Quantum Leap S5 E16 & 17

5–16 Return of the Evil Leaper

I wonder if they knew they were getting cancelled at this point or if they had a bigger arc planned for the whole evil leaper thing? Anyway, all the evil leaper stuff gets wrapped up in this and the next episode. Tonight we even get a post credits explainer of the last time she was here, fucking stuff up.

For the leap itself, Sam is into some kid doing a drag race of sorts, for some reason wearing a home made super hero costume: cape, mask, the whole thing. Apparently he’s the Midnight Marauder! But no, the bullying (and so so young) Neil Patrick Harris, pulls off the mask and tells Sam/Arnold to stop messing about, before just full clocking Sam in the face! Damn Doogie Howser how could you! The cops break it up pretty fast and Sam explains it away as just some dumb university hazing pranks.

Back at the dorm Sam is (for the first/only explicit time?) exhausted and wants Al to stop bothering him so he can get some damn sleep. I wonder, does Sam actually get tired and hungry? When does he eat? I mean, jet lag is one thing, but he’s forever leaping to different times of day/night never mind year. We hardly ever see the poor guy get to take a nap. But he can’t get one in the dorm, instead he has to reassure his roommate that he hasn’t totally fucked roommates chances of getting in Doogie Howser’s frat. Apparently those were the guys Sam pissed off earlier.

Roommate wants Sam to stop dicking around, but I mean, the guy’s grandad was a founding member of the chapter, so I think he’s safe to get into the frat. Relax dude. Sam starts spouting off to Al about all the wrongs he’s going to right and it’s one of those episodes where Sam and his host have some sort of minor mind meld. Special note here for Al’s suit jacket which is incredible. Bright baby blue, with sparkly blue lapels, looks like something late period Elvis would have rejected as too garish.

Sam gets hit on by some fetching co-ed who seems to be Doogie Howser’s gf but mid convo we see (but Sam doesn’t) the evil leaper leap in! It’s fun to see someone other than Sam figure out what’s happening and try to get by on the clues that float around her. Doogie is really mad, he wants to kill Sam/Arnold and Doogie really needs to relax. Is he really that worried about this nerd stealing his girl? The evil leaper and her advisor come up with an evil plan to seduce Sam/Arnold the nerd and then humiliate him in front of the whole school, 80’s movie style, even though it’s 1956.

EL starts spending time with Sam and it seems like they both might be picking up weirdness from the other. Sam from EL’s use of the word ‘macho’ (which he somehow knows wasn’t in common usage in the ‘50’s?) and her from the rather more obvious error of Sam blurting ‘Oh right, it’s the ‘50’s!” They almost touch, which we know allows them to see each other, but don’t.

We’re back in the imaging chamber with Al counseling Arnold that he needs to relax, get drunk, get good grades, date rape some sorority girls, you know, do college; Al style!

Sam gets ready for his big date and roommate even helps him put on a tie he lends him. It’s not really clear if roommate is being nice, but it seems like he is. Sam is like hey, maybe don’t do the whole death defying chicken race initiation? Which seems like good advice. Also seems like, it’s one thing if a pledge dies of alcohol poisoning, but the chicken race thing, surely has a much higher mortality rate.

As usual, Ziggy et al have no real idea about what Sam should do apart from maybe stop midnight marauding, but Sam can’t stop because of mind meld, Swiss-cheese etc, and instead heads out to stop the chicken race. This is a problem for EL who promises lady-Al that within five minutes of their date, she’ll have Sam/Arnold’s slide rule “fully extended” which, wow, gross, lady. It would have been fun to have one or two episodes where we just follow the evil leaper around as she wrecks lives without consequence. That’s the show that would probably get bought by a streamer today. Revolutionary idea, troubled protagonist!

I like how the frat assholes have tiki torches, yup, that tracks. Roommate is getting ready to race but Sam shows up in full costume and says nope, this race isn’t happening Doogie! EL and lady-Al show up and see Sam babbling to himself and saying Al this and Al that, and oh shit, they’re onto him. They know it’s Sam! Before they can do much, Sam cheeses it because Doogie and the frat goons are about to beat his brains in. Or out? Not sure but those brains are going to get damaged!

