A Hunting We Will Go: I did not have a good time with this episode. Yes, it does twist itself into an obvious but satisfying reveal and ending. That doesn't change the fact that the preceding 40 minutes are kind of miserable and aggravating. It's 1976 and Sam is a bounty hunter, with a bounty handcuffed to him. His fugitive, Diane, is wanted for embezzlement but has a track record of escaping and leaving previous bounty hunters in grievous harm. The opening teaser sets the stage for it all: Diane yelling HELP HELP I'VE BEEN KIDNAPPED BY AN ABUSER OH HELP ME PLEASE, so some chivalrous men can come to her defense and beat the shit out of Sam. Imagine that sort of shit for 40 minutes and you have the episode.
Her crime? She stole a million dollars from her wealthy businessman boss, Rodney. She did this as an act of revenge, because Rodney had stolen that money from several old people in the town, including Diane's mother. Her intent was to be a modern-day Robin Hood, giving back what this corrupt bastard took. Rodney's got his fingers in many pies, including the sheriff and judge and jury of this particular county. Definite ACAB energy is present in this episode, but frustratingly Sam is playing right into it by delivering Diane to them. I don't like this. I don't like the protagonist of our show playing a pure antagonist role and doing the wrong thing for 40 minutes and getting beaten around for it a bunch. It's not pleasant, and it's not even in service of making a bigger point like all the unpleasant episodes with racism have been. It's unpleasant for the sake of a twist that's obvious at about the halfway point.
That being said, wow are Rodney and the sheriff corrupt. Immediately after they get Diane they put the moves on her, demanding to know where the money is as the sheriff plays good cop and says "oh I give you my word of honor we won't hurt you if you tell". Minutes later at the site he's threatening to kill Diane's mother if she doesn't give up the money. Oh, and no protest as Rodney raises his gun once Diane gets the money out. Absolute corruption. HA HA HEE HEE HEE I'LL MURDER EVERYONE FOR A MILLION DOLLARS! PROTECT AND SERVE? PROTECT AND SERVE MY BIG FAT WALLET HA HA HA HA GO AHEAD RODNEY, KILL HER! Sam shows up just in time and he and Diane beat the shit out of Rodney and the sheriff. Diane will get a fair trial in another county, and she'll be inspired to become a bounty hunter herself. Happy ending, but unhappy viewing experience. I want to be out of here sooner than later, so let's wrap it up there. What kind of madness could we have next?
Last Dance Before An Execution: Oh good, Sam immediately leaps into a death row inmate sitting in the hot seat and about to be electrocuted. In a twist that I'm sure will come as a surprise to you all, Sam Beckett is not electrocuted and the series does not end here. Instead, the governor grants the man he's leapt into, Jesus Ortega, a 48-hour stay of execution thanks to an appeal. The parameters of the leap thus seem pretty cut and dry: save Jesus and his fellow death row inmate Raul from getting the chair. There's a little more going on than that which make this a very interesting, if not bleak, episode.
Let's go into an aside, because when the hell else will I get to talk about this? Out of curiosity, a while back I decided to check out the Innovation-published Quantum Leap comic series from the 90's. There are definitely some interesting issues. One has half the story told from the POV of the leapee, confused as shit and stuck with Al and Ziggy in the future. I doubt that will be an angle the show will ever go for, but it's wild that it posits Al's present as being 1999. The show itself seems to imply 1996 or so. Another issue ends with another eye-rolling "the point of your leap was to help a famous person" situation, but the preceding pages are entirely just Sam and Al sitting at a deserted gas station and earnestly talking. Nice and slow and introspective. The main reason I mention the comic, though, is that issue #2 is set on death row with Sam having to prove his innocence before he gets executed. This episode aired in May 1991, and the comic was published in December. Hmmm. I wonder the synchronicity there. There are differences beyond the setting, though. I've gone enough into the comic aside, let's talk about the show again.
There's a very strong theme and message in the heart of this bleakness, and it's about the disenfranchising of Cuban-Americans at the hand of an unfair justice system. Jesus and Raul are both Cuban-Americans who were just trying to get by and ended up in a bad situation where they robbed a priest for money to help Raul's sick daughter, only for the priest to end up shot later and the pair of them found guilty for murder. Jesus has been spending his last moments studying every facet of the law, and has a helpful ally in an assistant DA and fellow Cuban-American named Tearsa. She may be working behind the scenes to get justice for Jesus and Raul, but she's very much doing it behind the back of her boss, and let's talk about this piece of work.
