Animal Frat: That paragraph was running long so I made a little cliffhanger for the next part here. At first I assumed that this was some production order shuffling due to Season 1 only being 9 episodes, like how the Machiko episode dovetailed back into Jesse Tyler. It seemed weird that we were still doing that halfway into Season 2, but whatever, I can wait a day to see the next leap. It turns out, if the Quantum Leap wiki is to be believed, that they did this because the next week's broadcasted episode was a rerun of "Camikazi Kid". I wonder if anyone's tried to make it canon, like the canon nerds try to do for the repeat of one of Patrick Troughton's Dalek stories in 1960s Doctor Who. Right, then. Basically used a paragraph talking about weird production issues. I may or may not be dodging trying to talk about this episode. In a way, it's a lot like "Jimmy": It has its heart in the right place with a moral about a serious real-world issue, but it also is very messy and does a bunch of shit that does not fly today. It manages to do this without saying a single slur, too. That's either an accomplishment or horrifying. Or both. Let's dive in!
Given the title, the setting and inspiration are obvious: Sam is a meathead frat boy nicknamed "Wild Thing" in 1967, the type of guy who only thinks about beer, sex, and football. We're in Animal House. Or any number of raunchy collegiate-age comedies made in the late 70's and early 80's. Immediately I was on high alert, because that kind of boys-will-be-boys "humor" has putrefied into what it always was: bigoted, sexist, misogynistic problematic bullshit. Read a plot summary of Revenge Of The Nerds sometime and try not to vomit. To its credit, the episode only skirts the line of these badlands. It will toe that line once or twice to horrifying effect, and I will call it like I see it, but there's an actual poignant plot here and it deals with that year. 1967. This is a story about protesting the Vietnam War, and about what the right way to protest such a thing is.
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| No way in hell am I using any problematic screencaps for this one, of which there are many. |
Sam's argument later in the episode will basically boil down to "the pen is mightier than the sword". That violent activism in protest of violent war will only perpetuate the cycle of violence, and peaceful and thoughtful protest will be what ends the war in Vietnam. See, this is not only said from a position of privilege, but one of having advance knowledge of the future. Sam knows how the history book's written, how this shit ends in April of 1975. It's almost easy for him to tell someone living in the moment to just sit back and coast along on cruise control until then because this shit's sorted. There's more personal investment than that for him, I'll grant, and I'll get to that... but from Elizabeth and even Duck's perspective, they can't just sit back and let it happen because a history book says that's how it's got to go. They believe in this better future, and they have to fight for it at every chance they get. They can't just let the status quo win.
If I may detour into Doctor Who talk for a moment, about two and a half years ago the Whittaker years aired an episode called "Orphan 55" which was an infamous hot mess, but ended with an impassioned plea by Doctor Who directly to camera urging us as a species that we could do something about the climate change crisis and avoid the post-apocalyptic future imagined in that episode. At the time, on our podcast, I was a booster of this belief. That the episode was calling for direct action with the pen, that we had the power to change the future for the better with sole use of the pen via voting for the right officials and other shit. In the years since, with BLM protests and the recent Roe v. Wade overturn in the US... I have to admit I was wrong. The status quo won't listen to the pen alone. The ruling class won't be unseated from their bigoted bullshit by just the pen. They hold the pen, why would they rewrite anything that diverts power and control from them? Sometimes you do have to use the sword. It's wrong that Duck's bomb is going to kill a kid, but the destruction of property in protest to make people listen is not as black and white incorrect as the episode makes it out to be.
Of course, the episode does not paint Duck in a good light. He's the antagonist, after all, the radical activist who's Gone Too Far unlike the sweet and innocent Elizabeth. Here's where Sam shows his personal investment. Remember back to "Disco Inferno". Remember that Tom Beckett was one of the many who didn't come home from Vietnam. When Sam, in a confrontation with Duck, mentions that he lost a brother in Vietnam, Duck's icy response is that Sam should have thought about protesting the war before his brother went off to die. In Duck's cold black and white world, Tom Beckett fought for the wrong ideals and deserved to die. I don't know if Tom Beckett fought in Vietnam because he thought it was right or because it was his duty. (INTRUSION FROM THE FUTURE: Once again, wait for Season 3.) Statistically, though, out of all the US soldiers who died in Vietnam? Some of them had to believe in what they were doing. For better or worse, they died fighting for their ideals. So, in the climax of the episode, when Sam has Duck in an arm hold in the chemistry building with a bomb about to go off in 30 seconds, demanding that either Duck tells him where the bomb's hidden or they all get blown to smithereens... Duck caves in. The people on the other side of his ideology, the soldiers in Vietnam, are dying for their ideals. Duck, by contrast, is not brave or willing enough to die for his when it comes down to it.