Apparently EL did a bad job last time (no shit, she got what we thought was sucked into hell, which seems pretty bad) and this time she has to kill Sam or at least, keep it a secret that she knows. She really seems to like Sam though. In fact, we could do with her being a little more evil.

Al chats with Arnold and I don’t really know why we’re spending so much time with him it’s not especially interesting. Arnold’s parents died when he was a little kid and he blames himself — they were murdered. Since then old Arnie has tried to stop bad things happening so that nobody else has to experience that shit. I mean, that’s sad and all but it can’t be that leaps relay on Al to offer psychiatric counseling and moral guidance in order to resolve them, or PQL would really be in trouble.

In the library EL dumps Doogie and says she’s fucking Arnold now, just to get Doogie really mad. Sam is pretty befuddled by the wild accusations EL is making and grabs her hand to be like WTF dude why are you trying to frame me and have Doogie death race me?? As he grabs her, of course he finally sees her.

EL tells Sam that Arnie has to die and that after their last encounter she got tortured for a real long time and it was real bad. Yikes! Sam sort of disregards her health and safety and comes up with a plan totally not based in any kind of fact or reality, that if she’s near Sam when he leaps, maybe they’ll leap together and she’ll be free? Yeah I mean, easy for you to suggest dude, you’re not the one going to get bad tortured if it doesn’t work!

And what if it does? Then what? They’d leap around forever as some sort of time traveling super duo? Where is EL’s real body and home? Another dimension? Russia? Super unclear. EL agrees to the plan but oh no, lady-Al was secretly watching the whole thing! Those damn holograms!

Sam decides to not tell Al for some reason, and pretends like he’s going to actually chicken race Doogie. He tells Al to buzz off and head back to the future to keep advising Arnie. I mean, this main plot is pretty reminiscent/exactly the same as that earlier episode where the nerd had to chicken race the guy who wanted to marry his sister. But they’ve got this far without repeating stuff, so I guess these things are going to happen. Time is a flat circle. The end result though, is that Sam says he’s going to risk killing himself in order to save EL and have them leap together.

Al breaks down Arnie like Good Will Hunting. It’s. Not. Your. Fault. It’s not your. Fault! Itsnotyourfault! This breakthrough will stop Arnie doing the marauder shit in the future (the past?) and save his life and lead him to a happy life, so that’s good.

But he might not have a body to go back to, since the rules of the drag/chicken race mean that someone is probably going to shoot off the edge of the cliff and meet a fiery death. The stakes are, if Sam wins, they’ll stop doing these crazy races, but Doogie chuckles, ‘not that I’ll have to keep that when I win.’ I mean, news flash genius. If a student flies off the edge of a cliff to his death during a frat initiation race, not having any more races is going to be the least of your worries.

Sam gets ready to race, with EL and Al in the car, Al having slightly less risk here. Also, having EL in the car while Doogie has just himself, weight wise, surely puts Sam at a big disadvantage? Al sees EL and wants to help Sam, but doesn’t care about EL. What if this nonsense plan of Sam’s doesn’t work and Sam dies and/or leaps with EL? Sam pretty clearly loses the race, and bails out of the car along with EL, as the car plunges over the edge of the cliff. They seem to (quantum) leap together, but lady-Al is telling their Ziggy (Lothos) to pull EL out. So in their program they have control over the leaps? That didn’t seem to be the case earlier when it seemed like EL’s leaps were as random as Sam’s.

But anyway, they do leap together, into a prison where the guards are wailing on them! We get a longer than usual little post-leap thing, seeing a bit of their prison life as they try to work out, what happened? Did they do an evil leap together or a good one as in, should they now being doing good or bad shit? Also, are they women or men? The guards are female so I guess Sam leaped into a woman again? To be continued!

5–17 Revenge Of The Evil Leaper

The end of the evil leaper plot line! By this point, we’ve established, EL is not really evil, rather decent but working for an evil organization? Like you know, most people in Silicon Valley? Maybe she works for Meta? Anyway, we’re back in the women’s prison with Sam and EL trying to help each other. Wiki tells me this is the most advanced leap in the whole show, being that we’re in 1987, just six years before the episode was made & aired.

