ganon blocks her and keeps the visit between the President and Prime Minister on the books.

Kate decides that she’s going to meet with the foreign secretary, while Stuart begs her to slow down, but she’s on a mission. She meets with Dennison and explains the whole situation. Iran didn’t do it. They called off an important hit as a show of good faith and tried to alert the UK and US that it wasn’t them. Then, they kidnapped Hal to cement it, but now, Kate is struggling to convince everyone Iran didn’t actually do it from her position of power, which is pretty low on the chain.

Before the President arrives, Kate tries to order Hal to leave, but he decides that it’s important for him to stay. Literally, as the helicopter is landing with the President, Hal reveals that she’s being considered for Vice President and that’s why they are here to see if she can really do the job.

What awful timing to drop such a bomb on Kate!

Written by Bryce Olin

The Diplomat episode 3 recap: “Lambs in the Dark”

“Lambs in the Dark” begins seconds after Hal just revealed that Kate is in consideration to become the next Vice President of the United States. Kate is obviously frustrated by the stuff Hal just pulled, but she puts it behind her to try to help fix this situation. She fills the President in that it’s not Iran, and she tries to convince him that he can’t stand next to the Prime Minister and make a big show of support when the Prime Minister is stoking fear and threatening war.

Dennison and Kate meet before the President and Prime Minister and negotiate the terms of the meetings, and they decide that the President and Prime Minister can dine together alone.

Then, they wait while the President and the Prime Minister dine, and Hal, Billie, and Stuart give Kate the lowdown on why the Vice President is leaving and why she’s being considered. The VP “misplaced” a $6.3 million grant. Whoops!

Eidra fills Stuart in on Kate’s phone call to the woman, Carole Langetti, a person who Kate used to work with, who tracked Hal’s phone call via a GCHQ. The Brits are wondering why that happened, and Eidra needs to speak with Kate to make sure that they follow the chain of command with this delicate intel and relationship with the US and UK. Stuart and Kate have a nice little conversation about what Stuart knew and when, while Kate is eating pistachios outside in the most aggressive way I’ve seen on TV maybe ever. It’s great!

Eidra and Kate speak about the CIA and MI6 relationship, and how they share intelligence. When Eidra pushes back, Kate shares that she doesn’t trust Hal and that hiding something wasn’t about her. It was merely about Hal.

While the President and Prime Minister are eating, Billie reveals that Iran has moved infantry to the coast in case there’s the threat of war.

Eidra grills Hal about his intelligence, but Kate keeps interrupting. They are insufferable at times! Eidra says she could use less time together with Kate and Hal. Eidra makes Hal write down everything that was said when he was abducted and in his conversation with Shahin to avert an international crisis and so the CIA can vet him. Eidra apologizes to Kate.

During the lunch, the President just promised to send a carrier group of ships into the gulf to save the carrier that’s supposedly sinking, but Dennison reveals that it is, in fact, not sinking. Dennison and Kate meet privately in the garden without anyone around.

Dennison reveals “the house is on fire,” and now, Trowbridge lured a US strike force into the gulf, which will look like a possible preparation for war. Aside from all the political stuff, there’s chemistry here between Dennison and Kate, and it’s getting better.

Kate and Eidra try to explain to Billie that the Prime Minister is messing with the US and trying to bring them into the fray. They want to reach out to Iran directly and give up Shahin, but Kate gives an epic speech to stop the “infinitely ravenous American” from tearing the spiderweb of allyship.

Billie and Stuart, then, give Kate the pitch on Vice President. They think Kate would help keep the President on track, and she’s maybe going to do it? We’ll have to wait and see!

Kate learns Hal has known about this plan for a month, and she’s been betrayed again. They go on a big walk around the grounds, and Kate learns how this all went down. Then, the conversation moves into their relationship, which has been simmering for about three episodes. Hal agreed to the divorce a month before all of this happened, but he admits that he didn’t really think this was over. Then, Kate beats him up in the garden!

Kate tries to resign after meeting with the President about Iran and why the US can’t send ships into the gulf. She calls out the President for worrying he’s too old and frail, and she eventually wins, but the President tells her to “sack up.”

