Quantum Leap S5 E11–13

5–11 Promised Land

(Ed.Note, another one not shown on the network reruns for some reason.)

I think this is the first time Sam jumped into someone doing a crime? Surprised there aren’t more like that. He has a scarf over his face and he’s holding up a bank with his older brother and some other guy!

It’s Christmas time, 1971. As you might imagine if you’re a local boy who grew up in the town where you’re doing the robbery, despite the scarves, people soon start to recognize the ‘Walter’s Boys.’ Hot tip: maybe don’t rob your very small town bank. Maybe drive to the next town over?

Al explains that this is most likely a bottle episode. No he doesn’t but that’s what it looks like. Better news, Sam is in good ole Elk Ridge, Indiana! His dad is still alive and just up the road at the farm. He’s home!

Sam is still Swiss-Cheesed but he has a vague memory of these brothers and their farm and all that stuff. They owe the bank the exact amount they’re trying to steal from the bank, which has a weird sort of logic to it. Originally the brothers got killed leaving the bank, so most likely Sam is there to stop that. Although he has a sneaky idea that, maybe he’s not?

The sheriff is being either very calm or very dick-ish about this whole situation, calmly finishing his coffee and pie in the diner as people shout at him (reasonably) that he should be doing something a shade more proactive to resolve the robbery and save the hostages. Seems pretty clear that the main shouting guy is going to take matters into his own hands soon-ish, but the sheriff is so placid or dumb he doesn’t seem to care.

The older brother explains to the tellers why they’re doing it. They just keep getting screwed by the bank and the money men, in particular some chief of the bank, Gus Vernon who they want brought down there. Al says Vernon makes bank (aha) off forcing the farm to be sold and a shopping center made in its place. Which Sam blurts out to everyone in the bank. Half of the hostages even seem to be on the brothers’ side vs the bank.

Despite the hostages and the whole felony situation, Sam is having a grand old time speaking to some of the old people trapped in the bank. He can’t help but talk to them about the Beckett family. The old people know them, sure, everyone knows them. Great people! The old guy saw Sam’s dad two days ago and he looked just fine, good and healthy. And not too long ago, Sam’s dad drove the old lady to the doctor’s and waited an hour for her. Sam looks ready to cry, which about makes sense.

Everyone is on the same page about how Gus Vernon, the mean bank manager, is being a fucking dick. I think the whole town are about ready to kill this guy. The manager finally shows up and he’s your classic totally nonredeemable asshole.

Sam needs to get to the bank manager’s house to find paperwork that implicates him in the bank/mall fraud. Ziggy and Al come up with an escape scenario where the pregnant lady will pretend to be giving birth. She also hates the bank manager, and the mean lady who works in the bank so she’s down to help out. With the distraction of the pregnant lady needing to leave the bank because she’s “giving birth,” Sam sneaks out the back.

En route to the bank manager’s house though, Sam gets a little distraction. Down one road is the target. Down the other road is the Beckett family farm. Al says nobody would blame him if he took that road. But ever the hero, Sam says no, he has to help everyone out at the bank, and heads to the bank manager’s place. What a guy.

Right away Sam finds a lock box with a giant lock on it, which may as well be labelled ‘damning evidence’ but before he can open it, here’s the bank manager with a gun on Sam! That rascal! Sam says open this box if you’re innocent and the guy is like hmm no, I think instead I’ll call the police and let them know I just killed an intruder. Fair move! Sam is playing chess when this guy is playing checkers though! Sam turns his back and acts like he’s given up but swings around and unleashes his trademark kung-fu kick. smashing the gun out of bank managers hand and knocking bank manager unconscious! Shooting open the lock box Sam finds a letter of intent from the developer proving the bank manager is crooked!

Sam speeds back, letter in hand and gives himself up. He tells the sheriff he has the evidence that Gus manipulated the farm lands to get his hands on all the land and screw over the poor farmers. The sheriff glances at it for five seconds and immediately agrees. In other shoddy sheriff work, the angry guy who was shouting at the sheriff earlier to do something, has busted into the bank and shot the youngest brother! Older brother is not happy about this, as you might imagine. Sam gets back inside the bank needing to fix things, which he does.

Gus the bank manager gets time in jail, the brothers get off for the bank robbery, everything is fine apart from the guy who shot the brother who dies a bit later anyways. Sam is pretty frustrated about this whole thing even though he nearly did everything perfectly. But wait a minute, who’s that across the town square, it’s a smoking old guy. It’s Sam’s dad! Played by an old man made-up Scott Bakula, haha! Great job he does in being an old guy. Sam has a nice conversation with his pa, and ends with wishing him a happy Christmas and giving his dad a big hug as he leaps.

Happy! But sad! Great episode!

Why was this not included in the reruns? Weird.

5–12 A Tale of Two Sweeties

Kinda a gross title but I see what they were trying to do there. Sam is at the airport where he’s greeted by two separate and unknowing families, both with wives and kids! Oh Boy!