Then there's all the troubling college bro bullshit. The members of this fraternity are absolute meatheads and I do not like them. Pulling pranks, hazing some pledge to do embarrassing bullshit, all the usual shit. Then there's the second-act low point in which they, along with Sam, sneak into the girl's dorm. At this point I was in true despair, yelling into my pillow and pounding on the table, praying in the name of God and every other deity that these fuckers weren't about to engage in "harmless monkeyshines" that amount to sex crimes. They do perv on one lady getting changed, and NO NO NO BAD BAD BAD. They're not here to panty raid or anything, though, thank God. They're just here to do the old cherry bomb in the toilets trick, and Al is even there egging Sam on, reminiscing about all the dumb boy's club shit he did as a college boy. Part of this leap is getting Sam, who was a bit of a nerdy introvert in college, to open up a little and PARTAY.
This leads to a horrific conclusion once the bomb is defused. The last thing Sam needs to do before leaping is save Wild Thing, who leapt into a pool at a luau party and broke his neck underwater and drowned. So, jump in the pool from a high height without breaking your neck. Easy. What makes this horrific is that the frat has dressed Wild Thing up as the "God Of The Luau". It's just an incredibly racist "tribal chief" costume and Sam is holding a flaming torch in one hand while talking in this deep booming voice and it just really fucking sucks y'all. I want to escape this one and watch another episode, so let's sum this up. On one hand, it is a poignant and thoughtful look at the attitude towards the Vietnam War over time which also ties into the personal for Sam. I like that this is how the show will use continuity; instead of referencing past events, it references past losses and relationships in the character's lives to show how the specifics of this leap affects them emotionally. "Camikazi Kid" and "Jimmy" also did this for Sam and Al respectively, and it's nice. On the other hand, its "just respectfully protest and get your message out there!" message, plus the boy's club bullshit, plus the racism? It's thorny, and not even in the way other episodes go "we'll have the character say a slur and Sam can say that's a bad word" or something. Nah, this one is really messy. I'm glad to be free of it.
Another Mother: An interesting one to talk about, this. It's the second leap into a woman, which had me wondering if Sam would have to confront the patriarchy again and punch a misogynist's teeth out. Someone's teeth will get punched out over something, but it's not patriarchy. Before we get to that, some fun facts. I was too busy yelling at everything else about "Animal Frat", but it hit an important milestone. It is the first episode of Quantum Leap to air in the 1990s. This is the second and we have our first leap set in the 80's, the episode being set in 1981. You can absolutely feel a restriction being lifted now that the 1980s have drawn to a close. The decade has become a part of the tableau of history, and now Sam can hop to it. Hop to it he does, into the body of Linda, a divorcee with three children: eldest Kevin, middle child Susan, and youngest Teresa. Before we get to the big conflict and serious issue of the episode, we've got to talk about Teresa.
Teresa can see Sam. She doesn't see a quantum projection or a microcosmic singularity or whatever other technobabble you want to come up with. She sees what we see: Scott Bakula in a housewife's dress, and reacts accordingly. The other kids try to help Teresa calm down, but Teresa is adamant: that's not my mommy, that's a man. Not only can she see Sam like we do, but when Al shows up she can see him too! Again, you could technobabble your way out of this. You could say that at a young age kids haven't developed synaptic quantum flux in their cerebral cortex. You've seen a sci-fi movie or show, you know how they chain words like that together to make it sound like what they're talking about is credible. That's not how Quantum Leap rolls. Quantum Leap, which two episodes prior said "ghosts are real", offers a simple and sweeter explanation. Teresa is pure of heart, and so she can see the real Sam and Al. This... is beautiful. It's very wholesome and sweet, and it rejects any science fiction technobabble for something lyrical and poetic and moving. It reminds me of Steven Moffat's run on Doctor Who, where the show moved towards being a beautiful fairy tale in many places. Particularly "Kill The Moon", which wanted the poetic and striking image of the moon being a space dragon egg and went for it, science be damned.