Kate wins! But she also kind of loses because she’s still stuck in this position with a manipulative husband and an international crisis that doesn’t seem to be getting better.

On to episode 4!

Written by Bryce Olin

The Diplomat episode 4 recap: “He Bought a Hat”

The fourth episode of The Diplomat begins in an interesting place. Eidra mentions that she can’t prove that Iran didn’t attack the boat, and they’re not getting much intel from their intelligence services. They decide to try to bring Iran to the table without giving up Shahin and his involvement by including a clue in an upcoming speech.

At an event, Trowbridge gives a fiery speech about the President withdrawing the offer to send boats into the gulf to help rescue. That’s the new fire Kate has to worry about and the latest development in this string of weird moves by Trowbridge.

Kate and Stuart go back and forth about Kate dropping out of Vice President consideration. Kate wants to tell everyone that she’s getting a divorce, while Stuart offers a solution: come up with an arrangement that works for her and Hal.

Kate learns that someone summoned the Iranian Ambassador, but it wasn’t Dennison, which means Iran is willing to play ball! They got the hint in the speech, and they are reaching out with information. They put together a plan with Dennison to sneak Kate into the room when he meets with the Iranian Ambassador. While they wait, Stuart reveals some more information about his past, and they discuss why Kate would make a great Vice President. Stuart also asks Eidra to stay in London and not go to Cairo. We’ll have to keep an eye on that part of the story!

Dennison and Kate meet secretly with the Iranian Ambassador, and he gives them a name: “Roman Lenkov, Russian Mercenaries,” and it’s immediately clear why Iran can’t reveal who did the attack. It would put them at odds with Russia and the Kremlin, who are one of Iran’s allies.

Then, the Iranian Ambassador collapses while drinking tea in Dennison’s office, and they call the medical team to save his life, while Kate tries to play it cool. He dies in the room, but she tells Dennison he needs to be pronounced dead at the hospital.

After it’s all over, Kate and Dennison are horrified and also aware of the comedy of what just happened: the Russians, yes, the Russians, are behind the attack. Now, they have to figure out what to do. They can’t tell anyone what the Iranian Ambassador said before he died. They have to leak it through other channels and need intelligence to find out and take it up the chain of command.

The episode ends with Mr. and Mrs. Wyler, who are still married and planning on getting divorced, getting busy.

What’s so good about this episode is it launches the story in so many different directions. There’s so much on the table now:

• Kate is trying to navigate this crisis and figure out how to get the UK to stop instigating Iran.
• She’s trying to decide if she wants to be Vice President
• Kate and Hal are at odds most of the time, but the episode ends with them together, so who knows where we’re going from here?
• Kate also has chemistry with Dennison. It’s very obvious that there’s something to their relationship.
• Eidra and Stuart are also still working things out and deciding what their future looks like

We’re halfway through The Diplomat, and it’s getting really good.

Written by Bryce Olin

The Diplomat episode 5 recap: The Dogcatcher

“The Dogcatcher” in the title of The Diplomat episode 5 refers to Kate. After she prevented an all-out war from happening in the Gulf, the staff started calling her the dogcatcher because she “leashed the dogs of war.” It’s ironic, then, how this episode ends, but more on that later.

This episode opens with a domestic scene between Eidra and Stuart. With a potential war between the US and Russia on the horizon, Stuart ponders aloud if they might consider getting a dog. A lot of people have babies during wartime since it’s life-affirming. Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call. The tox screen on the Iranian ambassador still isn’t back yet, meaning they don’t know how he died.

Because of this, Kate, Stuart, Hal, and the other members of their staff are held up on their way to Dennison’s country estate for an important briefing. Security sweeps are conducted to ensure Dennison isn’t planning to poison Kate, too, since he’s technically a suspect in Novichok’s death.

While stalled, Kate and Stuart go over their agenda for the meeting: Hug. Pivot. Bear. The “hug” is their discussion regarding a statement made to publicly demonstrate to Russia that the UK and the US are still a united front.