One of the families lives here, one is surprising him on his work trip, which is somewhere in Florida in the late ‘50’s. First problem is that the little kid can see Al and can see Sam as Sam. They get around that, daddy is in disguise and that’s his invisible friend of course! The little kid is pretty funny in that she keeps telling the mom everything Al says, like Sam has huge dangerous gambling debts and is up to no good. It’s pretty hard to miss Al who seems to be dressed as Satan in a bright red suit, matching hat, and red and black silk shirt.

This leap might be one Al can actually help with, being that it involves lying to and cheating on multiple women. Sam elects to send the NY family to a hotel and head home to eat the pot roast home family made. The kid in this family is older, maybe 12 and he finished the ‘special math problem’ his dad gave him, aka handicapping the dog races. Seems like maybe this dad is not the greatest, even outside the whole bigamy thing. The other family, the kid is raiding the maids cart, just like his dad taught him!

The mission is, best they can guess, Sam has to pick a family. Which seems like something the real guy should do, not Sam, since he could fuck up multiple lives, being that he knows nothing about anyone. For unknown reasons, Sam’s best idea for the night is, take both families to the SAME movie and then run between them in a cheap sitcom hi-jinks comedy way that would surely be so stressful as to cause Sam a heart attack.

Bigger problem than two families at once (as if that’s possible) is that Sam runs into two mob looking guys, to whom he owes a bunch of gambling cash. He needs to come up with two grand in the next 24 hours or stuff is going to get broken. Stuff like bones in his body. I guess Sam will feel the pain, or we’re back to it isn’t his body? Who knows. Anyway, probably best to avoid it. He ends up sleeping on a park bench after the two families both get mad enough at him to each kick him out. Not great!

Trouble is still a brewing, because the one wife is getting her hair done by the other one! Neither know about the other is married to ‘their’ husband, and both swap stories about how they’re glad they’re married to a guy who never cheats and would never gamble because they’d both know for sure if any of that monkey business was happening! Sam needs to apologize to both of them. Probably not at the same time.

The next dumbass plan Sam has is to call the beauty parlor and apologize to whoever answers, which is the blonde. Makes more sense he’d call the one who worked there but, whatever. The blonde wife heads out to her car, where Sam says he stuck a note declaring his love etc. The note says all will be revealed at a 6pm dinner, happiness and all that. Next, with the blonde gone he heads into the parlor to ask the red headed wife to come for dinner at 6pm tonight and give him another chance.

Before he can attend any dinners though, he gets seized by the mob guys and bad news, he doesn’t have their money. Sam comes up with a sneaky plan, he makes a phone call which allows him to speak freely to ‘Big Al’ about what horse will win the next race. Unhelpfully, the man with no morals, Al, won’t take part in any Biff Tannen schemes even when it could risk Sam’s life. Turns out when they first made PQL, Sam made some sort of anti-sports-almanac rule, forbidding using any future knowledge for personal gain. I mean this isn’t so much personal gain as avoiding serious personal injury, but OK.

One of Sam’s many kids is running away from home, but luckily it’s the one who can see Al, so Al ports over to her and convinces her to not run away. He tells her he didn’t have a mom or dad in the orphanage, so you don’t know what you’ve got kid. Don’t run away! She’s an easy sell and heads back home. Sam convinces the mob guy to let him borrow more money, put it on a long shot, which wins, allowing him to settle his debts. He’s home free! Gambling pays! Now all he has to do is choose a wife.

Of course, he’s invited both wives to the same place at the same time, to settle things. Honesty is the best policy Sam has decided. He gives it to them straight, two homes, two sets of kids, two wives. He admits being a low life and throws himself on their mercy. Of course the women start screaming at each other, until Sam has to again intervene saying he’s the slime to blame here not each other. He also lets them know about his gambling problems.

Both agree to divorce him and leave town. It’s OK though, both sets of kids grow up just fine. Apparently even Sam/Bigamist cleans up his act and makes money on the lecture theater circuit. Which is a thing, I guess? Sure!

Ha, twist in the tail though. Right before he leaps a third family shows up, getting a double Oh Boy from both Sam and Al! Ha! Fun episode.

5–13 Liberation

Liberation now! Sam is at a good ole fashioned bra burning in the late ‘60’s. What a dumb old fashioned episode. Women’s liberation? We’ve totally moved on since then and women have everything they wanted. ERA passed. Abortion rights. Equal pay. A female President and hundreds of female CEO’s. Such great progress!

Ahhh.

Anyway.

At the rally a woman speaks about the right to have children or not (back in the good ole days of 1968 when abortion was legal) some dudes in Letterman jackets yell about how these broads should be home in the kitchen and other helpful sentiments. Back at home, Sam’s husband George is having a comical time trying to heat up tater tots for his son and some party guests. A man? Cook any sort of food? The insanity!