Sam is sort of patronizing to EL, whispering about how they just need to play it cool and figure out what’s going on. Yeah, she knows, she’s just as good as you at this. For all we know, she could be way more experienced and skillful at leaping. Al is here (dressed in a red suit like he’s the devil or something) and says it’s Sam’s leap, and there are two women in the waiting room. OK, but where is EL’s body or soul or whatever she’s leaping in/out of? Like if she ends her leaping where would she return to? Where is she even from? She’s not Russian or anything, or from some parallel dimension. She’s just from some sort of rival (but evil) project in America in the same time as Sam? If she gets to leap home does that mean doom and torture for her? Super unclear what would equate to a happy ending here.

Sam and Al figure they have to hypnotize EL, which will change her brain waves enough for Lothos not to track her down and for her to be fully free (sure??) because then she thinks she’s the actual person she leaped into? This seems to work but I don’t know how much better this really makes things. They cut between the prison and the weirdass hypnotized mind state where EL can see clouds and is wearing a white robe and evil lady-Al is floating around looking for EL. Sam says you will remain this leaped in person, Angel, until I say Rumplestiltskin. OK yup, totally.

The prison warden is hilariously, insanely evil, cackling to the guard about how they have to put the fear into the two inmates, and make sure one of them hangs. Weird! The nice prison guard tries to help Sam & EL, encouraging them to tell the truth. And now the warden is about to get even more evil because Lady-Al (Zoe) leaps into the warden. Which seems unnecessary. Wouldn’t it have worked better to make the warden nice then change to evil when she controls him?

If that wasn’t confusing enough, now we have another hologram, a young black guy-Al, who is Zoe’s hologram. Jesus. Zoe doesn’t seem to have an idea of who she is (join the club) and YBG-Al says it’s because her mind is Swiss-Cheesed. OK wait. They use that phrase too?

This is getting into Christopher Nolan levels of confusing for a forty minute network show.

To recap.

• Sam and EL leaped together into a Sam ie ‘good’ leap.
• When EL leaped, Lothos (evil Ziggy) tracked her to this prison.
• Sam and Al hypnotized EL into some sort of dream fugue state where she believes she’s the leapee, which hides her brainwaves from Lothos.
• Lothos made Zoe (Lady-Al) the leaper, and sent Zoe to the prison to find Sam & EL.
• Zoe now has her own hologram, Young Black Guy-Al (YBG-Al) who tells Zoe, who has now forgotten who she is, that her mission is to find Sam and EL.
• As in previous leaps with multiple leapers, Zoe & YBG-Al, can’t see the real Sam and EL, unless Zoe touches them (possibly?)
• Likewise, Sam and EL can’t see Zoe, they see Zoe as the warden, and they also can’t see YBG-Al, as he’s a hologram from the evil side (but maybe EL can see him if she’s un-hypnotized?) so everyone is flying blind.
• Sam & EL can see each other, even though Sam has hypnotized EL to hide her from Lothos so EL believes she’s the actual prison inmate, she still seems Sam as Sam (81% sure on this.)

Christ on a cracker. Now I see why they didn’t make more of these, it’s like watching the later seasons of WestWorld.

At least it’s consistent how insane the holograms dress, that must be a hologram union thing or something. YBG-Al is wearing a sort of brown jacket with shiny bronze lapels, cuffs and a fluffed up spaceman looking collar under it. Nice!

Is this the first prison leap? No I guess there was that chain gang one, although that was mostly outside on the run. That one, the guy also had a problem with being in the hole. I guess nobody really likes getting thrown in solitary. There’s a a fantastically mean prison guard who’s just leaning way too into this performance, leering and opening her mouth and licking her lips and just being straight bonkers. It’s like she gave a super over the top performance and the director was like no, no, no BIGGER! Even Al makes a gag about how she’s a refuge from a B movie.

I like how Zoe is leering at herself in the mirror and undoing her shirt (she sees a big black dude in the mirror, the warden) just like Al would do if he had leaped into a woman, that’s a nice touch. Doesn’t really make sense how the clothes are super big on her though, that never seems to be a problem before, but it does speak to a bigger question. If Sam leaped into someone small, wouldn’t he rip out of their clothes with his big body? I’m looking at you, monkeys in space episode.