Then they need to “pivot” by finding the right way to exonerate Iran and shift to Russia, without an apology because Iran is on the US terrorism list, and an apology wouldn’t exactly look good, even if they were falsely accused of this particular act. Finally, the “bear,” is all about handling Russia—fitting since the bear is a widespread symbol for the country.

Moments after the meeting begins, things immediately start going off the rails. First, Kate makes a blunder by discussing how Novichok got his tea poisoned, a fact she shouldn’t know since she wasn’t supposed to have been in the room when he died. Then Dennison makes an offhand remark about moving point one to point three, a.k.a. pushing the “hug” discussion to the end of the meeting, which is alarming, especially as his decision comes after he gets off a call with the prime minister.

Dennison fakes a coughing fit so he and Kate can have an aside. He tells her about her tea mistake, and Kate says it’s fine. Maybe no one noticed, and if they did, they can say Dennison told her. As for moving the “hug,” Dennison drops a bombshell. Trowbridge wants to break up the US/UK alliance. He believes that it’s dangerous to be America’s enemy but to be its friend is fatal. Obviously, yeah, that’s a big deal, and Kate says it certainly warrants a longer conversation.

Speaking of Prime Minister Trowbridge, he just so happens to be in the neighborhood and decides to drop by the meeting where he can input his two cents. It quickly becomes apparent that Trowbridge will not be satisfied with anything but an aggressive attack against Russia. He wants to bomb something. Even the threat of nuclear retaliation doesn’t deter him.

While the meeting is ongoing, Hal galavants around the estate with Dennison’s sister, Cecilia. Hal is trying to play the part of arm candy, of a doting wife who doesn’t interfere. It’s his latest scheme to try and make Kate reassess their marriage, he’s showing her that he’s capable of laying low and not doing things behind her back.

He and Cecilia get high and go skinny-dipping, but Hal can’t get erect for any woman that’s not his wife. He freely admits that to her later. Hal also recommends that Kate consider sleeping with Dennison since she’ll need someone to occupy her time when he’s gone.

All of the plans Kate and Dennison try to cook up fail. So Kate comes up with something new on her own. She gets a list of Russian targets that the military would be comfortable bombing and hands it over to Trowbridge. It’s likely she has an ulterior motive, but it’s still quite a shock to see Kate offering such a bold move to the prime minister after they’ve spent the entire episode arguing against that very thing. What happened to leashing the dogs of war!?

Also, in this episode, Dennison and Kate are briefed by Eidra to make sure their story regarding Novichok matches. It immediately becomes clear that Kate shouldn’t speak to the police since she keeps adding details she shouldn’t know. It ends up not mattering anyway because the tox screen comes back clean. Novichok wasn’t poisoned. He died from a heart attack.

Written by Maddy Lennon

The Diplomat episode 6 recap: Some Lusty Tornado

When we left off, Kate appeared to give Trowbridge the all-clear on bombing something in Russia. Dennison is moving ahead full-steam, looking to call in the defense secretary and more. Kate tells him to chill because they’re not actually going to bomb anything. She just gave that to Trowbridge so he would stop wanting it so badly. Dennison argues that, no, she just made it okay for him to bomb something with American approval.

Kate feels guilty for going behind Dennison’s back, but Hal points out she just played a move that’s part of a larger plan; it’s not the final destination. Then he notices she’s been drinking non-stop on an empty stomach and escorts her to the kitchen, which they ransack for snacks and more wine.

Trowbridge interrupts their midnight feast and decides to join in. It gives Kate a chance to talk to him without everyone else around. Playing chicken with a country that would be happy to use a nuclear warhead at a moment’s notice is never a smart move until you’ve exhausted all other options. Why doesn’t Trowbridge take their money instead? The UK has access to billions of Russia’s dirty money. Trowbridge could choke off their finances and make a big impact.

Now that she’s sold Trowbridge on a bloodless option, she and Hal enlist the assistance of the entire staff to help them work through a 200-point plan that night. Kate visits Dennison in his room to apologize for going behind his back earlier.

