In that loft where Simon met with Thomas that one time, Sophia compliments Thomas on all his financial success. He explains that Their advanced math has allowed them to predict the markets. Why do they want to get home again? I know Earth isn't perfect, but it seems like if you have advanced technology and millions of dollars, it could probably be made livable. I'm not saying the detainees should want to stay in Inostranka, but once they're out, I say they should just make the best of it.

Sorry. Got distracted again. This show will do that to you. Especially when characters make sudden changes like this: suddenly! Sophia slaps Thomas across the face! She tells him his orders were to get them home, adding, "I decide what's right for us, not you. And you need to come to terms with that before anyone else gets hurt." She clarifies that it's not a threat; it's an order. Thomas says he understands. It looks like he might be trying to do some kind of facial expression, but it doesn't come off. And with that out of the way, Aaron (who's always standing by with some exposition) says that he's heard from one of his vaguely defined watchers that Simon is in the hospital and is suspected of being the mole.

Murphy swears that Simon's the mole, but no one will believe him. And the isotope (which a few hours ago was so radioactive it could be detected from space or something) has now faded to the point where they couldn't even detect it on Simon's hands. If they tried. Which they won't. And Simon's pal is outraged that they'd even suggest that Simon might be a traitor, so naturally he's the one they send back to the coffee shop to look for evidence. It doesn't seem to occur to him that he could also be looking for evidence that could clear Simon.

FOURTEEN YEARS EARLIER, again. Sterling is meeting with a mysterious, white-haired man who is not Hal Holbrook. I'll jump ahead and tell you it's Sterling's father, hereafter designated "Pop Sterling." He's a big mucky-muck in the intelligence agency where Sterling is a regular-size mucky-muck. And he has grave news about Sterling's squeeze. Her name isn't Laura; it's Svetlana. And she's a Russian spy. There is a wealth of evidence on this point, including photos and recordings. Apparently, Russian spies just do all their reporting in Russian, which makes them easier to catch. Pop Sterling tells Regular Sterling that he has to bring her in to save his career. Seems like it might be a better idea to keep her around and feed her false information, but what do I know? (Answer: I know that in 1996, the time of this flashback, the Russian Federation was in turmoil and that they probably weren't spending a lot of time spying on the USA, what with the collapse of tax revenues and the general failure of the central government to keep track of Russia itself, let alone the United States. They were more interested in Chechnya than the Cold War that had ended five years earlier.)