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The pictures of Julian Assange fronting a court in the Northern Mariana Islands — a US Pacific territory almost ten thousand kilometres from the American mainland — will no doubt travel around the world.
It's another unlikely development in a protracted and often astonishing saga which has spanned more than a decade.
But it's not exactly a bolt from the blue.
This might surprise people who have been listening to the sometimes tough language on Mr Assange which has been seeping out of the Biden administration.
Less than 12 months ago the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken fielded a question about the WikiLeaks founder after holding annual AUSMIN talks with Penny Wong and Richard Marles in Brisbane.
Both US and Australian leaders typically deploy comfortable, warm bath homilies about mateship when talking about the alliance, but Mr Blinken's tone become unusually sharp when journalists asked him about Mr Assange's future.
The secretary of state confirmed that Senator Wong had once again pressed him to bring the prosecution to a close. But he added that while he understood Australian "sensitivities" on the case, it was important for Australia recognise there were "sensitivities" in Washington as well.
"Mr Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country," he said.
"The actions that he is alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries and put named human sources at grave risk, grave risk of physical harm, grave risk of detention."
Mr Blinken is a famously smooth and deliberate diplomat, who rarely lets things slip by mistake.
This admonishment seemed a clear sign Washington was frustrated by the way Australian politicians and officials — from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese down — had clearly decided to step up pressure on Washington to secure Mr Assange's freedom.
In their view, the WikiLeaks founder had committed serious crimes and in any case, the Biden administration was in no position to dictate to the Justice Department over what action it should or should not take.
But there was frustration in Canberra too.
Tension between friends
Some Australian diplomats felt their US counterparts didn't understand how deeply uneasy and angry swathes of the Australian community were about the fact Mr Assange remained behind bars.
A wide range of Australian backbenchers were also agitating on Mr Assange's behalf.
Some didn't admire his actions with WikiLeaks, but felt the US response was disproportionate and heavy-handed.
None of this was fatal to the US-Australia alliance, of course.
The bilateral ties run too deep, and the equities sunk into it on both sides are simply too large, for either country to allow these tensions to derail the relationship.
One Australian official said last year that the Assange matter probably sat somewhere between "irritant" and "point of friction" — while admitting that finding a way forward was proving very difficult.
So what's changed now? Did the Biden administration simply give way, handing Anthony Albanese and the federal government a handsome victory? Or is it more complex than that?
Whispers of a deal
It's worth remembering that there have been persistent murmurs for quite some time about Mr Assange being offered a plea deal.
Last year the US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy hinted that the US might be open to a deal, where US authorities would reduce charges against Assange in exchange for a guilty plea.
"There is a way to resolve it" she told Fairfax.
In March the Wall Street Journal also reported that the US Justice Department was considering allowing Julian Assange to "plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information" — a misdemeanour which would allow him to return home after time already served was taken into account.
He wouldn't even have to travel to the US to enter the plea and secure his freedom.
While the full terms of the plea are not yet clear, at this stage it looks like a compromise has been struck, with both sides giving ground.
The US is not dropping charges against Mr Assange.
Mr Blinken's uncompromising answer back in August last year made it clear that option was not on the table.
Instead, the WikiLeaks founder looks set to plead guilty to a single charge of violating US espionage law; a federal crime, not a mere misdemeanour.
That's something that Mr Assange and his supporters — who argue that he's committed no crimes and is a victim of political persecution — have previously not been willing to countenance.
It would also presumably require him to set foot on US soil to answer the charge.
Hence Mr Assange's long and (on the face of it) unlikely journey from the United Kingdom to a United States courthouse in Saipan.
Some close observers of the case suggest that Mr Assange and his legal team might also be eyeing the possibility of a second Trump presidency after the elections in November.
While the former president has suggested he might be willing to pardon Mr Assange if he takes back the White House, Donald Trump is notoriously unpredictable.
It's also worth remembering it was the Trump administration which indicted Mr Assange in the first place.
This isn't to say that Australian officials — including US Ambassador Kevin Rudd and UK Ambassador Stephen Smith — haven't put in a herculean effort to get this deal over the line in both Washington and London.
One Australian government source said that both ambassadors had devoted huge amounts of time and energy to the case and had been "enormously effective" in getting the plea over the line.
But in the end what might have shifted is the calculus for Mr Assange and his legal team.
They may have determined that this deal could be the best one they're going to get.
And Mr Assange may have decided that a guilty plea is a price that he is willing to pay, in order to — finally — get back home.