At one point, she tells him she needs him and that they make a great team, which Dennison misinterprets to mean she’s admitting romantic feelings for him. Dennison feels the same way, but Kate is mortified because that’s not what she was referring to. They leave things on an awkward note, but Dennison gets the message regarding their new plan.

Desperate for more intel on Russia’s attack, Stuart pays Eidra a visit in the middle of the night. Unaware Stuart was planning to visit her, Eidra pulls a gun on who she believes is an intruder. Thankfully, she realizes it’s Stuart before firing. Once the gun is safely put away, Stuart asks Eidra what more she knows about the Russian intel.

Eidra says they’re still trying to figure out who issued the order, but there’s been Russian submarine movement on the British coast, which may mean Russia knows that they know it was them. She’s invested in finding a diplomatic solution and promises Stuart he’ll know as soon as she does (well, he’s like eighth in line to find out, but still).

The following day, Kate gives Dennison the notes so he can pitch their plan to Trowbridge while she plans to do the same to Ganon. Dennison argues Kate should do it, but she says, “British plan, British pitch.” They argue about this until Kate takes a tumble down the stairs and hurts her wrist. Seeing her injured softens Dennison, and he reluctantly agrees to do it, though he questions if Kate intentionally hurled herself down the steps to get out of giving an oral presentation. It’s something his sister would do. Kate pauses to say, “I am not your sister. At this point, that ought to be clear.” Spicy.

The problem is, Trowbridge seems to have changed his mind since their nighttime kitchen conversation. He no longer wants diplomacy and is back wanting to bomb stuff. Hal and Cecilia inform Kate that Trowbridge is still conferring with his former advisor, Margaret “Maggie” Roylin. He likely spoke with her after their conversation and is now parroting her advice. It’s fitting since Maggie actually lives right around the corner from Dennison’s estate. How convenient.

Kate is peeved Dennison didn’t tell her about this, but he pleads with her not to talk to Maggie and let him handle Trowbridge. Well, that doesn’t sit well with Kate, so she gets Cecilia to take her to Maggie’s home. There, Kate convinces Maggie to help her so they can hash this out and call it a day. Maggie says Trowbridge isn’t going to do something that causes him to “lose the kingdom,” so to speak. He needs an act of unity to get him through the Scottish referendum and believes instigating war with Russia is what will do that. Obviously, Kate asks Maggie to help her come up with something more diplomatic.

With Maggie’s assistance, they come up with a new plan. They’ll target the Lenkov Group, which is technically not Russia, or so the Kremlin keeps insisting. In reality, they are the Kremlin’s private army pretending to be mercenaries—although they do sometimes act as mercenaries, and they’re in Libya trying to restart a war the UN settled, and Libya has been asking for help.

If the UK intervenes, then it looks like they’re just there to defend Libya, and it wouldn’t be considered an illegal war crime like if they attacked the Lenkov Group unwarranted. It’s a good plan, one that should satisfy Trowbridge’s bloodlust while simultaneously making everyone look good in the process, and, most importantly, it will allow them to avoid starting a war.

It sounds like the perfect way to keep everyone happy, until they hit a snag: Ganon. He shoots down the plan immediately.

Earlier, while Kate was visiting Maggie, she instructed Hal to pick up Ganon from the airport. He found it suspicious that Ganon said he had just flown “nine hours” when the flight from DC is really only about seven. Hal asks Stuart to get his CIA girlfriend to look into Ganon’s secret side trip, and they find out he made a pitstop in South Carolina to pick up an honorary doctorate.

Kate and Hal realize Ganon is hoping to run for president, and it’ll be hard to beat the sitting president if he brokers a Persian-Gulf-Russia-Libya hat trick. Kate uses that information to take down Ganon by reporting his deceit to the president. It makes her an enemy, but Hal reminds her that it’s not her job to worry about things like that anymore. She has Stuart to smooth things over now.

Not only did Kate make things uncomfortable with Ganon, but she also rubs Dennison the wrong way when he realizes she went behind his back (again) to talk to Maggie. In the process of apologizing for that mistake, Kate also admits she has romantic feelings for him, too, but they can’t focus on that right now because they’ve got bigger fish to fry.

