The tension is building as Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) follows the clues in The Diplomat season 2. Here’s your recap of The Diplomat episode 2, “St. Paul’s.”
It’s raining the day of MP Merritt Grove’s funeral. Kate walks up the steps of the cathedral with a weak Hal (Rufus Sewell). Eidra (Ali Ahn) greets them inside, as does Austin (David Gyasi). They’re escorted to their seats.
We follow Eidra as she hurries through the church, navigating the labyrinthian layout with ease. She goes to a room in one of the towers where Margaret Roylin (Celia Imrie) is looking out the window. She’s worried about her safety, but Eidra insists that she’s safer there than anywhere else. Eidra points out that she’s not on the run, she’s at a funeral and that makes this the safest place for her. Roylin swaps out her coat and follows a guard as Eidra steps into the bathroom, where she swaps bags with a woman wearing the same coat (and hairstyle) as Roylin.
As we return to the church, we see that there are actually quite a few Roylin lookalikes. Eidra takes her seat in the back as PM Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) arrives and sits in the front. Kate looks around at Austin and Trowbridge as the service begins. Soon people start taking notice that Roylin is there and start whispering.
When Trowbridge speaks, he spots Roylin in the office and gets distracted. Austin turns and sees her, too. He wraps up his speech as the congregation starts singing. Trowbridge moves to find her but Hal tosses his cane into the aisle, forcing Trowbridge to help him instead of pursuing Roylin. Eidra’s people are in motion, swapping coats so Trowbridge ends up chasing one of the lookalikes while the real Roylin heads to a waiting car with Eidra.
As Hal and Kate leave the church, Hal says he needs to use the bathroom and he insists that he can make it alone. He tells her that she can still divorce him even though he got blown up. When they see Austin, he asks if she slept with him and she says she didn’t, but she might have slept with him. Hal walks away and Austin approaches, saying that their suspicions about Lenkov have been confirmed. He adds that Roylin was inside and Kate pretends to be surprised. She takes the time to apologize for her behavior on the bridge in Paris. He knows she was worried about her husband, and when she starts talking about her marriage he interrupts and says her marriage is also safe.
At the embassy, Eidra says Roylin is downstairs and wants to talk to Austin. Kate admits she’s not as close to him as she once was, but they’re interrupted when Stuart (Ato Essandoh) walks in and the office applauds. Alysse (Pearl Mackie) asks if he’s supposed to be there but he says he can’t stop thinking about Ronnie. Kate asks Eidra if they can loop him in and she says no; the women instead focus on helping Stuart get comfortable in Kate’s office. Eidra leaves and Kate tells him she’s so sorry for sending Stuart to the restaurant. He says it’s not her fault. Kate hints at his relationship with Eidra, but Stuart says Eidra dumped him. He gets up and heads back to his office to check his email, passing Ronnie’s empty desk on the way. Stuart finds Hal sleeping in his office.
Austin gets a call from Kate, asking him to come to the embassy on urgent business. She uses the excuse of him signing Ronnie’s condolence book. He seems to understand the hidden message she’s sending him.
Stuart and Hal bond over their pain pills and fatigue. Neil walks in with coffee for them, hoping to join in the conversation, but they ask him to leave for a private conversation. Stuart wants to apologize for the hurtful things he said before the bombing but Hal tells him not to apologize for things that aren’t his fault. Hal asks if Stuart wants him to apologize for what happened to Ronnie but he says that wasn’t his fault. He asks Neil to bring his car around.
Austin arrives at the embassy and Eidra is there to meet him. Kate is escorted to the elevator and they all meet down in the basement, where Kate admits that they have Roylin with them and she wants to talk.
Roylin and Austin immediately start bickering. She warns that he is at risk of meeting the same fate as Grove because the same people who killed him are getting tired of Austin, too. She says British citizens were behind the HMS Courageous bombing, and it came at the order of Grove, who hired Lenkov to make it happen. Eidra asks why Grove would want to bomb a British vessel, leading Kate to realize that it was done to unify the country and stop Scottish succession. She goes on to say that she always uses a burner phone to contact people because it can’t be traced, but in this case Kate called her and that’s how they knew where Grove was going to be.
Neil tells Stuart that Trowbridge is coming, so he sends someone to find her. When Kate leaves the room, Stuart tells her that the PM is coming to sign the condolence book. Kate says she can’t do it because Austin is here. Since Stuart doesn’t know what’s going on, she can’t explain what they’re doing.
Once she’s back downstairs, Kate joins Eidra and Austin in a closet, where Kate points out that Roylin confirmed that the call came from inside the country. They argue over what to do with Roylin, but they’re interrupted as Trowbridge arrives. Kate meets him outside and he comes in to sign the book in front of the assembled cameras. Trowbridge asks for a moment of privacy with Kate. He wants to talk about Roylin and why Kate called her. She says President Rayburn wants her to manage Trowbridge so she relied on input from Roylin for advice about Lenkov. Kate promises to reach out if she hears from Roylin.
After the PM leaves, Kate asks to speak with Stuart outside. She fills him in on what has been happening. Stuart has been wanting Kate to focus on Ronnie’s death but Kate thinks Trowbridge was behind her death. She’s trying to piece it together because Ronnie’s face is seared in her memory as she struggles to find out who killed her. Later, Kate is briefed about Ronnie’s funeral but she can hardly pay attention.
Stuart confronts Eidra about Roylin, arguing that Kate is “running with scissors” at his staff. He doesn’t think Kate will be able to forgive herself for what happened, and he thinks Ronnie would be alive if her predecessors were still there.
Kate and Stuart ride together to Ronnie’s ceremony. He tells her that he tried to warn her about Roylin but Kate didn’t listen. He told her who Roylin was and she didn’t listen, and it ended up being a deadly mistake. Inside the carrier, Ronnie’s body is carried to the plane while Kate and Stuart stand across from each other.
At dinner that night, Kate reveals that Stuart is mad at her and Hal says he’s mad at him, too. When she mentions the call to Roylin, he insists it’s not her fault. However, Kate still sees her part in everything that happened. He calls it the cost of doing business and he reminds her that she never said anything when he was the one taking the hits earlier in their marriage. She walks away, furious, but he follows her into the bedroom and they fight, with her telling him to never say she understands the cost of doing business now that she’s the one in charge. She eventually tells him she was being unfair because it’s the job, and she always blamed him for everything. “The job has a morally repugnant component,” she says.
Hal can’t believe she thinks the job turned him into an awful person. He tells her to sleep in the other bedroom, but as he sits on the bed and starts to undress he realizes that he can’t get his shoes off without her. The admission sobers her, and soon she’s kneeling on the ground to help him.
All episodes of The Diplomat season 2 are available to stream now on Netflix.