Oh. Oh, the eldest kid of the family runs away from home in a day's time and is never seen again. Cheery. Except, it's worse than that. Kevin did not run away from home. Kevin was abducted and killed by a pair of child predators. The episode revels in its shots of this ominous beige van rolling down the highway, crossing state lines and getting closer and closer to the town, its occupants tailgating school buses and scoping out the neighborhood for targets. So, to recap, we have this sweet and wholesome B-plot with Teresa and seeing past artifice juxtaposed with some of the absolute worst humanity has to offer in search of helpless victims. Good fucking god. If that weren't enough, how Kevin ends up in the unfortunate clutches of these monsters is also prickly and kind of fucked up. Kevin's clique of pals at his high school are... well, I don't quite know how to describe them. They're a combination boy's club and what a boomer writing this show thinks kids who play Dungeons and Dragons are like. Their first scene is them outside in the school courtyard, ogling girls and wondering how promiscuous they are... but also filtered in this fucked-up gamified system where they're worth XP for levelling up? OHH KEVIN SHE IS WORTH 50 EXPERIENCE POINTS, IF YOU GET WITH HER YOU WILL CLASS CHANGE INTO A GRAND WIZARD! So, you know. Objectifying women as pieces on your tabletop gaming board. I want to hurl.
These "friends" of Kevin eventually stage a prank on him, where they convince and bribe the girl they were talking about to go in on it. Kevin lives near her and kind of likes her, refuting the idea that she's a promiscuous lady. In exchange for some favors like being Homecoming Queen or whatever, the girl Jackie agrees to invite Kevin over and try to make it with him... and when he confesses he's never had sex before, out burst his bros and they're like HA HA HA KEVIN'S A FUCKING VIRGIN! AWW ARE YOU GOING TO CRY, VIRGIN? WHERE YOU GOING ON YOUR BIKE, YOU BIG DUMB VIRGIN HA HA HA HA HA I AM VERY INTELLIGENT. Jackie thought Kevin would be in on the gag and laugh it off, but realizes they used her for this cruel dumb prank. Al even points out the hypocrisy by analyzing one of these jackasses with Ziggy and revealing that he's also a virgin who won't get with a lady for another six years. Toxic masculinity really is just the worst. Okay, well, maybe the literal child predators who kidnap Kevin as he's riding his bike home in the night in indignant rage are actually the worst.
Can I just say, before we get to the climax, how fucked up this must have been for them and Jackie in the original timeline? Not that I'm offering them all that much empathy, but think about it. You prank your pal into admitting he's a virgin, make fun of him for it, he rides off on his bike in a huff... and is never seen again. I wonder if they felt any gnawing guilt and remorse in the days and years after for that, blaming themselves for it. Well, these kind of things are why we have Scott Bakula in a station wagon... and yes, we've come back to it. Sam tailgates these idiots off of the highway, they think they've won the lottery with a lady to do their terrible things to, and Sam proceeds to beat the stuffing out of them both and rescue Kevin. Hopefully while also calling the police and getting these fuckers locked up for life. Kevin's life is saved, Jackie apologizes to Kevin at school the next day and admits she likes him, they smooch, and that's the episode once Sam and Al say bye to Teresa. It was a good one! Definitely some real reprehensible figures in it, though. Even if the toxic dudebros are the lesser of two evils compared to the actual child predators, they still absolutely suck ass and I hope Kevin found a new group of friends. It was equal parts wholesome and horrific, and I appreciate that dissonance. Where to next, Sam?
All-Americans: Oh, this one was good. With all the heavy shit and serious issues this show's been hurling my way lately, sometimes it is nice to just get an uncomplicated one with a good moral and just a regular antagonist scumbag rather than like an abuser or murderer. One thing I do have to say, though. I am not that fond of the new intro, which basically summarizes the premise of the show and then shows who Sam's leapt into this week. I understand what it's for; it is not for the weirdo in the future binging the whole thing on Blu-Ray an episode a day. It's for a channel surfer in 1990 to catch and go "Oh, that sounds like an interesting show, I'll check this out!". Even so, I liked hearing Sam's reflections and summarizing of his previous leap in his own words. Like after "Catch A Falling Star", Sam managed to compare himself to Don Quixote in a way that made sense to me, not having read Don Quixote's story. Oh well, maybe I'll learn to love it.
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| JOHN MADDEN JOHN MADDEN JOHN MADDEN |
EAT YOUR FUCKING LANDLORD LMAO! That isn't just me playing up my leftism, either, the antagonist of the episode is a landlord. So, Eddie Vega's best friend is named Chuey and his mom Celia has been behind on the rent for 3 months. Enter Ruben, the landlord. He's some other stuff too. Like a creep who implies that Celia can pay off her debt with sex. Earlier, Sam has learned via Al that he's here to help Chuey out. In just a few days, their football team has a Big Game, and according to Al Chuey is going to throw the game and not get a scholarship as a result. Seeing Ruben, Sam confronts him, figuring that this crude customer is his opposition for the leap and warning him to keep away from Chuey and Celia. This does not work, but it's worth delving into more of Ruben and why he's pretty reprehensible. Again, not murder or abuser level, but still kind of a hypocrite. And also he's a landlord so again THAT FUCKING SUCKS! Okay, last time for that. I swear.