There's one glimmer of hope and heartwarming in the episode, where Tearsa is in the church where the priest was shot, praying to try to find the missing second bullet the priest was killed by. Al found it, but he can't tell Tearsa because she can't see him... but a small child in the church can. We're bringing back that "Another Mother" whimsy of pure of heart small children being able to see the "angel" Al, and Al having the child repeat his words helps Tearsa find the bullet. Good news, right? Well, no. The second bullet proves, without a doubt... that Jesus did it. Tearsa is furious, Moody catches them and makes a bit gloating show about disbarring Tearsa and takes sadistic glee in the fact that Jesus is going to be executed in three hours. One last charred body to step over on the way to glory and the governorship. It seems that all is lost, and Sam is doomed.
That's only half-true. Jesus Ortega is doomed to death. He committed a murder, and is set to be executed as retribution for it. The show seems to be, if not pro-death penalty, not really shouting anything at being anti-death penalty. It does not seem to say that Jesus Ortega's life ending as punishment for him ending the life of the priest is unjust. What's unjust is Moody's manipulation of evidence and trial to frame the wrong people, and that's what Sam uses the last dance before the execution to expose. He reveals it all, how Moody bribed a witness who could exonerate Raul to move to New York so he'd have another death row inmate to fry and prove how good he is at punishing criminals. Tearsa gets on the phone with the witness as Sam gives the number, and Moody's whole mockery of justice is revealed. Raul will be exonerated, Tearsa will do good work, Moody will be punished... and Jesus Ortega, for committing murder, pays the ultimate price.
It's a bleak episode, to be sure, but it has its moments. Though it's muddled on the issue of the death penalty, it is very strongly against Moody's manipulations and conservative attitudes. If it were a little more clear on its death penalty stance, it'd be a really good episode. As it stands, it's a pretty good episode. At least it didn't aggravate me as much as the last one. Even without a clear death penalty message, it has something to say about the unfair treatment of minorities at the hand of the justice system. That, if nothing else, is a story worth telling and a story worth Sam Beckett making a little bit better... even if he could do nothing for Jesus.
Heart Of A Champion: LLLLLET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE, IT'S TIME FOR A BUNCH OF WRASSLIN'! What we've got here is a perfectly functional, if not strange at parts, glimpse into the wild wild world of professional wrestling. It's 1955 in Georgia and Sam is one of a pair of tag-team wrestling brothers, the Sammises. Specifically, Terry and Ronny Sammis have taken on the roles of a pair of Russian heels, with the hammer and sickle on their muscle shirts as Ronny (or should I say "Nikolai") works over the crowd by yelling about how the superior Soviets are going to piledrive all you American capitalist dogs into next week. Keep in mind that 1955 date. This is right at the heart of McCarthyism in America, so the anti-communist fire is being well stoked by these two heels.
What's Sam here to do? Oh, save Ronny from dying in the ring. When I type it out like that, in tandem with all that stuff about them being play-communist heels, you may think another wrestler or a fan does something bad to Ronny. No, Ronny's actually got undiagnosed heart problems. Get it, Heart Of A Champion. So, much of the episode is dedicated to Sam trying to convince Ronny to get checked out by a doctor, and Ronny shrugging it all off. Ronny and his mother are spurred on by the memory of their departed patriarch, as well as another son who died in a car crash. For the memory of them both, they're determined to get a shot at the title belt and win it to honor the departed. That stubborn determination will get Ronny killed in the ring, but Sam's got to worry about not getting killed outside it.
Enter the title holder, Carl Shilo. This guy is played by an actual WWE wrestler from the time, named Terry Funk. According to expert sources (thanks Rain) this guy was an active wrestler for a long time, retiring and un-retiring a bunch. Also a hardcore wrestling type who's bled a lot in the ring. He's definitely hardcore in the episode, opening by threatening Sam in the locker room by ripping his locker door off of its hinges and bending it over his head. As if having a pissed-off wrestler ready to kick your ass wasn't bad enough, it's Carl's wife Shelly who's the real piece of work here. A fun "hobby" of hers is flirting with other wrestlers and getting Carl so pissed off that he beats the everloving shit out of the person flirting with his wife. Shelly enjoys this, and likes it when Carl beats the fuck out of other wrestlers. Sam barely escapes a raging Carl ripping the door off of his trailer to try and get in to murder him.