Sam is arrested and thrown in prison and Al is creaming his pants about women in cells who are chained up, which seems like a pretty dark fantasy Al. Al then proceeds to talk about how women’s lib is meh and Sam agrees (?!), and as usual seem furious. Sam doesn’t care about women’s lib. Yikes Sam. The cops are like you’re all facing a bunch of criminal charges. However husband George makes a deal with the cop that Sam and his daughter get released, but the cop says from now on, George needs to keep a tighter rein on the little woman!

Next morning, Sam’s daughter is mad with the dad because he’s a big atavistic sexist jerk. Sam as mom is like well, just try and be nicer to him. The daughter is right though, women are going to have to fight every inch to get the changes they want. Sam gives some pretty solid advice about there’s good and bad on every side, you just have to find it and be reasonable. Unfortunately, reasonable rarely leads to progress.

Sam tries to navigate by making some great pancakes but George and son are disturbed because they usually have omelettes on Friday! Pancakes! Does not compute! George doesn’t seem like a terrible person but he’s definitely struggling with the changes in the world. I mean his teenage daughter is also kinda an aggressive jerk so it’s pretty even Steven, as far as terrible communication goes. George wants his wife and daughter to go back to normal and make breakfast great again!

Al explains that although George is demeaning and a dumbass, that’s the generation he’s from. George was taught that women and men have places and need to be treated differently. They have no idea they’re degrading women, they’re just not taught any differently. But I mean, that surely just means that they need to be taught? Of course tonight the mean cop is going to shoot someone, possibly the daughter or the movement leader lady, and Sam has to stop that.

The female leader of the movement gets into an argument with Sam about how fighting is all well and good but not physical fighting and rioting. I mean, on one hand, sure peaceful protests are good, anyone can agree on that. But sometimes you reach the limit of that. Anyway, Sam persuades the leader non violence is the way to go.

At George’s job it’s all gags about how dumb women are, how happy some of the guys are to be divorced multiple times and all that good ole boy stuff. And definitely how it’s totally fine women get paid less to do the exact same job. The cop comes and pays George a visit saying the female members of his family are associating with this women’s lib leader and George needs to control his women! The cop is like and uh, yeah if my son could get that promotion instead of the women that would help WINK WINK.

So good news bad news, they’re switching to a peaceful protest sit-in as suggested by Sam. But someone is going to get shot when they do it at George’s club! Daughter is not down for this chickening out and is like, fuck making dinner for the patriarchy! Sit-in! George is not happy that Sam & daughter ‘disobeyed’ him by going to the women’s lib meeting. He forbids it! If they ever meet the libbers again, George is out of the house and they’re divorced. And someone else will have to look after the wife and kids and pay the bills! Clearly this guy has never heard of alimony.

85% that George moves out after tonight, which I mean, seems like the best result for everyone? But the music suggests this would be bad? I mean sometimes divorce is the answer. George locks daughter in her room so she won’t join the protest tonight.

At the dinner party, Sam struggles with making the dinner, spending most of his time in the kitchen talking with the woman who wants the promotion vs the cops kid. Promotion woman is crying about how she can’t say her ideas, she’s not a pushy bossy woman, and Promotion Lady (PL), sometimes you just have to be! Lean the fuck in! Sam encourages PL to push her ideas at dinner which will help her get the promotion.

The cops kid seems to be perhaps mentally challenged, since PL says hey dude, you never mentioned women entering the workforce in your proposals. At first the guy just totally ignores her and laughs at how much tea his wife drinks. Next, PL pushes stats and concrete ideas about the future of the industry, and cops kid responses insanely, HAHA! No more to drink for you! Even George looks confused by this bizarre rebuttal.

Sam’s daughter has sneaked out to meet with the militant women’s lib leader and join the sit-in. When Al finds out he lets Sam know, and Sam has to bolt the dinner party to save his daughter. The men at the club are crying about how there’s never been a woman in the dining room! The nerve! What will we do! Women’s lib leader punches the cop in the face and the cop seems about like he’s going to start beating on her, but she grabs his gun and there’s a standoff! Sam talks her down from emotion to logic. She gets arrested but doesn’t shoot anyone.

The dumbass cop is like I have to arrest your daughter for grabbing the gun. Sam is like are you fucking kidding me, she grabbed it off the women who was about to fucking SHOOT YOU. The cop is like well, when you put it like that, OK, uh-duh, no charges. But don’t worry, daughter grows up to be a solid activist and all that.

George shows up and wants some answers! He’s leaving her! Al is like you have to fix it! I mean, for why dude? They’re clearly ill suited, why not just give up? It doesn’t always work out and that’s OK. Maybe George finds an old fashioned lady to be his wife. But Sam talks George back into the marriage under the agreement that he needs to change and make the effort to understand his wife as who she really is, not a symbol. He’s like OK fine I’ll try and yeah that’s 100% not going to work out, I don’t care what Ziggy says.