The nice guard takes Sam over to the hole where EL is stuck and flipping out. I don’t know why the nice guard is invested in this to the point where she’s willing to let Sam choke out the mean guard and free EL, that’s pretty intense. Also, EL Is fully chained to the wall, like a prisoner in the crusades or something. Isn’t it 1987? Weird.

Zoe is lighting candles and licking her lips at the prospect of getting ‘revenge’ on EL whatever that means. YBG-Al seems equally evil, and weird. The problem here is that everyone’s performances are just way bigger than QL usually has, it feels like they’re in a play and projecting their intentions to the back row, not a lot of subtlety.

In the waiting room, the one lady is freaking out and hiding under a table. The other is a bit more rational, asking, so like where exactly are we, you weird little man in the red suit? Al just keeps saying this is the waiting room. Right! Of course! The fucking waiting room! Now it all makes sense! I mean, I’d presume I was dead, it’s just a giant blue screen in an endless void and everyone is dressed in white, and Al could easily be the devil or whatever.

Apparently — although who the hell can pay attention to this with all the evil leaper stuff going on — EL has to work out the real reasons behind why the leapee is in prison so she can get released. Anyway, no time for that, the nice guard is going to hide EL in the old transfer tunnels under the prison and what the fuck, nice lady guard, you’re going to prison yourself for letting this woman escape.

Doesn’t matter anyway, because Zoe the warden tracks them down in minutes. Zoe then seems to suggest that she’s going to rape Sam? That would be some weird shit, Zoe as man raping Sam as woman? That would be in the pantheon of network TV shows pushing the envelope.

To confuse things further YBG-Al and regular Al are both there bashing away on their devices yelling probabilities at the same time, and now Zoe and Sam touch and can see each other for who they really are! And somehow Sam just runs off and is able to hide from all guards, because yeah, no locked doors in a prison. Turns out Sam didn’t recognize Zoe because of course, he’d never actually seen her, as she was previously a hologram invisible to him. Phew when is this going to be over my brain hurts.

YBG-Al listens in on regular Al and Sam’s convo, finding out who EL really is. Reporting this to Zoe, along with Sam’s location is about the limit of YBG-Al’s usefulness though, as Ziggy manages to block his signals and he can’t find Sam or Al. Sam now makes the extra confusing (and weird) decision to tell the nice lady guard the truth about who he and EL actually are — time travelers from the future who leap into other people’s bodies. Instead of being like, OK, you two belong in the psych ward, why did I risk my life/career to help you, she’s like, OK cool! I’ll believe you because this person would never make up a story like this! Sure, sure, that checks out. A prisoner trying to escape would never be desperate enough to lie!

Nice guard says she’ll cut the power to help them escape. EL asks why she’s helping them and nice guard is like, I just want to feel special and be the good guy. Which, wow, super weird reason to help prisoners escape lady! For all we know they could be serial child killers.

Once Sam and EL get out of the prison Sam says ‘Rumplestiltskin’ and snaps EL out of her hypnosis. Which is definitely how hypnosis works.

Now EL can see YBG-Al and Zoe! The ending is baffling and to say the least, rushed. All these things happen more or less simultaneously. 1. Zoe fires a shotgun at EL who leaps. 2.The leapee host person leaps back in, unhurt, not shot. 3. Zoe tries to shoot Sam but someone pushes her arm and she seems to shoot herself which, 4. Kills Zoe (??) then 5. Warden leaps back into himself and is fine, but Zoe is dead?

The warden gets arrested for some crime or other (shooting unarmed prisoners maybe) and the nice guard, she gets made warden (totally illogical and definitely not how promotions work, but sure!) and they all have no idea where EL is but, hey ho let’s just all concur she’s fine and she’s free and not back in Russia being tortured or whatever.

That last part, two minutes or so of screen time, Al is literally speaking as fast as he can to get it all explained and wrap this up. There’s just altogether way WAY way too much jammed into this episode. I guess they wanted to totally tie up the evil leaper plot line but just didn’t have enough time to do that. Maybe if they’d had another season? Anyway, onwards!