These plots converge in the closer, when Sam gets a genius idea: It's a tag team match, but all he has to do to save Ronny is never tag out and win the match himself. All he has to do is beat the murderous rage and beefy muscles of Carl Shilo. Before that, we get a weird beat where the promoter says that the Sammises are getting a title shot but that they're not going to win it because... well, because they play a pair of Soviet heels. Yes, this is a comment on the prefabricated nature of professional wrestling as more performance than competition... but it doesn't go far enough. We never see the brothers actually practice the match, or work out any of the show beforehand. The episode has one foot on each side, and it doesn't really work for that angle. Vince McMahon this manager is not, and I don't mean because we haven't seen him steal money from his own company to hush people he's hurt.
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| AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, HE IS BROKEN IN HALF!!! |
Nuclear Family: Ah. In a wild way, this episode's nearest comparison point is... "Black On White On Fire". Not for the part about uncomfortable racial tensions reaching a breaking point, but the part where a macrocosmic event of American History plays out while we focus on the ordinary people whose lives are being upended by said historical event. To that end, Sam has leapt into a man named Eddie Elroy, living with his brother Mac in the south of Florida... oh, and the date? October 26th, 1962. I don't usually specify the exact date on these, but that exact date puts us at the frenzied and terrifying height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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This is easier said than done, and Sam has an uphill battle, but he tries. It's all about that difference of perspective, and how easy it is not to be anxious and terrified when you know the history book. Sam knows that the Cold War doesn't erupt into World War 3 and that the Russians don't kill us all, because he's from that future. Trying to convince Mac and his kids of it is something else. Really think about the world Sam comes from, and the present of Quantum Leap as it aired. Somewhere in the weeds of the second season, the Berlin Wall fell. Six months after this episode aired, the Soviet Union had completely dissolved. Quantum Leap's present is right at the beginning of that period sometimes (erroneously) called "the end of history": that brief respite between global conflicts involving the western world which coincided with the 90's. I've always said that the 90's began when Kurt Cobain sang "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and ended on 9/11. The end of history theory likes to say they began when the Berlin Wall fell, which I guess is just a little more macrocosmic than the birth of grunge rock.
Whatever the case, Sam just can't shake the paranoia and propaganda present in this family. Telling them that the Russians are people just like us, who don't want to blow America to smithereens and invade the country and make a mess of all of your pots and pans? You might as well be telling them apples fall up. This is far removed from last episode, when wrestling fans booed at some guys in Soviet muscle suits. This is an ingrained fact of life to these people. The Communists are the bad guys and want to kill you specifically in a nuclear blast. The most dystopic shit involves those kids. I mentioned the neighbor Bert, who will be the victim of the episode if Sam doesn't change history. The kids call him Bert The Turtle, after the famous cartoon turtle from those old "Duck And Cover" PSAs of the time. Later the kids are watching that, and they're singing along. It's one thing that kids of the 90's like me can still sing along to like, anti-drug PSAs to this day. It's quite another to have a happy sing-along about what to do in the event of global thermonuclear war.
Nothing Sam does can convince this family to not be scared out of their fucking wits at the CERTAIN IMPENDING DOOM. Not that he doesn't try, of course. It's very noble and sweet that he does try to calm the fears of these kids, and it's appreciated. There's one really raw fucking beat when the kid's piano teacher, a sweet old lady with a European accent, is interested in buying a bomb shelter and gets a tour from Sam. Sam tries to reassure her in his usual way, saying that it's okay and they're not really going to invade... which makes this old lady burst into tears. Then Sam notices the number tattooed on her arm... Yeah. Yeah. "It's okay, they're not really going to invade" is an old song and dance this poor woman heard 20 years ago in Europe, during World War II. Hits way the fuck harder than the "That's what they called them last time" bit of Doctor Who's Turn Left.
Yes, this is the culmination of the atmosphere of fear and propaganda the Elroys have been marinating in. The Cold War made manifest as pure anxiety and terror. There's something else here, though. Now, maybe it's just me, but the whole idea of the world ending and becoming a lawless wasteland where you have to shoot anyone threatening you to survive? It's very familiar to me, and I'm not talking about the Cold War. I'm talking about 8 months ago, when I did my zombie movie marathon for Night Of The Loving Dead. To me, then, Sam doesn't just finally get to defuse the Cold War tension by talking Stevie down and letting him know that there aren't any soldiers here to kill him. Sam is cutting against the "everyone for themselves" mentality of an apocalypse, be it nuclear or zombie... and he finally gets through.
