Merritt Grove Is a Big Piece of The Diplomat Season 3 Puzzle—Here’s What Happened to Him
Merritt Grove is an integral part of Netflix‘s The Diplomat Season 1. The character, played by Simon Chandler, appears in only two episodes of the first season but is very much related to the main mystery. And though the character doesn’t appear at all in Season 2, his presence is still very much felt as the narrative that follows the Season 1 finale cliffhanger continues to unravel.
The show’s second season picks up in the immediate aftermath of that cliffhanger and wastes no time explaining what happened. But despite the fact that The Diplomat gives fans some answers right away, those answers very soon lead to more questions as the show sets up an already-announced Season 3. One of those big questions involves what happened to Merritt Grove.
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In Netflix’s The Diplomat Kerri Russell plays Kate Wyler, the American ambassador to the UK. The show’s underlying plot involves the UK Embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission, Stuart Hayford (Ato Essandoh), who is secretly working with the White House Chief of Staff Billie Appiah (Nana Mensah) to prepare Kate to become Vice President after the current one resigns. But there are also issues in the UK, as British Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear)’s approval ratings keep going down, and alongside Merritt Grove, he tries to convince people that his government is best equipped to deal with the threat that is Iran.
But who is Merritt Grove and what happened to him at the end of Season 1? And, how does what happened tie into the Season 2 plot?
Who Is Merritt Grove in The Diplomat and what happened to him?
Merritt Grove is a British member of parliament (MP) who belongs to the party in power, the Tories. Alongside party leader, Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge, Grove works to give the public a common enemy, Iran, and that way position the ruling government as the best equipped to deal with this threat. Grove’s story, however, ends in the Season 1 finale, when he is killed in the same explosion that kills Ronnie Buckhurst, Kate’s aide.
But Grove’s presence is still felt throughout the season, as the government uses his death as a way to reinforce the notion of Iran as the enemy, accusing them of an actor of terror that killed Grove and therefore sowing fear in the British population.
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The second season of The Diplomat sees Kate investigating Grove’s death, and discovering much that was previously unknown about the MP—including his dissenting views on many issues with members of the ruling party. That, coupled with the fact that Grove was seemingly about to share some important information with Hal before he was killed paints Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge as a suspect in his assassination.
However, it’s later revealed that a far-right member of Parliament, Lenny Stendig, set up the bomb in Grove’s car. Why did Stending do it? He feared Grove was about to come clean to Hal, and therefore the Americans, about the fact that he and Stendig were both in on the plot to hire Roman Lenkov to attack the British ship HMS Courageous alongside Margaret Roylin, who was working closely with U.S. Vice President Grace Penn. If Grove had told Hal this, he would have told Kate, and then the President would have found out, so fearing that Stendig arranged to have Grove killed.
In the end, President Rayburn does find out about Grace Penn, and the news is so upsetting to him that he has a heart attack and dies. That means Grace Penn is now set to be sworn in as the U.S. President in The Diplomat Season 3.
