Margaret Roylin's true intentions are revealed in Season 2 of The Diplomat.
After appearing in several episodes in Season 1, Celia Imrie's Tory parliamentarian is back in The Diplomat's second season but with a twist.
Fans may remember her as being the strategist behind the in-universe English Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (played by Rory Kinnear), a political leader who looks primed and ready to do anything he can to stay in power.
Margaret Roylin's Diplomat Season 2 Role Explained
Margaret Roylin (played by Celia Imrie) starts The Diplomat Season 2 in a precarious place.
After popping up at several key moments in Season 1, being revealed as the woman behind UK Prime Minister (PM) Nicol Trowbridge's political strategy (a playbook that helped him acquire the seat of PM in the first place), Margaret is missing when Season 2 starts.
With tempers flaring and a mysterious car bombing shaking the core of the British parliament, Margaret is mysteriously nowhere to be found.
This does not look good, as seeds of doubt surrounding Prime Minister Trowbridge and the recent terror attacks start to embed themselves in some characters (including Keri Russell's Kate Wyler).
She does not remain hidden for long, though. In Season 2's second episode, Kate receives an unprompted phone call from Margaret before she appears at the funeral of one of the car bombing victims, Member of Parliament Merritt Grove.
It is revealed that Margaret is being held, for the time being, at the U.S. Embassy in London. Still, she is not cooperating and denies having any prior knowledge of both the car bomb that kicked off Season 2 and the warship strike that killed dozens of British military men in Season 1.
This eventually leads to Prime Minister Trowbridge getting up on stage for a press conference and blaming the Russian mercenary Roman Lenkov for the recent attacks.
Trowbridge's claims come despite people like Kate Wyler suspecting he may have been the one behind the devastating events that left several in the British government dead.
All of this culminates in Episode 4, as Margaret Roylin meets with Kate's husband Hal (played by Rufus Sewell), pulling the curtain back on who was behind the attack on the HMS Courageous warship as well as the London car bombings.
It turns out that Prime Minister Trowbridge was not the one to pull the trigger, but Margaret herself. She ordered the missile strike on the HMS Courageous without the knowledge of the Prime Minister.
Later in Episode 4, Margaret reveals this information to Trowbridge, admitting that she ordered both attacks. This causes Trowbridge to attack her before some fellow parliamentarians pull him back.
The reason for Margaret's murderous strategy seems to be one of unity. She admits that with the Scottish secession movement picking up steam and Russia knocking on Europe's door, drastic actions were needed to "unite the kingdom."
However, things have backfired, and Trowbridge is left to pick up the pieces.
The Diplomat Season 2 is streaming on Netflix.