Ruben is also a gambling man, and his wagers of choice are high school football. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself. If you enjoy the thrill of betting, the risk of losing and the reward of winning, alongside calculating what the best bet will be based on the performance of the team and its MVPs and all of that? That can be exciting and engaging, if done responsibly. Ruben, though? He rigs the metaphorical deck. He'll look for inside info and try to make backdoor deals with the players to fix the games as much in his favor as possible. That's not gambling. That's just swindling the poor dolt who bet against you out of their money. Leave it to a fucking landlord to unfairly squeeze as much cash out of someone as possible-- whoops I guess I lied up there, my bad. Anyway, I saw the dilemma of the episode coming from a mile away. Chuey's mom owes a shitload of rent, Ruben wants to make big bucks on the Big Game... so he offers Chuey a deal: Throw the Big Game, let me make a shitload of money betting on the other team, and we'll call it even. Damn. How do we get out of that predicament?
As a wise computer once said, the only winning move is not to play. Chuey fakes an injury early in the game to get out of things, and that will still leave the team in dire straits as Chuey and Eddie are their MVPs. What does Sam do? He refuses to play too, which makes Chuey concerned because all of the talent scouts are watching. Eddie can't throw away his future... but Sam won't let Chuey throw away his, and is counting on the bond Chuey and Eddie have as best friends to motivate Chuey back into the Big Game. From there... look, you've seen a sports movie climax before. 5 seconds on the clock, the other team is leading, but just one touchdown and the home team will win the Big Game. Sam throws a pass to Chuey, and take a wild guess what happens. The ending's a little... tidy, though, and I don't mean Chuey scoring the game-winning touchdown. Ruben's ready to kick Celia out, but then Sam suggests Chuey and Celia stay with him and his widower father. Celia herself is also a single mother, and so Sam is suggesting the obvious ship, and the two basically go "Oh hey we do love each other, let's get married and move in together!". It's pretty quick, and while the show did show chemistry between them before, it could have used another beat. Either way, the day is saved. I don't have much more to say, it was a fun one. OH WAIT I KNOW WHAT TO SAY, FUCK A LANDLORD, FUCK EVERY LANDLORD, FUCK 'EM RIGHT U--
Her Charm: Oh yeah, by the way, before I was so rudely interrupted: the last episode's teaser is once again the fucking Jesse Tyler diner scene in anticipation of another repeat of that story. Like, God, can you rerun the fucking disco one or maybe Blind Faith or something instead of the racism ones? Please? I'm preaching to a long-gone broadcast order, though. All I need to do is fire up the next episode a day later on the PS4. To that end, it's funny I invoked the disco episode just now because this cold open may be one of the strongest attention-getters since then and is quite similar. Sam is at a woman's doorstep, she's annoyed but gets her suitcases and directs him to the car, and when Sam can't find the keys they both look under the seat where she says they are. At which point a black car drives by and a motherfucker pulls out an Uzi to turn the sedan into Swiss cheese. Well. That escalated quickly.
This woman is Dana Berringer, and she used to work for a nasty crime boss type named Nick. When she found out about his shady dealings, she testified against him but he used his connections to get acquitted, and now wants to kill her in revenge. Dana's been shuffling around in Witness Protection with the man Sam's leapt into, FBI agent Pete Langley, and now our lovable quantum physicist has to keep this lady alive. There's an interesting thematic thread to dig into, but first I want to talk about Sam and Dana's relationship over the episode. It's... well, if this were anime, I'd call Dana a tsundere. As it's not, we'll settle for calling her "hot and cold". I'm sure you can understand the extremes she flip-flops towards. One moment, she's tender and allowing to show a vulnerable and caring side. At the tip of a hat, she's assertive and not having any of Sam's incompetence in this bodyguard job, calling him out and butting heads with him over anything and everything. It's cliche, yes, but it's a tried and tested method that most will accept.
The real interesting crunchy bits of the episode come from that title, and the general theme. You see, Dana's charm isn't referring to any personal charisma she's got that woos Sam. Her charm is an actual charm around her wrists of the scales of justice. (As a Libra, I approve.) This is the thematic thrust of the episode. How poor Dana, who believed in truth and justice, called out the illegal dealings of Nick and expected justice to be served. She did a good thing, Nick did a bad thing, so the person who did the bad thing will be punished. That's not what happened. Justice was corrupt, and it was the exact opposite. Nick got off without a care, and now Dana is the one who's been punished by having to uproot her life and living in constant fear and terror of this madman with a vendetta. In a mad way, Nick is seeking justice too... but the "eye for an eye" kind. Dana wronged him, and so his personal justice dictates that she must die for what he sees as injustice against him.
