Quantum Leap S5 E01–03

5–1 Lee Harvey Oswald pt 1

OK little break but we’re back! For the final season just as the reboot takes its winter break.

They definitely jazzed up the theme music a little for the final season, and inserted a few different cut scenes. More driving drums! More propulsive!

The episode starts with a title card, about how the episode is based upon “known evidence and established facts.” Ah right, right, Sam is Lee Harvey Oswald! When this episode aired in ’92 it was less than 30 years on from The JFK assassination. I guess that makes it comparative to if there was a show today about the early days of the Clinton Presidency (of which actually, there are many) but what I mean is, it would all feel reasonably fresh in the public mind when it aired, compared to the ancient history it is today.

Clearly it’s a very serious episode. Opening with black and white photos of the young JFK, increasing in age and ending with shots from the oval office where you get the idea of the youth of JFK, his kids running around and playing. Then we switch to a few shots of Oswald, holding guns, looking weird and finally ending with the famous shot of him holding the rifle and the newspaper and that’s when Sam leaps in. He’s able to speak and understand Russian? He also flashes in anger at his gf and grabs her and slaps her! That’s not usual Sam behavior! Clearly he’s not in complete control of his host body for once.

The paper says it’s March of ’63 so he’s got a few months to stop things. I wonder, could he just go and get arrested for something else, turn himself in, say he’s going to kill the president if they don’t stop him? He looks down the barrel of the rifle and suddenly he sees JFK’s head in the scope and then just as suddenly he’s leaped to a different time in Oswald’s life, training as a sniper in the military, on the range. So much for my plan of turning himself in. They’re playing with the time in this one, keeping us and Sam discombobulated.

Sam seems to have very limited control here. Before he can aim the gun, Al appears and puts him off. Way to go Al. The marine Sargent is mad and Sam is like, go fuck yourself bro. Al can’t believe Sam is being such a dick, but Sam explains he has very little control over his actions, evidenced when he field strips the M1 rifle in about five seconds.

Al doesn’t believe Oswald still has any residual control, or that Sam has more than just a tiny bit of Oswald in him, despite all the evidence. But Sam thinks there’s a lot of Oswald in his head, and he can’t control it. Al puts forward a few conspiracy theories that it wasn’t Oswald acting alone and even if Sam stops the trigger being pulled, JFK will still probably die.

This marine camp is in Japan, which reminds Al of banging geisha’s when he was stationed out there. Because that’s what he should be thinking about now, when they have a chance to stop THE presidential assassination. His litany of sex crimes.

Whoa, we get a good look at the waiting room in 1999! And Mozzie from White Collar is playing Oswald! Apparently QL is in “Stallions Gate, NM.” Looks like a nice area! Al is interrogating Oswald, who won’t give up any info. Oswald just rambles on about oppressed classes and the proletariat. I can sure see why he didn’t have many friends. I’m not so sure why the people who leap into the waiting room have to wear a white roll neck sweater and tight white pants, but anyway. Oswald knows Al’s name, so some of Sam is inside him! There’s some real Swiss cheese shit going on here.

Sam seems more than capable of performing the complex radar tasks that Oswald is meant to be doing, he even seems to be enjoying it, despite how everyone is sweating insanely. But Sam does one little fuck up and everyone rips on him nonstop until he looks like he might murder them. Al is actually useful, being that he’s down with all the military jargon and kinda seems to know what’s going on.

Later that night at a bar full of dudes in white face makeup and painted nails, Sam is confused and pretty uncomfortable. I’m not sure if this is a gay bar and they’re suggesting Oswald was gay, or if this is just a fun theme bar. Two ladies start fighting over Oswald and then guys get involved and Sam is mad and fights people and I have no idea what in the good Christ is going on and maybe that’s the idea? What is this bar? A casual place for spies? A brothel? Unclear. What’s the big significance of this part of Oswald’s life?

It seems to all boil down to Sam/Oswald fighting the drill sergeant who is a badass killing machine. Too bad for that guy, he’s not fighting a little angry runt, but a kung-fu kicking PhD time traveler. This fight goes on so long we have to take a commercial break in the middle. Finally, with blood all over the place and Sam looking half dead, he pulls a one shot little piston out and jams it under the sergeant’s chin and seems about to pull the trigger. Al can’t get through to Sam who is in some sort of crazy trance. Ziggy says, ask Sam science shit to distract him, and it works. Sam starts giving answers and comes back to himself. Probably doesn’t reassure the guys in the bar too much when he starts chanting scientific equations. So was the idea that he would otherwise have killed the sergeant? Again, unclear.