This is absolutely a highlight of season 3 for me. Just the way it ramps up paranoia and propaganda, the way it focuses on the microcosm of the Elroy family against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's perhaps the closest the world has come to global thermonuclear war, and let us all hope it remains that for the rest of time. It really made me think about Quantum Leap's position as part of "the end of history", and ponder another thing. We are a month away from the new Quantum Leap show. (INTRUSION FROM THE FUTURE: Roughly two weeks now, oh god this thing is imminent.) I won't be looking at a frame of it until I finish with the original, but already there's a difference. The original Scott Bakula show came out in that period of stability, the "end of history", and so could go back and change the microcosmic. The world the new Quantum Leap will come into seems to be one of turmoil and strife, of climate change and alt-right shitheads. One wonders what sort of past its new leaper will go back to, and what sort of events will be his priority to change. All questions to be answered for the future. For now... let's finish Season 3.
Shock Theater: Well. Dear God. This absolutely has finale energy all over it, and I'm not sure if I mean that in a good way. Going in, I was expecting something like "M.I.A." or "The Leap Home"; an introspective leap with some personal resonance to either Sam or Al's pasts that tugged at the heartstrings. I knew from the teaser that the episode was set in an institution, so I was expecting something involving Al's sister Trudy, referenced as having an intellectual disability and being institutionalized in "Jimmy". We got a very different invocation of that episode, as well as a whole mess of other things. God help us, let's get into it.
At the heart of things, you have a basic narrative collapse occurring. Quantum Leap previously tried threatening this in the Season 2 opener, "Honeymoon Express", where Project Quantum Leap was going to lose its funding unless Sam could do something macrocosmic and lean fully into being an Arbiter Of American History. Sam and the show refused that role, instead focusing on the microcosmic of making one woman's life better. It all ended up working out in the end, and Quantum Leap got to plant its flag on the side of the microcosmic. What is happening here, then? Sam leaps into a patient in an institution in 1954, and said patient is about to be mistreated by a vengeful orderly named Bruce. OH, YOU HIT ME? WELL I'M GOING TO ABUSE MY POWER AND USE ELECTROSHOCK THERAPY TO TORTURE YOU, THAT WILL TEACH YOU! OOOOH I'M A BIG MAN AND I HAVE POWER OVER YOU, ZAP ZAP ZAP!!!
Over time, Sam believes himself to be more of the people he's helped over the past 50+ episodes. Jesse Tyler. Kid Cody. Magic Williams. Getting Sam back to himself quickly becomes the priority, as time is of the essence: With Sam's interior landscape a cacophony of people throughout history, Al can't maintain his holographic link with Sam. If the tether is cut, he will never be able to manifest to Sam again and Sam will be adrift without a sail, lost in a sea of microcosmic souls. There was a purpose to this leap, a microcosmic reason: Sam was supposed to teach another patient how to read, to give them a second chance at life once they were released from the institution. With Sam more "Swiss Cheese brained" than ever, Al has to step up and do something about this. Oh yeah, half the patients of the institution can see Al. There's not a really sweet and wholesome explanation like "pure of heart" or anything. What does Al do to help this man learn how to read?
Oh dear God. Do you realize the magnitude of what's happened here? How far into the inky blackness of narrative collapse we've fallen? It isn't just the premise of this show that's been reversed by all of this. It's the very moral center of it. Really think about it. This episode, so focused on the macrocosm of its own lore and bringing back a cavalcade of personalities a regular viewer of the show would recognize? It just resolved a very human and very microcosmic plot of making someone's life better... in a 90 second joke scene. If the show in its topsy-turvy state can reference the past to make its point, so shall I. Season 1. "How The Tess Was Won". A show that used a 90-second joke scene to make a macrocosmic Arbiter Of History moment where Sam inspired Buddy Holly to write Peggy Sue. Now the very act of helping ordinary people has become a joke. Sam... no, Quantum Leap itself, is being consumed from the inside by its own lore. Like Star Wars, like Star Trek, like Doctor Who... It's happening all over again. We couldn't escape the oncoming storm. It found us.
Things go from bad to worse, now that we're in a flip-flopped world where macrocosmic lore and reference rule. On some level, the show's aware of what it's doing in these moments, still at the helm as its own self-cannibalizations begin. It even starts turning my own expectations against me. Remember how I guessed that this episode would invoke "Jimmy" by bringing in Al's sister Trudy? Well, Trudy's nowhere to be found... but in an episode invoking all of Sam's leaps and making them front, here's Jimmy LaMotta again. Who the doctors use that word to describe again! Who Scott Bakula plays in exactly the horrific way I was fearing when I saw the teaser for that episode! Invoking this character again for reference of Quantum Leap's past does some horrifying things. You want to reference Quantum Leap? You want to remember the Jimmy episode? Hey, remember the existential threat of that episode, the bad microcosmic end? Sam had to fight tooth and nail to keep Jimmy from being institutionalized. NOW THE SHOW'S INVOKED HIM RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INSTITUTION! When lore and macrocosm rules, it doesn't matter if you bring the character back in the worst place possible. The character is back! You understand the reference, and that lights up that reference-getting part of your brain which can only be a good thing!
