The fifth episode of “The Diplomat” had Kate and Austin trying to put some sense into the PM to keep him from going after Russia unless there is substantial evidence that Lenkov was ordered by the top Russian establishment to attack the HMS Courageous. Trowbridge is in no mood to calm down, and he is asking everyone to pitch in ways to shake Russia to the core and possibly go to war with them. With Kate giving him on a platter a list of places that could be bombed in Russia, is she feeding the hungry man here, or will her reverse psychology work on the PM?
Spoilers Ahead
Kate’s All-Night Planning With The Team, Including Hal
Kate was hoping her bluff would calm the PM and probably bring some sense into him about why attacking Russia is not the safest option right now. But her list of potential places brings a smile to Trowbridge’s face, which is what Austin and Kate did not want. She realizes her plan to play reverse psychology on him backfired royally, and now she will have to convince the Secretary of State to get on board with the plan as well. Knowing her government will not support these attacks, Kate is breaking her head over how to let Trowbridge out of this suicide mission, which was suggested by Kate herself as a decoy. Austin lets her know that he always wanted the PM to be under his influence, but with Kate swooping in, he has kind of lost that influence, and he is sure he cannot talk Trowbridge out of this mission to attack Russia. Kate feels ridiculous for even having suggested this idea, hoping it would work and simmer down the war tendencies that the PM is carrying around with him.
Kate and Hal raided the Chevening House kitchen when they ran into the PM again, who was down there to get some wine for himself. As they converse over food and wine, Kate somehow convinces the PM that instead of going full artillery on Russia, it would be ideal to wage a financial war on them. The British government should attack the Russian ruble, which is floating around in London, in the name of plenty of Russian business establishments. Freezing all the Russian establishments in the country would lead to many allies of the UK doing the same in the hope of teaching Russia a lesson and possibly paralyzing the Russian economy. Doing something like this would have harder-hitting repercussions than a full-fledged guns and ammunition war on Russia. The PM is impressed with how Kate comes up with brilliant strategies. The PM agrees to this plan of action and asks her to work on it. Kate cannot believe this strategy worked on PM, and all she can do is rope in Austin as well to make a foolproof plan.
As the night has just begun for them, she is expecting Hal to help her, but he is being petty at the moment and is requesting that she let him be an active member of her life so that he can help her with her work. He is requesting that she treat him like a partner. If she is willing to do that, Hal is all in to help her. She finally agrees on the fact that Hal brings to the table plenty of knowledge and experience, which will make her job easier as well. Kate goes to Austin’s room to request that he help her with this fool-proof plan. Austin mistakes her arrival this late to his room as an indication of her being attracted to him and somehow confesses that he feels attracted to her as well. Kate immediately lets him know that she is not interested in pursuing any romantic relationship with him. She was here to apologize for ambushing him, and now she is asking for his help to formulate a plan to rope in the UK’s allies to forge a protest against Russian establishments. Although things get awkward, he agrees to join her. The attraction was there between Austin and Kate, but she is not in the right mindset to pursue anything romantically with anyone, especially with her marriage on the verge of breaking up.
‘The Diplomat’ Episode 6 Ending Explained: Will Kate, Hal, And Austin Make Way For The Libya Plan?
The team sat all night to come up with a foolproof plan to destabilize the Russian government financially. Kate wants Austin to take over the meeting and explain the entire plan to the PM. If the PM agrees to the plan, it will be easier for her to convince Ganon, who is on her way from the United States, to attend this meeting. As the PM walks in to hear what Austin and Kate have drawn up as a plan of action, he scraps all the strategies and goes back to the bombing of Russian troops in Syria. Austin and Kate are taken aback by what made the PM change his mind about the whole financial destabilization of Russia. He was on board with the plan just the night before, and within a few hours, he managed to throw that strategy out of the window. Austin and Kate know that he spoke to someone in the last few hours who changed his mind and convinced him to do the opposite. Kate is furious and confused about what the PM is doing in the name of acting against Russia. It is weird to see the PM making such claims, keeping in mind how accurate he was in the geographical location where he intends to bomb the Russian troops in Syria. She is sure someone is coaching him to pursue this course of action, and she has no clue who this person is.
Through Hal, Kate gets in touch with Cecilia, who lets her know that the PM is still taking political advice from Meg Roylin, his former campaign manager. She lives close to the Chevening House, and that is why the PM is in town. There is no indication that the PM is having an affair with her, but he is surely influenced by her words. Kate knows there is a nasty history of disagreements between Austin and Meg Roylin, and that’s why she has a word with him about whether she can converse with Meg about stopping her from advising the PM to do impossible things. Austin is dead against it because he believes consulting her would mean validating her power over him, which he does not want to do. Understanding his stance in this matter, Cecilia drives Kate to Meg’s home to confront her about her game plans. On reaching her place, Meg reveals that with Brexit, Scotland and Northern Ireland want to be a part of the EU and might exit Great Britain. A local election in Scotland will force Trowbridge to conduct a second referendum, which he is sure he will lose because Scotland will decide on separating. With that happening, other regions would follow the Scotland route, and soon enough, the PM would be known as the leader who split the country. He does not want that to be his legacy, and to save face; he wants to take military action as one last way to get the country united over the shared pain of losing the troops. Maybe the military action will affect the Scotland referendum, or maybe it won’t, but Trowbridge will exit his job with a legacy that will be remembered positively.
This is the game plan, which Kate thinks is genius, but again, they will have to find a way to make the attack legal so that the world media does not question Trowbridge’s actions. Hal comes up with a plan to legitimize the attack: the Lenkov group is the unofficial private army of the Russian government, and they are hired to wreak havoc in Libya. With Libya constantly asking for British help, the British could finally use this opportunity to throw Lenkov’s army out of Libya and come out victorious. Hal’s strategy of making it legal comes as a bonus since his experience in this field is vast. He is known to have dealt with many conflict-ridden nations, so this came about easily for him.
The PM is ready to sanction the plan, but Ganon, the secretary of state who is in for this meeting, vetoes the plan right away. He was hostile about the whole plan from the beginning, and he got a chance to just be the boss and say no to Kate. Hal here comes in handy and does his research to let Kate know that Miguel Ganon is planning to run for the President of the United States. If he sanctions the Libyan attack on the Lenkov forces, it will mean he would lose the next election as he will not stand a chance against the current President who just waged a war. Ganon has his presidential campaign plans ready, and that’s why it was easy for him to just say no to Kate and Austin’s plan of action.
Eidra Park, though, is in touch with MI6, who lets them know that it is not clear whether Russia did it or not because they are not finding any information about who hired Lenkov and ordered him to carry out the attacks. They have looked into everything and everyone who could give them any information, but Park is not getting any update on who ordered the attack. Park and Stuart plan to make their relationship public because it is high time people know that they are together. They agree to do so, and Stuart is excited to be making his relationship known to his colleagues, especially to Kate, whom he worships. Kate, on the other hand, does the impossible, which is to look past Ganon and talk to Billie and the President to get them to sanction her plans to attack the Lenkov group in Libya. The President approves her plan, and the wheel is finally turning. Kate is finally going to decide whether she wants to be the Vice President or not, and she is leaning toward saying yes. Kate seems to feel she has finally achieved something by getting everyone on board with the plan, and she does not want to stop feeling this way. This one feeling may be the reason why she is considering taking up the big job.