Another little leap and Sam is back in California, in 1959. And Sam is still Oswald! And Oswald is still in Sam’s head! But just like that, he’s off again. Now Sam is in Russia, about to give military secrets to Russia as part of Oswald’s defection! To be continued! This episode is intense!

5–2 Lee Harvey Oswald pt 2

Wiki tells me that this episode was originally shown as a two hour season opener. The show creator/runner/writer ole Donald Bellisario actually met Oswald in ’59 when they served together in the marines. Holy shit, that’s bonkers! He wrote this episode as a rebuttal to the movie JFK, with his idea being that there was no conspiracy and Oswald could easily have done it alone.

We’re back at Stallions Gate (Al must have had a hand in selecting that spot for Project QL) and Al is chatting with Oswald. When Al asks him science questions, we hear Sam’s voice coming through Oswald. And when Sam is getting asked top secret questions by the Russians, we hear Oswald’s voice. Their minds are totally meshed and messed up!

On the good side of things, although Sam can’t stop the info flowing out of his big mouth in Russia, Ziggy says there’s a 90% or so chance that he gave them nothing they didn’t already know. Sam wants them to grasp the initiative in this Oswald leap and somehow put things right before he gets leaped away again. In order to do so, the team believes that Sam has to do everything Oswald did in 1959, which means slashing his wrists in this Moscow hotel room. Yikes. Nobody suggests my idea, while Sam is in control, he could cut off Oswald’s trigger fingers or something, making it hard/impossible to pull off the difficult JFK shot.

Just as Sam puts the razor to his wrist, he’s leaped forward in time, to ’63 in the pouring rain in Dallas. Now Oswald is running home after his first go at an assassination, the General Walker thing. Al helps wrestle Sam’s mind back into control of the body. Apparently they’ve done some sort of mind tampering in order to get the minds separate and connected again but nope, another disaster from the super computer: Sam says this is only going to fuck things up further because science science science. Sam finds a book in Oswald’s house about his plans for the General’s assassination and how he should have got it right but he got unlucky at the last second! And with that he leaps again! Now he’s handing out flyers about Cuba and hitting on blondes.

In short order, folks take a bit of a dislike to the guy on the street yelling about how great Cuba and communism is. Al can’t get through to Sam who has a great dickish smirk on his face. Scott Bakula does an even better job than usual of physically transforming himself in this episode. And uh oh, he leaps again and this time it’s Nov 21st in ’63 and he’s watching JFK on TV, visiting Dallas. Zero hour!

Back at Stallions Gate we get a rare Gushi conversation! Gushi and Al debate if the mission is to stop the assassination or if it’s more so that Al can be there to witness it all — meaning they could finally know for sure if it was a conspiracy or Oswald was a lone gunman. Stock footage of the day and the book depository is spliced with Sam/Oswald going about his business, setting up his snipers nest in the window.

In the imaging chamber Oswald won’t give up any info to Al. He tells Oswald exact details about the guns he owned, which he bought through the mail under a false name. Wow that’s crazy, that it was so easy to get guns back in the ‘60’s. I’m glad since then America has brought in reasonable gun control laws that would never allow a madman to get his hands on guns and do harm with them. What a relief!

Sam is looking through the sight as the parade comes down through Dallas. No Sam! Don’t do it! Al is intimidating Oswald, firing a handgun right past his head and threatening to shoot him dead if he doesn’t give him the truth. Oswald is still full of shit though, giving phony answers. Looking into the mirror, Al can see Sam, and Sam pleads for Al to help him, to hijack his mind back so they can stop it. But it’s no good. Sam doesn’t even seem able to see Al anymore, let alone answer science questions. He props up the gun. Looks down the sight. Man what a gigantic fail for Project QL! This is, a chance to stop one of the most notable events in history, and they’re totally out of control. At the last second though, Al gets through to Sam and Sam does indeed leap out…

…and into a bodyguard near the President’s car! Al tries to distract Oswald but of course he can’t see Al, and Sam is too far away to stop anything happening although he sprints to the car and throws himself over the body. Al says Sam leaped into the nearest person who could accomplish the mission. What Sam didn’t remember is that in the ‘original’ timeline, Jackie died too and so Sam’s mission was a success in that she didn’t die. I mean, they gave Sam something sure, but it doesn’t really make much sense that given the chance to save the President or first lady, Sam’s mission was to save the first lady. Why would that be the mission? No offense to Jackie here, but for American history if you got to save one or the other, I think the President might be the better option.

Anyway, all time classic episode, interesting take on well worn material, powerful opening to the final season.