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| PUT A SHIRT ON OR SO HELP ME-- |
Of course, Sam isn't Pete. Sam is one of the few people in this episode who does believe in justice and doing the right thing. Hell, that's the entire ethos of quantum leaping. Doing the right thing. Interestingly enough, Nick has a person sort of like that on his side. While Nick's been hanging out the side of a black car shooting an Uzi like a vigilante, he's got an older guy named Andy who's been driving and repeatedly questions Nick's logic in doggedly pursuing Dana like this. He can't convince Nick to call it off, though, and there's a final confrontation between the four of them where Sam has a quickdraw contest with Nick and wins. Yeah, Sam just shoots Nick dead, all while Andy relents and takes Nick's body away, weeping about how stupid his vendetta was and how it got him killed. It's a happy ending for Dana, but not necessarily for Pete who gets 8 to 10 for his corruption. In a way, though, Sam put Pete back on the path of justice and doing what's right and stopping criminals. One wonders if Pete will follow that path after getting out, but either way Dana gets to live and know that sometimes, better things are possible and that justice does work. It's a good episode, with lots of tense chases and shootouts and stuff, and I enjoyed myself... which I am unsure I will next time, given the teaser.
Freedom: Said teaser involving Sam leaping right into the middle of some police brutality in a county jail, before being tossed back into his cell and looking into the mirror to see he's a Native American. Which they call (and I don't think this is the worst to say so I'll say the word, but if it is I offer my apologies) "Indians" for the runtime of the show because it's 1990. You know, still going off of what an old racist in a boat from 500 years ago called these people because he was too stupid and ignorant to realize he wasn't in India. There's an episode of TV for me to talk about here, but it's a tricky minefield of a subject again. I don't know about some of this shit. I really don't, but I am trying my best and please excuse any missteps I may make.
Sam is George Washaki, and is locked up in jail with his grandfather Joseph for breaking him out of an old folk's home and stealing a truck. It's funny to have this right after "Her Charm", which was all about truth and justice and upholding the law, because Sam and Joseph immediately become crime goblins and bust out of jail, taking off in their stolen truck again. Now the sheriff's pissed and is on a vendetta, partly because of some latent anti-Native bigotry and partly out of revenge for being humiliated and letting his men get away. So, you know, equal sprinkles of racism and ACAB are on the go here. As for what Sam is here to do? Well, that all centers on Joseph and it's the ultimate grim subject matter. Joseph's an old man and he's unwell, but he is insisting that he doesn't go to a hospital or the old folk's home or a jail cell. He wants to go back to the reservation, and live out his last there. The titular "freedom" of the episode is Joseph's freedom to die on his own terms.
It's definitely heavy subject matter, and close to being a hot topic issue: around this time in the late 80's, the infamous Dr. Jack Kevorkian was offering his services of assisted suicide to terminally ill patients. If Wikipedia's to be believed, just 10 months after this episode aired Kevorkian was cleared of murder charges in Michigan. Four years later, he'd go on trial for the first of many times over his practices. Sam is at first aghast at what Al is asking him to do, insistent that he get this sick man to the hospital to save him. I genuinely was not sure what side of things the episode would fall towards at the end. Would we give Joseph the freedom to die on the reservation, or would Sam's insistent mindset prevail? It actually invoked a little of what I've previously called utopic tension in me, where if the episode leaned on the wrong side it would tarnish what I thought of the show so far.
That tension's also present in the writing. We're meant to like and empathize with Joseph, and it's fun seeing how he and Sam interact over the episode. Joseph is intently spiritual, saying all sorts of things about hawks and painting horses and other things one might expect an old Native American attuned with nature to say. The most poignant is when he explains his philosophy on death, and how it's just a doorway. How he says it, though, is that when we die we become someone else and leap into another life, like a grasshopper. There's definitely something there, paralleling these spiritual beliefs with the actual sci-fi conceit of leaping into other lives, especially if you take into account the idea that a divine being is the one sending Sam off on said leaps. On the other hand... Look, I don't know how much of this is respectful and how much of this is stereotypical. I went to check the writer on the Quantum Leap wiki and there's a picture of a white guy. I kind of have to sheepishly throw up my hands and say that I don't know. I kind of like that bit with death and the grasshopper, mirroring the premise of the show, but I really don't know what to make of this.
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| Free at last. |
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