A Quantum Microcosm, Shared In The Entanglement Of Synchronicity (New Quantum Leap Season 2) [Part 3]

(Continued from Part 2)

We avoided it, for a time, but we can avoid it no longer. Into the swirling maelstrom of macrocosm we go. Into the churning choppy waters of Arc Stuff. It's big and grandiose, but here on its edges before the dark waters we will still find something simple and human to guide us. All of this, all of what is to come, was started with one small act of kindness. These harsh waves began with but a ripple in the water of time. Think back to what we learned long ago, when Sam Beckett faced his Mirror Image: the lives a quantum leaper touches do themselves touch other lives. Every leap, when you think about it, is a massive rewrite of interpersonal macrocosmic history. Each one makes the world a better place, putting right what once went wrong. These changes are never usually shown, only implied by the hologram reading out a lovely little summation at about minute 40 of each episode. New Quantum Leap Season 2 plays different. It will show the full scope of one such change; how it makes one person's life just a little better, albeit not without some hardships and adversity. That's just life, though, and the macrocosmic ramifications will come home to roost later. For now, let's see the change. Let's see what Ben did.

In order to understand, we have to go back to Closure Encounters. The Roswellian conspiracy leap which flirts with the idea that UFOs are real before revealing it was all just top secret military stuff. What I neglected to mention was one particular person Ben meets on this leap. He strikes a rapport with a young waitress named Hannah Carson. Do remember that at this time Ben is still reeling from having just been told he's lost Addison because it was three years and she didn't wait for him. Hannah, then, is just the sort of friend he needs on such a leap. She's sweet, charming, and also knows a little about physics herself. Hannah is a brief side character on this leap, but she is a nice enough young lady. So it is that, before leaping away, Ben writes down some info about a Princeton physics program for women that will start up in the future. A sweet gesture. Something to help Hannah get out of dead-end Arizona, to go and live her dreams of being a scientist. A kindness as Ben is hurting. This one kindness is the foundation for the entire arc. Everything that happens from here on happens as a result of this (or has already happened as a result of this, depending on how much predestination we believe in, but put a pin in that), and we get to see it very soon.

Which takes us nicely back into Secret History, the treasure hunt for Einstein's fusion generator formula which also has copious amounts of Nazis getting punched, losing swordfights, and getting arrested. Fittingly, there was a secret history here which I was evading last time, and here it is. Ben is assisted in this leap by none other than a slightly older Hannah Carson. Furthermore, Ben actually tells Hannah that he is a time traveler from the future in this second meeting. Again, we need to sit back and focus on the significance of all this. Ben even muses at the end of the episode that leaping doesn't work like this: he meets people, works hard to improve their lives and make a difference, and then never sees them again as he leaps off to the next problem to solve. The pool of people who have met a quantum leaper more than once is quite small: you can't count them on one hand, but you can count them on two. Add to that the number of people who know that the person in front of them is a quantum leaper from the future? That's like, three people from the old show (two of whom are Evil Leapers) and Richard Martinez. A significant thing has happened here. Ben Song and Hannah Carson have become quantum entangled, ensnared in a web of fate and predestination that will tug at their heartstrings. Again, at the end of the episode, Ben straight up kisses Hannah. He's hurting from his breakup and there's a clear sense of rebound and struggling to heal his heart, but here he is making a connection again with someone else, entangled across this woman's timeline. What will come of that? Many things.

Notably, right after this is the witch trials episode, in which Ben fully heals from the hate in his heart. This second meeting with Hannah is clearly an inspiration for that, and finding a real and tangible human connection is what helps him get over that misery. The power of the microcosm yet again. 'Twas love, everyone... and yet, the macrocosm looms. It seems dainty and innocent enough now, but last time was a struggle to talk about things that weren't the arc. Having exhausted that, everything else is major. Hannah Carson, the whip-smart curly dimpled physicist who Ben had a meetcute with, is going to keep popping up. Literally right after this, the next episode is their third meeting. Nomad is a Cold War-era spy thriller set in Egypt, in which Ben has to help an Egyptian superspy codenamed Nomad to make it out of the world of espionage and intel alive. Hannah is also here, and also helping. Fittingly, Ben is also a nomad given the whole leaping through time thing, and Hannah gets to muse that maybe a place isn't Ben's home, but a person. Could it be Hannah? We luxuriate a bit on the second act low point when it seems like Nomad has been captured by the East and is surely dead, the leap a failure... but would it be so bad if Ben got to spend the rest of his life with Hannah in the past? The leap is a success, but the fact that the very failure of the series parameter can be met with a "Well, look on the bright side" says volumes. I do enjoy Ben and Addison's relationship here, though: they both care for the other very much, even if they're not in love right now, and just want what's best for their respective ex-partner. Fittingly, now that Ben has learned this skill, he and Hannah are about to have a relationship much the same.