There’s a funny moment toward the end of The Diplomat episode 6 where Stuart asks Hal how he knew about him and Eidra. It turns out Hal didn’t know until Stuart left a long pause after Hal mentioned his “CIA girlfriend.” Either way, Hal’s comment nudged Stuart and Eidra into making their relationship public.

And speaking of long, dangling, eloquent pauses, the next time Stuart and Hal ask Kate what she thinks about becoming vice president, she pauses. It seems like pulling off the Trowbridge/Libya/Ganon plan has given her the kind of rush she can become used to if she became VP. Stuart points out she could accomplish more in one afternoon than most people do in their lifetime. Either way, for once, Kate doesn’t immediately shoot down the idea, which is a start!

The episode ends with Kate celebrating her latest win flanked by the two main men in her life, Hal and Dennison. Stuart and Cecilia watch from the sidelines, and Cecilia makes a snarky remark about Kate having them both, alerting Stuart to the fact something is brewing between Kate and Dennison and could potentially become a problem down the line.

Written by Maddy Lennon

The Diplomat episode 7 recap: Keep Your Enemies Closer

A post-coital Hal and Kate discuss their marriage and partnership. They’re still working out the kinks of this new dynamic, but they are trying to make things work, more or less.

Elsewhere, Eidra tells Stuart she wants to wait to go public until the Russia thing is played out. They still haven’t figured out exactly who issued the demand, and all the backchannels are dead. It’s weird. Something isn’t adding up.

As for Kate, she’s set to meet with Russian Ambassador Oleg Balakin and tell him the plan. Britain knows the Lenkov Company, commissioned by the Russian government, attacked their warship, and they intend to take action against Lenkov in Libya with America’s blessing within the next 24 hours, finally putting an end to a series of escalating moves.

Except, that doesn’t happen. When Kate gets into the room with Balakin, he secretly slips her a note sending her to a wine shop nearby while he pretends to keep their meeting going with a long lecture that the others can hear outside the door as Kate sneaks out. She meets a contact who informs her that Lenkov will be staying in his daughter’s villa in France on the 30th for three days. They’re handing Lenkov over, which means either Russia is screwing with the US, or they didn’t do it.

That throws a new wrench in the plan as they must now quickly change gears. Kate and Stuart debrief Eidra about this. Eidra says even if Lenkov is just a scapegoat, they should take it anyway since he is a bad guy. Eidra thinks this makes sense, though, since it’s been looking more and more like Russia didn’t orchestrate the attack.

Kate is put on a plane and sent to DC so she can go to the Oval Office and tell them about the change in plans. There, Ganon basically steamrolls her in a room full of 90 people, including the President, dismissing Libya altogether and making her look foolish. Kate is rather dumbstruck, so she goes out with her old friend Jill and gets drunk.

Meeting with Jill turns out to be a devastating blow for Kate because she finds out that not going to Kabul put the kibosh on their plans to get into Afghanistan and help people out. Jill says she hasn’t been allowed entry into the capitol because Kate’s changing assignments made them put a pause on the whole thing. There are still around 35,000 people they want to help, and many of their contacts there have been killed, beaten, or thrown in jail.

Elsewhere, Hal takes a meeting with Billie, who informs him that the president plans on firing Ganon. Like Kate, Hal also goes to dinner with a colleague of his who suggests Hal is going to try to become the new secretary of state and replace Ganon. It seems like Hal is considering it.

When Kate returns to London, she’s hungover and upset by everything that happened in DC. To make matters worse, she has to contend with a pissed-off Trowbridge who had just announced they were sending troops to Libya and accepted the country’s thanks, only to be told 12 minutes later by Ganon that the plan was off.

The episode ends with a tense conversation between her and Hal where Kate seems inclined to turn to Dennison for comfort rather than her husband. He suggests she call Dennison in the morning. They get ready for bed in silence.

