A Quantum Microcosm, Shared In The Entanglement Of Synchronicity (New Quantum Leap Season 2) [Part 2]

(Continued from Part 1)

Well, actually, I can only tell you half that story. There is a massive series of swirling macrocosms at the heart of New Quantum Leap Season 2, and the full tale of Ben and Addison's loss and healing is caught in that maelstrom. More to the point, most of the episodes are caught up in that particular arc as well. To take things in all at once would dilute the focus I am going for, so I find myself furtively turning the rudders to try and cut against this grandiose current. I can't avoid it forever, but if I can avoid it for around 2000 more words then all the better. Mercifully, there are still some standalone leaps to talk about, and even some of the ones tied into the arc have elements to them that can still be discussed here. Consider this segment one last dance with the original remit of Quantum Leap: putting a leaper up against the dark heart of American history itself, looking that darkness right in the eye and defying it. Making the world a better place, one ordinary life at a time. It will not satisfy the macrocosm's hunger, but it will sate it just long enough for us to prepare. 

If Ben's breakup didn't already put you in a somber mood, the next leap after will certainly do that. One Night In Koreatown is a tour de force, and just might be the best standalone leap of Season 2. It obviously deals with Korean heritage as Ben has leapt into a Korean boy working with his father at a shoe store in LA, and all the inherent struggles of being an immigrant that entails. The night in question is perhaps one of the worst ever to be in LA: March 29th, 1992. The fucking Rodney King riots which broke out after the four asshole cops who beat the shit out of him got off scott free. It's a struggle to survive the mass chaos which boils over through the city, compounded by the shoe store owner Jin Park's stubbornness and own racial prejudices against black people. Magic is the hologram in Addison's stead this time, and it does an absolute number on his mental health, giving him a PTSD attack and triggering a speech about his own experiences with police brutality during the civil rights movement. From the 60's to the 90's to the 2020s, police brutality and institutionalized racism pump through the dark heart of America like cancerous lifeblood. All we can do is fight the good fight and stand up for what's right. Ben manages to at least keep everyone involved in this leap alive, and change the mind of an old Korean shoe salesman a little to make him consider his own prejudices and learn from them.

The show does another two leaps like this in a row, but there is a bit of a danger with the next episode. Secret History, fittingly enough, does have a secret history in it which I am deliberately avoiding. It is a key lynchpin of the season arc, and some major things happen in it. We're going to gloss over that for now, but we will be back here. For now, know that Ben is at Princeton University in the 1950s, searching for a mysterious formula from Albert Einstein for creating a fusion reactor. Also wanting that formula: a bunch of fucking Nazis. This all leads to perhaps the most darkly comedic flirtation with the dark heart of America in the new series, in which Ian and friends back at the project use Ziggy to look up Operation fucking Paperclip. They all get to stand around and go "Wow? We did that? Gosh, that's fucked up!". Understatement of the century, but the climax of the episode has a bunch of shitty Nazis getting punched and sword fought and totally beat. Good. I want to dally here for one more moment, because there's another secret buried within this episode. Aside from the arc and the horrors of America hiring a bunch of fucking Nazis for science experiments, there is one more element vital to Ben's healing journey after his breakup. 

At one point in the episode, Ben has to find a secret passage in a library. Peak Indiana Jones shit, which is the vibe this episode is going for, and not the only time this season does that surprisingly enough. Well, they need the help of a Princeton alumni... and so, awkwardly, who should enter the imaging chamber but Tom Westfall. Ben is kind of an asshole here, still hurting and lashing out as he dismisses Tom as being a dumb frat bro. He's still hurting, but the healing process is beginning. By the end of the leap, the pair understand each other just a little. Tom met his deceased wife here at Princeton, and seeing it in the distant past triggers all those memories of grief and loss. As stated before, Tom and Addison bonded over their shared loss... but Tom and Ben kind of do as well. By episode's end, each expresses sorrow for the other's loss. The woman Ben loved is in safe hands, and though Ben doesn't exactly apologize for being such a shit, there are things that happen here which go a long way towards healing that hole in his heart. That, however, delves into the arc, and we can't go there. Not yet. Let's jump ahead instead.

A Kind Of Magic is next, and it's a fucking leap into 17th century witch trials. That's about as close to the origin of the dark heart of America as you can get. The only way closer would be the American Revolution. The Quantum Leap novels did that one once. I haven't read it, but supposedly it's not all that good. One other thing before we really jam, though. The end of the last season had that odd bit where the 2018 Ian was depressed and playing Dark Souls, which was the key to realizing they needed to do jolly co-operation with their future selves from 2023 and 2052. The main inquisitor leading the witch trials and whipping the town up into a frenzied mob that turns on their own in this episode is named... Magistrate Bloodborne. I don't know who on the New Quantum Leap team was so into From Software games, but I kind of feel bummed out that we won't get a third episode in which Ben has to track down a ring for a guy named Mr. Elden. What were we talking about? Oh right. Witch trials.

