Hacking skills: can't remember, either. But yes, the moment when he starts with "my side, your side" again, it's clear there's some retconning going on. Mind you, I could be Stark without intending to falling back on a coping mechanism he invented during the worst time of his life which protected him then.

I'd thought that Stark stayed dead for longer than one episode, though.

Yes, which further makes me raise an eyebrow at that storytelling choice. It's hard to feel with Zhaan and miss him if first, he's not been around long enough to endear himself, and then, he's not even "dead" for longer than an episode.

Mind you, as I said two weeks ago, they did play fair by letting Stark tell Zhaan from the get go there was a chance he could survive this execution method, and how. But they still seemingly wanted to have their cake and eat it with the "dead! dead?" angst.

Meanwhile, I bet exactly zero first time watchers thought Scorpius was dead at the end of this episode, even if John did.