The very next episode, Off The Cuff. is also a Hannah leap, though in its defense there was a Christmas break between episodes here. It's also the final Hannah leap before the two-part finale, so the macrocosm is growing. Hannah's involvement is a twist this time, as initially this is just a leap involving Ben as a bounty hunter trying to get a guy into custody while being stalked by hired goons trying to kill the bounty. I feel like Quantum Leap really likes the idea of bounty hunters as a leap concept. The old show did it at least twice in my memory, maybe even three times, and Season 1 of the new show had that one with the bounty hunters who got married at the end. I guess hilarity ensues when you're handcuffed to your enemy for an episode. Anyway, the bounty is named Kevin Nally, and halfway into the episode he has the bright idea of hiding out from the hired goons (and getting medical treatment for Ben who's been a little banged up from the escapades) at his brother's farmhouse. This gets us to met Josh Nally, a doctor who treats Ben's wounds. We also meet Josh's family, including his son Jeffrey and his wife Hannah. OH SHIT MIC DROP THERE SHE IS. Yeah, so since Ben has been jumping across her timeline by massive gaps of years and years, Hannah has settled down with a nice young man and started a family. Showing how much he's grown, though, Ben isn't saddened by this. The pair still have that connection, that spark between them. To make a long story short, the day is saved and science is used to drive off the goons trying to kill Kevin, but Addison has a bit of bad news just before Ben leaps: Josh Nally will die of an aneurysm in 18 months. Before Ben can warn her, he leaps.

Okay, so bummer there. The next two episodes we've discussed already (the treasure hunting one and the one with the pesticide company getting exposed), but there is some minor Hannah arc stuff which happens. In the first, Ben reacts to being unable to warn Hannah about Josh's impending death with a clever idea: he pulls a Back To The Future and writes a letter to Hannah, to be delivered to her in 18 years, warning her to have her husband checked out for that health condition in order to save his life. It's a wonderful idea, but it doesn't work: as is relayed next episode, Josh Nally still died. The aneurysm was treated successfully, but soon after he was killed in a car accident. What a shame. Ben tried, but the assumption here is that Josh Nally's death was just an unavoidable accident, or maybe even a fixed point sort of thing that has to happen. The latter is a little gruesome to think about, considering what comes up next, but we can't confront that yet. Speaking of not confronting things, there's only one Hannah episode left. We'll really jam with its ramifications next time, but to give a quick summary of As The World Burns to set the stage: The apartment complex in Baltimore which Hannah and Jeffrey moved to after Josh's death catches fire, and Ben has leapt into a firefighter in order to save a whole bunch of people from the blaze. There's one very important thing which pays off here, and now we have to face a different macrocosm: We have to talk about the back at the project plot, and the swap code.

A magic spell to heal the lonely heart.

Right at the midseason break, Tom Westfall reveals this top secret piece of super-code that the government has in archive which could theoretically do a quantum leap swap: that is, Ben could trade places with someone in the present and return home to everyone. It is, however, a very advanced code, and Ian struggles with decoding it for quite some time. During the fire, Hannah gets trapped by some debris and Ben has to rush off to save Jeffrey from the flames. At that moment, Hannah codes in dust, revealing that not only was she the super-genius behind the code, but that she has the missing piece needed to complete it. Let us stop here and revel for a minute. All of this, this expanse lasting about three decades of Hannah Carson-Nally's life, culminates here. Ben was not thinking of his own personal gain when he gave Hannah the tip to go to Princeton all those years ago. He was just making one life a little better. Business as usual for a quantum leaper. The sheer scope and consequence of that one decision rippled, and is still rippling. All of this, all that has happened and will happen. Swordfighting Nazis for Einstein's formula, thrilling chases to escape Soviet agents in Cairo, barricading a farmhouse against gangsters hellbent on invading it and killing you, and escaping a towering inferno while trying to save as many people as you can. All of that, because Ben was kind to a random waitress once. Now look at what the rippling has unearthed: the swap code, cultivated in the mind of a genius for half a lifetime, to get Ben back to his home. This is the power of Quantum Leap. No, wait. That's not quite right. It is that, yes, but it's more. This is the power of love.

But, as love beats in the heart, so does hate. Ben's one act of kindness changed the trajectory of Hannah's life. It brought them together, and it brought Ben his salvation. Salvation from the anguish of his breakup, and the possibility of returning to his home. There are darker consequences, though. Ben did his best, and he did it all in the name of love... but ripples can uncover dark things within the waves. As Ben and Hannah's hearts beat for love, the dark heart of America beats for hate and misery and imperialism and all those other horrible things we talked about. Ben's actions have given that dark heart a good and strong defibrillation, and now it's awake. It's awake, and we have to deal with our season's antagonist. A certain irony has not escaped me. I started this off by accusing this series of losing the trees for the forest. Some thousand words in, all I've really done is tell you all the arc shit that's happened. I feel as if I've let you all down again, and for that I apologize. I can only hope you've been liking the words, but even I feel as if the macrocosm has weighed down on us. We're in the eye of the storm, in the middle of the black hole here now.

The end of Quantum Leap approaches. The end of love, of life, of putting right what once went wrong. One last desperate battle with the dark heart of America. Let's go.

(Continued in Part 4)