This episode is an odd one. I remember going into it for the rewatch being kind of whelmed. "Oh, it's just the witch trials episode, it's okay, I guess", I thought. Then I watch the thing and it is actually pretty key in Ben's healing. Hell, Magic even gets a line comparing Project Quantum Leap to alchemy, and how they transmute bad situations into good ones. I don't know much about magic (though I know who to ask if I need advice on it now) but I do know my alchemy. Predictably in this episode, Ben and some other girls are accused of being witches and go through the wringer, the whole town turning against them and wanting to burn them alive. The other girls resent their neighbors for this, naturally, but Ben's good nature urges them not to flee with hate in their hearts. I think part of him sees his own bitterness which has been poisoning his own heart in their animosity. Those tainted hearts are mirrored by the town's tainted well, which has been making people sick because there's sulfur in the well. Unhelpfully, sulfur's also a thing associated with witches, so you get the whole AHA I SMELL SULFUR THAT MEANS YOU'RE A WITCH YOU MUST DIE NO I DON'T CARE WE WERE FRIENDS I'M GONNA KILL YOU NOWWWWW mentality. The day is saved as rain comes, and the soothing waters don't just wash away the mob mentality, but also Ben's animosity towards Addison. A little alchemy works a long way in purifying the well, and Ben is purified as well. By episode's end, he's made up with Addison. They may no longer be lovers, but he has let go of the hate in his heart and wants her to be his hologram again.

It's worth luxuriating in this space, just so we're not wall to wall summations of what happened in certain episodes of this show. This is a striking way forward, and a message and ethos which struck me back in late 2023 and still strikes me almost a year later. Yes, there are elements at play I've not discussed yet that also help soothe Ben's heart, but the fact that it's been soothed at all is something of interest. Ben lost the woman he loved to the ravages of time and grief and loss, and for a time he let that fester inside him, lashing out and being reckless and closing himself off. Addison and Tom were a part of this cycle of pain as well, but they came out of it with each other's help. Ben has learned the same here and now. This is the strongest thread of Season 2, the way it's so intimately about grief, loss, and the warring states of love and hate. In that moment, at the end of 2023, I was honestly okay with Ben and Addison having split. Addison had been saved, and she was happy back with Tom. Ben had accepted that, was finding happiness and purpose of his own, and was becoming a better person while healing from that pain. Holding onto such hate for so long hollows our your heart, just filling it with the inky ichor of misery and hurt. Ben learned his lesson before such a thing could fully take hold, but put a pin in that idea. For now, we should wrap up with the last two episodes that don't particularly tie into an arc or greater point.

The Family Treasure sees the return of Shakina Nayfack's penmanship, the writer of Let Them Play from last season. That still remains the best episode of New Quantum Leap, a searing condemnation of transphobia that took a stand for trans rights and was, broadly speaking, very fucking good. This episode has some of that, but it's an odd thing. Most of the tale is spent with a trio of Lebanese-American siblings searching for some hidden treasure their father had left behind. Much like Secret History, it has that Indiana Jones vibe of searching for clues and dodging booby traps and dealing with betrayals. It hilariously ends with a note saying that the real treasure was the family bonds they made along the way, before then revealing that no actually the treasure was behind a painting at home all along. There's a nice scene near the end where one of the siblings, Dean, comes out as nonbinary to their sisters, and Ben gets to not only accept them but tell them all about their nonbinary friend Ian. It's very nice representation, don't get me wrong, but it feels a step down from the bold declaration that was Let Them Play. Maybe that's not my place to say, but given how Let Them Play lit my fucking world on fire, the downplaying just stands out to me. Fine episode otherwise.

The last "normal" episode, The Outsider, is one that will have interesting thematic resonances when we get into the arc stuff in a bit. This episode is about a reporter, with Ben as her cameraman, as they try to uncover a conspiracy regarding a dangerous carcinogenic pesticide that the company is covering up because it will cost less to settle with the farmers the pesticide gives cancer to than pulling the stuff off the market. The Ford Pinto of pesticides, in other words. The company CEO is a callous capitalist fucker who has friends in high places and isn't afraid to use hired goons to threaten Ben into silence. Watching him squirm at the end as the reporter puts him on the hook with incontrovertible evidence of his misdeeds is good, and a lovely fantasy of putting the dark heart of America in its place. Exposing naked capitalist greed to the sunlight and watching it burn away like Count fucking Dracula. Except, it's been lurking here the entire time I've been writing these words. Like the previous season before it, these 13 episodes of television have an eventual main antagonist who will threaten the very stability of Quantum Leap, the project and the show. A living dark heart of America, beating hate and greed and a lust for power through every dark artery in its body. How was such a monstrosity let loose upon the world, to attempt to make wrong all that has gone right for Ben and his friends?

'Twas love.

(Continued in Part 3)