Diksha Sundriyal
The events of Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat‘ begin with an attack on the British warship, HMS Courageous. While the country deals with this tragedy and the search for the culprits intensifies, US diplomat Kate Wyler is assigned as ambassador to the UK, putting her right in the middle of the drama and intrigue. By the second season, it is revealed that the attack was orchestrated by Margaret Roylin, working on the advice of US Vice President Grace Penn. This changes everything that Kate thought she knew about the situation, and also makes her realize how deep a mess has been created by people like Roylin. The third season has her waiting for her fate, and with all the options in front of her, she makes a shocking choice.
Margaret Roylin Chooses to Go Out on Her Own Terms
When Margaret Roylin became involved in the attack on HMS Courageous, she thought she was doing it for Nicol Trowbridge. She had acted as his mentor, his confidante, and his unofficial advisor as the country’s Prime Minister, which meant that Trowbridge held blind faith in her. She, too, loved him dearly and wanted nothing but him to succeed politically. But becoming a Prime Minister and keeping the position are two different things. So, when it looked like Scotland might secede from the union, leading Trowbridge to lose his office, she took a drastic measure, on the advice of US Vice President Grace Penn, who had her own agenda behind keeping Scotland within the UK. Despite claiming to have done it for Trowbridge, Roylin didn’t tell him about it because she knew how vehemently he would refuse to take that action.
She also wanted him to have plausible deniability in case the secret ever came out. She turned out to be right on both fronts. When Trowbridge discovered that she had masterminded the attack, he was heartbroken at her betrayal, not only personally but also on behalf of the country that he serves. He becomes so angry that he tries to strangle her at one point. Not surprisingly, he breaks all ties with her, but he cannot expose her role in the matter because he knows it would make things worse for the country than it already is. Still, Trowbridge knows Roylin cannot escape punishment. The problem is that she is being protected by the CIA, so he needs her to be brought into custody through proper channels. When President Rayburn dies and a change in regime takes place, Trowbridge makes the demand to move Roylin into British custody.
The Americans would have complied in a normal situation, but the problem is that she conspired with Grace Penn, who is now the President of the USA, and revealing her complicity in the attack would worsen the relations between the countries. Giving her up is not an option, so Roylin is offered asylum in the US. The problem is that Roylin knows she cannot stay in Britain because of what she has done. Neither does she want to hide away in America, waiting for death to come to her, either naturally or in the form of an assassin sent to kill her, most likely by Trowbridge, who later confesses that he indeed wanted to kill her himself. With the option between bad and worse, Roylin decides to leave the equation altogether. She downs a whole bottle of pills and is found dead the next day.
Margaret Roylin’s Inevitable Fate Led to Celia Imrie’s Departure from The Diplomat
When one makes the kind of mess that Margaret Roylin did, accountability of the highest level becomes unavoidable. The moment the matter of her culpability comes to light, it becomes clear, especially to her, that she can never go back to being the way she was. She will either rot in a prison in her country, branded a traitor, or she will hide away, rotting in a perhaps more comfortable prison, still a traitor. So, she chose to skip the whole part about answering for her actions to the country. With all that in mind, her death had been in the cards since the second season. It also means that actress Celina Imrie, who plays Roylin, will not be gracing our screens in the upcoming seasons of the Netflix series.
Talking with Town and Country Magazine about playing Roylin, Imrie said that it was “quite hard being somebody so disliked in the character,” but she absolutely loved getting to play as complex a role as Roylin. She also revealed that her role made it a “quite isolating” experience during filming, but things got better when she joined other members of the cast to film at Inveraray Castle in Scotland. She said it felt like “being in a theater company” and allowed the cast and crew to get to know each other better. Overall, she was thrilled to be a part of the series, especially working alongside a cast of brilliant actors, all of whom make the series a compelling drama that keeps the audience hooked all the way through.
Read More: Who is Callum Ellis? Who Plays Him in The Diplomat?
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