Back in the Roosevelt Room, Toby is mocking Alana's speech to him from a couple of scenes ago. He finds the words "quasi-orgasmic" particularly amusing. She's clearly a bit embarrassed, but she tells him that she was trying to make a point. And it's a point he clearly got. And then she asks why he "did it." He tells her, "To save lives." She thinks it's related to the fact that his brother was an astronaut. He says that he was saving astronauts' lives in the short term, but that he wanted to "start a discussion about whether we want to extend mankind's capacity for warfare into the heavens." Basically, he thinks it was wrong for the government to develop what was essentially a space-based weapon in secret: "I believe in an open society. You debate these things in the light of day. That's what's supposed to happen in a democracy." Alana thinks they can build what is essentially a political campaign around those issues, but Toby thinks that won't really help him to avoid jail. Alana tells him that there's a different criminal statute that makes it a misdemeanor "to disobey a regulation set forth by the NASA administrator." The code section Alana cites, by the way, does not exist. And if it did exist, it would be somewhere in the patent laws. (And, as I've said before, real lawyers aren't able to just throw around minor U.S. Code provisions like that, because the damn thing is dozens of books long.) Violating this mythical lesser statute is punished by a fine or a year in prison. Toby doesn't look impressed, and she acknowledges that "it's a little pie in the sky around the edges." Suddenly I want a Moon Pie. Through the glass doors of the Roosevelt Room, Toby sees Jed walking towards the Oval Office. Toby tells Alana, "Keep thinking, counselor. It's what you're good at."

Jed enters the Oval Office, where the camera slowly moves in to C.J. and Babish waiting to speak to him. C.J. speaks to Jed, but we can't hear her over the loud rumbling on the soundtrack. Commercials.

We return to a close-up profile of Jed. We can hear a clock ticking loudly in the background. Jed: "Toby. Is it possible to be astonished and at the same time not surprised?" Jed slowly sits down as Babish tells him that, as far as he can determine, nobody else was involved. C.J. points out that the Republicans will try to use this to embarrass the White House and the Santos campaign. Jed tells her, "The political fallout is not my first concern." C.J. tells Jed that they need to move quickly so that it does not appear that they even contemplated any kind of cover-up. Jed thinks he should make a statement. C.J. offers to "take care" of Toby, but Jed won't let her: "Bring him here." Babish thinks it's a mistake for Jed even to be in the same room with Toby, but Jed responds, "Thank you for your counsel, but I have to do this myself." In that case, Babish insists on being in the room when Jed speaks to Toby. Jed asks C.J. to give him a moment before bringing Toby in. C.J. and Babish leave.