The Diplomat season 2 ending explained and will there be a season 3?

The Diplomat season 2 ended in dramatic style with a truly shocking twist and you might now be wondering what lies in store for the Netflix show.

It’s a mark of a great TV show that after the finale of one season you’re left eager for answers and another instalment. This was definitely our experience after watching The Diplomat ending last year and thankfully we didn’t have to wait too long for The Diplomat season 2. After delivering a shockingly suspenseful season 1 finale, viewers likely had high hopes for how the political thriller series would finish this time. We weren’t disappointed by the level of drama that unfolded in episode six and there were so many important details unravelled across the course of the season too. Because of this some fans might be wanting to know a little more about The Diplomat season 2 ending and what it means for the future of the Netflix show and the possibility of a season 3.

*Warning: Spoilers ahead*

The Diplomat season 2 ending explained: Who was behind what happened to HMS Courageous?

Just when we thought we’d found out who was behind hiring Russian mercenary Roman Lenkov to carry out the attack on HMS Courageous, a British aircraft carrier in season 1, The Diplomat season 2 added another layer of mystery and betrayal. Throughout the second season building to The Diplomat season 2 ending, the US Ambassador to the UK, Kate Wyler ended up discovering that it wasn’t Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge who’d been behind it at all.

Instead, the attack had been arranged by Margaret Roylin, the former campaign manager for the Conservative Party. She’d hoped that it would allow Trowbridge to pull the country together and prevent Scotland from securing independence from the rest of the United Kingdom, and no-one was supposed to have been hurt.

Kate ended up getting Roylin to admit to her part in the attack that had ended up killing 43 people - much to Trowbridge’s fury. He attacked Roylin, signalling to Kate once and for all that he hadn’t been aware of her plan. Except the plan wasn’t Roylin’s alone and the one who gave her the idea was none other than the Vice President of the United States, Grace Penn.

In The Diplomat season 2 ending we saw Kate and Penn have a heart-to-heart after the Ambassador learnt from her husband Hal that Penn was involved. Penn tried to get Kate to see it from her point of view as she believed that if Scotland had achieved independence, the US would have no longer been able to dock their nuclear submarines there at Creegan submarine base - the only one in Europe they could use to monitor Russian nuclear naval activity.

"The Scots hate nukes and they hate English overreach," Penn told Kate. "But they really hate having a bullseye on their heads."

Kate ended up agreeing with Penn that if Scotland had gained independence, they would have closed the base the US used. Even so, Kate was wary of Penn and suggested that the Vice President was trying to deny it was her fault when she said no-one was supposed to die. In response the Vice President said she could name “every one” of the 43 people who’d died and that burying what had happened was a way to avoid the disaster bringing down US President William Rayburn.

Following this confrontation with Penn, Kate ended up confiding in her husband Hal about what the Vice President had told her. She presented the idea that Penn shouldn’t lose her job because it was her only choice, meaning that Kate wouldn’t be Vice President in her place.

Meanwhile, Hal tried to persuade her to tell the US Secretary of State, Miguel Ganon, with the ambition of her succeeding Penn as Vice President. Kate was furious at his suggestion at first, but the next day she agreed to the plan and went for a walk with Penn.

"Kate, I need your assurance you’re not going to tell anyone," Penn said simply after Kate responded that she wouldn’t be doing so, she added, "I intend to keep my job, that means you have to stop chasing it."

As the two women talked, we saw Hal being put through on a video call, not to Ganon, but to the President himself. Although we didn’t see exactly what happened during this conversation, in the closing stages of The Diplomat season 2 Kate took a phone call from her husband and he explained what he’d done - saying, "He got really upset. He died, Katie. The President is dead. Grace Penn is President"

With Rayburn dead, Grace Penn ended season 2 as the new US President, with secret service personnel coming to surround her and realisation dawning on Kate. Having challenged Penn and set out her desire to replace her as Vice President, Kate now looks to have made herself a very powerful enemy and her future career looks uncertain.

The Diplomat season 2 ending might not have ended with an explosion like season 1, but the shocking twist was every bit as thrilling to watch and sets up an intriguing new era for season 3.

Will there be The Diplomat season 3?

Often after the latest season of a hit show ends we have to wait patiently for several weeks to find out if we’ll be getting another one, but this isn’t the case with this Netflix drama as The Diplomat season 3 has already been green-lit. Not only that, but the next season of The Diplomat has also reportedly started production, as per The Hollywood Reporter. This is great news for fans of The Diplomat - especially as season 2 only had six episodes compared to the eight in season 1.

We saw Hal and Kate’s relationship shift slightly and get more complicated amid all the goings on in season 2 and Hal’s actor Rufus Sewell suggested that this will only continue.

"The end of season two is one thing, but very quickly even more extraordinary things happen. What I loved that made me take the job was the relationship. Now what I realise was that the more extraordinary the surroundings are, the more context there is informing that relationship," he said. "Allison Janney [who plays Grace Penn] coming in, the dynamics of the story after what happens at the end of season two really gives us some extraordinary things."

Rufus continued, "Also it changes dynamics that might have been in danger of playing out. And it’s getting really complex, the dynamics, the billing, is changing, which is always so rich when you’re acting in a relationship."

Meanwhile, according to The Diplomat’s showrunner Debora Cahn, the Netflix political thriller could go way beyond season 3 if it’s renewed again by the streaming giant as she has "ideas for a long, long time".

"I know some of the ways that the story could continue or end. There’s some of it that I don’t know," she explained. "And, you know, to be completely honest, I have to say a lot of my favorite stuff was not in my plans in the very beginning. It’s great that what we see from the actors could be the inspiration for that or somebody else on the writing staff. I have ideas but I want them to be outdone, like just blown out of the water by something else that’s even better."

The Diplomat season 3 will reportedly return to having eight episodes and whilst there is no official release date for it yet, the fact that it's already started production suggests that we won't have to wait too long for it. If it follows the pattern of season 2 being released a year after season 1, then it's possible that The Diplomat season 3 could potentially land in 2025.