Talking about lighting up brains, though, we twist the knife even more. Al has almost faded out, the hologram practically running on fumes. He has the answer for how to put Sam back to himself again... but it's not good. Sam has to get the same electroshock therapy again. I say Sam has to get the electroshock, but that's not true now is it? Jimmy is fronting right now, and so we have to put Jimmy through more of this bad end bullshit that we saved him from in his episode. In the worse timeline (not that we're not in one already deep in these lore weeds), is this what they did to Jimmy such that he never survived in here? All play of collapse and flip-flop aside, I don't like this. This is cruel. You're bringing this character back only to make him suffer. That's not worth the reference for me.
A curious thing happens, though, as they strap Sam/Jimmy down for shock therapy. Bruce the orderly's vengeful shock treatment comes to light, and the doctor reprimands him for it. Could... could that be a better future being built before us? A better microcosmic future for all the patients of this institution, who will no longer be abused by the vengeful Bruce? Something that has nothing to do with remembering that Tom Stratton exists and flew the X-2 plane? As the doctor and Bruce argue, it's the sympathetic nurse who has to give Sam/Jimmy the same high-voltage burst of electricity to help Sam Beiderman, to unscramble Sam Beckett, to flip back our microcosmic little show. With a burst of electricity, Sam and Al leap, and...
We're still not out of the flip-flop. Things are a little better, in a grassy field outside with Sam and Al. Still, something's funny. Sam's still in the patient gown, and Al is in military uniform now. More pressing is that Sam and Al have flip-flopped. Al is a tangible human being, and Sam is a hologram... prompting a synchronistic "oh boy". We'll untangle that in Season 4, for sure, but we have not escaped the belly of the narrative collapse yet. Escaping these usually has some sort of price. Speaking on price, pal of the blog Mike, an avid Quantum Leap fan who inspired me to take this journey, has their own headcanon of this episode. That it's karmic balance and punishment for Sam's meddling in Vietnam at the top of the season. I don't know, as I took the journalist's death as the karmic punishment for saving Tom Beckett.
What I do know is that we're not out of the woods yet, and I'm not breathing easy. I'm going to resolve that tension by leaping forward, but you don't get to for a few weeks yet. Rest easy. I'll make it through the storm, and then ferry you across. This episode was something else, a dangerous flirtation with the forces I fled from into the arms of Scott Bakula. At points it gets a little too mean for its own good, namely in bringing back Jimmy. One can only hope for a return to the microcosmic bliss of before, but time will tell. For now, I should tell you what I thought of this season of television as a whole. So, before we go, why don't we do that?
Season 3's a curious one. At this point, the show's built up enough foundation to be able to support big "important" episodes bookending the season which challenge the very premise and ethics of the show. We literally just talked about the macrocosmic narrative collapse which we still have to rebuild from, but let's not forget this season of television opened with rumination on whether or not quantum leaping was a blessing or a curse, followed by the sheer material cost of breaking a fixed point in this universe. The show's grown enough that it can do shit like that now, where it challenges its own status quo and lore and threatens to go full macrocosmic. These brief flirting dalliances are terrifying, as they should be. After all, it is exactly the kind of shit I ran to Quantum Leap to escape.
Thankfully, there's a nice microcosmic core sandwiched right between the scary epics. Once again, it's not perfect and some of it bristles... but like I said, it's what I came to Quantum Leap for. I particularly enjoyed the holiday episodes this time around, mixing the usual structure of the show with an aesthetic and mood. Be it spooky or Dickensian. Even if this show's big enough to play on grand scale for its openings and endings, it has not yet lost sight of what it was to start with. It has not yet gone against what I came to it for, and what I like about it. It still has human stories with very important things to say, even if the epic macrocosm tried to rip all of that to shreds at the end. Point is, Quantum Leap is still Quantum Leap over these 22 episodes. That last one has left us frazzled, in the heart of a swirling storm with the show's ethos smashed to bits.
Let's put it back together again.
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