Written by Maddy Lennon

The Diplomat episode 8 recap: The James Bond Clause

Seemingly overnight, Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge changes his tune regarding arresting Lenkov, baffling Kate and Dennison, particularly Kate, since Trowbridge called her an embarrassment the last time she proposed the plan. So, what changed?

Before they can get the plan to arrest Lenkov underway, Kate needs to seek approval from the French ambassador since the arrest would be happening on their soil and require French police involvement.

Elsewhere, Eidra reaches out to Billie to discuss the possibility of turning Hal into a CIA asset, but Billie makes it clear that cannot happen because Kate is on the shortlist for something important. She gives Eidra permission to ask Stuart. He tells her Kate is being prepared to potentially become the next vice president.

Eidra realizes that if this happens, Stuart would be returning to DC with Kate in a few months, and she’s pissed that Stuart knew this was a possibility all along. He told her not to go to Cairo and wants to go public with a relationship that’s probably ending in a few months. Stuart tries to defend himself and says that’s not true, but Eidra kicks him out of her office before they can resolve anything, seemingly ending their relationship.

Dennison and Kate prepare for a trip to Paris to meet with the French ambassador. Before leaving, Kate throws Hal a bone to give him something to do. She lets him do her planned speech at Chatham House. Stuart is somewhat shocked by this change of plans and informs Kate that Hal has waived the Chatham House rule and asked for his speech to be sent to Billie.

Chatham House has a rule where anything speakers say can be cited, but they cannot reveal who made any particular comment. It’s not great for building public image, but Hal waived that rule, which means people can cite him directly, and Billie can get a copy of his speech.

Kate is clearly unnerved by Hal’s decision and slowly realizes that Hal is gunning for Ganon’s spot as secretary of state. His speech is all about diplomacy and catches the interest of Tory MP Meritt Grove, who requests a drink with Hal. When Kate finds out, she calls him livid that he would essentially act like a link to the White House despite the fact he’s not technically involved anymore.

She feels used like Hal intentionally made her burn Ganon so he could snake his way back into the White House. She accuses him of using the whole “vice president” thing as a fun side project until he could figure out what he really wanted to do. She tells him not to go to the meeting with Merritt and says she’ll have her office cancel the appointment.

All of this happens while Kate is in Paris with Dennison. Their initial meeting with the ambassador goes poorly, and Dennison comes off as a misogynistic prick, interrupting Kate and speaking over her. But later, he tells her it was a ploy to create a woman-to-woman bond between Kate and the ambassador since they hate it when men interject and act superior. It will allow Kate to pull her aside that evening at a fancy event they’re attending at the Louvre and talk to her again about Lenkov.

After the meeting and the phone call with Hal, Dennison offers a shoulder to lean on as Kate laments what she believes is the official end of her marriage (again).

The Diplomat finale comes to a head with a climactic series of final scenes that draws tense parallels between Hal and his meeting with Meritt and with Kate and the French ambassador in Paris. In Paris, Kate meets with the ambassador, who reveals the orders for Lenkov have changed.

The Brits announced a kill order, and the French police were told to stand down. Kate is shocked and thinks Dennison went behind her back. But Dennison swears he knew nothing about this despite the fact he would have needed to sign off on any kill order as the foreign secretary. Dennison looks through his phone to see if he somehow missed some sort of documentation, but Kate quickly puts two and two together and throws his phone into a bag with hers, and hands it off to a security guard.

Kate says the only person a kill order benefits is whoever hired Lenkov, meaning Nicol Trowbridge likely hired Lenkov and started this entire thing so he could pin the attack on another nation and go to war—thus getting his “act of unity” to maintain his position and showcase an act of strength.

Back in London, Stuart sends Ronnie into the restaurant to tell Merritt that Hal isn’t coming. Merrit leaves in a huff and heads toward his car at the same time, Hal and Stuart both approach him from opposite ends of the sidewalk. Just as they reach Merritt’s car, a car bomb goes off, leaving the fates of all three men in the air. Although I think we can safely assume Merritt is dead, the jury’s out on what happens to Hal and Stuart! I guess we’ll have to wait and see if Netflix renews the show for a second season.

Written by Maddy Lennon