5–3 Leaping Of The Shrew

Not a super great place to leap into! A guy lost at sea, near an overturned boat that explodes as thunder and lightning crash down! And a woman screaming for help, floating on a chest of drawers! And that woman is Brooke Shields! Oh Boy!

They could have given Sam an easier leap after the stress of the whole Oswald thing, but now he’s lost at sea!

Post credits, Sam is swimming, dragging Brooke, and manages to get them aboard a life raft, and it’s now light, so was he swimming all night? At least Al is hear fast, telling Sam he’s floating somewhere in the Aegean Sea. Great? Nice little trick with Al walking calmly on the water alongside the raft. Brooke is pretty mean, yelling at Sam and telling him to jump into the ocean and retrieve her trunk. She’s a very rich and important lady. She says he’s an employee of the boat her fiancee hired, so Sam has to do what she says.

Sam gets the trunk, but rather than being full of food and water (which would be a pretty weird thing to pack on a vacation) it’s full of clothes and what she really needed, cigarettes. She calls Sam a grimy little grunt. He’s Nico the Greek who works in the engine room. It’s a little hard to talk to Al without Brooke knowing but Sam doesn’t ever really make any effort to hide it anyway. She just thinks he’s crazy because he’s talking to himself. Al says, not to worry, you’ll get picked up soon enough, you’re in the main shipping lane and in the original history (what original history recorded this?) the two of them got picked up almost right away.

Al lets Sam know that she smoked on board the ship which led to an explosion, which is why the ship sank. Nice one Brooke. To compound this, she waves her current cigarette around and punctures the life raft which they have to block up with gum, the other crucial thing she packed. What a dickhead she is! They toss everything overboard apart from her Grandma’s ashes. Whatever they’re doing it’s not working because now Al says they never get found.

They rig up a sail using her wedding dress, which is pretty great. Of course, Brooke can’t agree with any action Sam takes since they’re doing the ‘these two always bicker and fight because they love each other’ Han/Leia thing that was so popular in the 80’s/90’s (and I guess, to a lesser extent, still) which really doesn’t make a lot of sense, given the context here. For example, Sam doesn’t manage to catch fish but he does snag some seaweed and she’s all mad that’s all he caught and refuses to eat it. A normal person might be like, OK, well I don’t really give a fuck if you eat or not, I’m eating it. If you don’t eat you’ll die, so yeah, too bad for you I guess.

For ‘dinner’ Brooke changes into a bizarre sailor outfit like some sort of Japanese anime character. Brooke is crying about how her dad is the greatest and gave her everything she ever wanted and so what if he never took her for a walk on the beach! Sam woos her with talk about his dad teaching him the names of the stars. They fall asleep and by morning have washed ashore on a rocky beach. Brooke is sure it’s Corfu but Sam doesn’t need Al to tell him this is a nothing island in the middle of nowhere.

Brooke is great as the asshole socialite; so pretty, such a jerk, yet with some underlying secret heart that you want to root for her when she even shows you a tiny flash of it. They look for dinner and don’t find much, which leads to a water fight in a nice little muddy bathing pool. This finally gets them past the arguing phase and into the bonding phase where Brooke can be sad she has no friends and her dad doesn’t even like her possibly. And just like that, they’re making out. But after the first make-out they have to push each other away, that’s the rom-com laws.

They make dinner and make friends again. Now they’re bickering in a little playful type way, making food over the fire and building a makeshift flare in case they see a ship. That night they see a ship, but the flare (made mostly of a full can of hairspray) doesn’t explode and it’s because Brooke used a FULL CAN of hairspray on her hair because it was windy. Sam is within his rights to yell at her here I feel, that is completely insane behavior. Sam yells at Al that he totally understands women, because he’s been one several times (in leaps) and he was even pregnant! So Sam can remember all his previous leaps?? That’s intense!

Al says that’s it fine Sam is in loveee with Brooke because Nico, back in the waiting room, is in love with Brooke as well. And Brooke loves Nico, she followed him around on the boat. Ziggy and Al have come to the conclusion that these two never got the chance to get together because they were rescued too fast because Nico is such a good sailor. Sam is terrible, hence the desert (well, rock) island, and the chance to get them together. Another great use of the power of time travel, getting these two nobodies to hook up.

Now Sam knows he needs to romance Brooke to leap, he starts being all nice, which is a lot more awkward than when they just argued nonstop. Brooke cries that everyone hates her and they decide they want to be together and not get rescued and, Al tells Sam, yup, they’re going to live on this island and have six kids.

Yikes! I don’t think there’s a hospital on this island. Or a school. Or anything at all. But that’s that. Happily ever after I guess? Weird ending.