‘The Diplomat’ Boss Explains Why [Spoiler] Was Killed Off: ‘It Was Not a Happy Revelation’

The Diplomat Season 4 features the shocking midseason death of a main character who has been part of the series since its inception. Series creator Debora Cahn tells TV Insider that this was a narrative choice made between Seasons 3 and 4, not something she had in mind from the beginning for this character’s arc. She says that real-world events inspired the decision to kill off this character and completely upend the show’s U.K. government. Warning: The Diplomat spoilers ahead!

In The Diplomat Season 4, Kate (Keri Russell) and Hal Wyler’s (Rufus Sewell) marriage is crumbling under the weight of their respective roles as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and vice president of the United States, and Kate finds herself in Hal’s usual position of having to defend choices she made on her own that have personal and professional impact on both of them. A failed assassination attempt on President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) snowballs into her becoming more willing to risk human life with military decisions, and first gentleman Todd Penn (Bradley Whitford) is concerned at first but eventually becomes the biggest enabler of her decisions.

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Who dies in The Diplomat Season 4?

The Poseidon weapon, which Grace and Hal had stolen from a sunken Russian submarine, was still top of mind for both governments. A sequence of twists and misunderstandings led to Hal admitting to Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) that they took the weapon in secret.

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What they thought was defensiveness from Trowbridge was actually him reeling from the shocking news that the U.K. defense secretary, Austin Dennison (David Gyasi), was killed in a helicopter crash while on an assignment abroad. Nicol, Austin’s longtime friend, sent him on the mission. Difficult conversations with Kate in the days that followed led to Nicol resigning from his position.

Austin was the first British official Kate bonded with in The Diplomat Season 1. They were intellectual matches and quickly attracted to each other, and their will-they-or-won’t-they dynamic burned throughout Seasons 1 through 3 as Kate’s marriage was continuously on and off. They finally acted on their feelings for each other in the third season, but it was interrupted. Austin married someone else not long after.

Why did Austin Dennison die in The Diplomat Season 4?

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Cahn realized while writing Season 4 that Austin’s death would be necessary for the plot, but she says “it was not a happy revelation.” The U.K. went through several prime ministers while the series filmed its first two seasons, and this became the origin of this Nicol-Austin storyline in Season 4.

“When we filmed in the U.K., the first two seasons were filmed almost exclusively in the U.K., there were five different prime ministers in the time that we were there,” Cahn explains to TV Insider. “The idea that the government doesn’t change, and Kate has gotten to know them and establish relationships with them such that she has access, she understands what she’s dealing with, it just felt dishonest.”

“The fundamental nature of what it means to be in that kind of job, you get a new post every three years, you’re in a different country, and you’re starting from scratch,” Cahn continues, “or you’re there for 10 minutes, and the government changes, and there’s a whole new cast of characters, and you have no idea what you’re dealing with, and you have no relationships and no way to interpret what the subtext is in any conversation. It just felt like we had to put her through that.”

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Nicol’s replacement as prime minister is Bethan Vaughn, played by former Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker. Bethan is “sane,” as Kate describes her, and the best-case scenario replacement. Cahn wanted to see how Kate would react to a British P.M. who was better than Trowbridge, but not in ways that benefit the Penn administration.

“I also wanted to see her deal with this situation where I think a lot of stuff got blamed on Trowbridge,” Cahn says. “Trowbridge is such a wild card, he’s so reckless, and his judgment is so bad. Bad things could be blamed on Trowbridge. And I wanted to see what happened when Kate Wyler gets exactly the partner she wants. Her intellectual, equal, shared set of values, they even look a little bit alike.”

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“She gets the dream prime minister on the other side of the table finally, and then it turns out that from that person’s perspective, we are the problem, we are the agents of chaos,” Cahn adds. “And dealing with someone you respect objecting to your behavior is much, much different than having somebody you don’t respect, like Trowbridge not liking your behavior.”

Trowbridge’s resignation came halfway through the season, and the character never returned. Vaughn’s government was justifiably unwilling to accept threats of aggression from Penn, who doubled down on the threat to send warships against the U.K. to stop Russian forces from retrieving their dead soldiers from their sunken submarine. The U.S. didn’t want Russia knowing that the Poseidon was no longer there, and Penn was willing to attack NATO allies to prevent that from happening.

After Penn removed Stuart (Ato Essandoh) from his position for publicly dissenting the decision, Kate resigned as ambassador in front of Grace and the entire G7 Summit. As of the time of publication, The Diplomat has not yet been renewed for Season 5, but the Season 4 finale cliffhanger was its best one yet.

The Diplomat, Seasons 1-4 streaming now, Netflix