Quantum Leap (2022)- 2x04 - The Lonely Hearts Club

A mediocre episode continues to connect the Leap to Ben/Addison's evolving relationship, while also, finally, shaking up the role of the hologram (for now)!

In the year 2000, Ben leaps into Summer Walsh, Assistant to the Stars—at least to Fading Star, Neal Russell, who she must get to The Tonight Show or HE WILL DIE (in a boating accident, after failing to do the interview). Is it because his ex-wife is getting remarried!? Kind of, maybe! That’s what Ben wants to believe, as he projects his own feelings of helplessness about his relationship ending onto Neal’s hopes of crashing a wedding and reconciling with his ex. This, unsurprisingly, goes poorly, and Ben and Addison are forced to confront all that remained (until then) unsaid. One emotional climax later, it turns out that Neal also had an estranged daughter, and, so, Ben helps them reconcile; Neal then lives to make more movies! Yay! Ben put right what once went wrong, but chooses to lock Addison out—he needs (we do too) a new hologram!

Procedural Storytelling: I wish Quantum Leap did a bit more showing than telling. In a medium like TV, the audience could easily be transported inside a scene, or to some kind of flashback, that viewers would understand to be Addison recounting events to Ben. Instead, a whole lot of exposition is dumped on us around their relationship, on newbie Tom, and about whatever’s going on with Ian. It feels like plot mechanics, to get characters to the right places at the right time, rather than character development. I wish we could be more grounded in those experiences—what if we had seen Addison deliver Ben’s eulogy at the funeral, or felt the weight of the years of looking and waiting and hoping, or even understood how she and Tom fit together well?

Instead, we’re stuck in Ben’s present, being told about what happened (which is, mind you, interesting in terms of how closely we’ve hewed to Ben’s POV). Other than that, the Leap of the week wasn’t particularly engaging. I like that it served Ben’s emotional journey (I’m always arguing for more thematic connections across plots), but it also didn’t feel meaningful like last week’s episodic focus on grief. The Leap should be able to stand on its own without being sublimated by the need to get Ben and Addison to shout at each other most of the way through the episode. Don’t get me wrong, their confrontation was the best scene, but it really made Neal’s life feel unimportant.

As for the confrontation, even if it felt a bit contrived, I liked it! I’m seeing folks argue about how Addison should have waited,¹ but I think this scene did an excellent job of conveying the depth of hurt both of them are understandably feeling. Ben’s sacrifice, his reason for Leaping, was all about saving Addison’s life, and he is resentful that she didn’t wait for him. He literally moved time and space to save her life, how could she not wait? But Addison had to live through those years without him, waiting and grieving and ultimately learning to let go, still dealing with his original betrayal, the decision to leap without telling her or giving her a choice. For Ben, no time has passed, and he’s having trouble processing the situation. It makes so much sense that he needs some time apart from Addison now. As I’ve argued before, I think QL would benefit creatively from having other characters take on the role of the hologram more often; I like how this fight was a character-driven mechanism to make that happen.

Serial Developments: I often find, with Quantum Leap, that fan theories provide more interesting answers to mysteries than the show typically reveals. When Ian leapt into Dottie (1x12: Let Them Play), fans theorized that they would maybe take over the role of Leaper (perhaps in S2), or that we might get a few episodes of Ian leaping, or maybe even just Ian and Ben running into each other across Leaps. It turns out it was likely a one time thing, as Ian leapt from—and returned to!²—a post-apocalyptic 2050s.

It turns out that Ian’s big secret from the S2 premiere is that… they paid their on-again-off-again partner’s boss to develop a Mega Tech Chip to find Ben, and so now non-government tech is leaking secrets to some sketchy external force. On the one hand, I’ve been demanding more thematic connections across plots (not just The Leap and the Addison/Ben relationship), so it was nice to have Ian’s relationship problems mirror some of the Ben/Addison conflict—this, at least, made for a more tightly connected series of stories, which I am always going to enjoy in some capacity. On the other hand, this is such a boring plot development… at least for now.³

I’m glad Ian has something to do in the present, rather than just technobabble about the Leap. It does mean that they may not be chosen as the next hologram, but I’m here for anything giving us more Ian time (even if it’s not the most interesting story arc).

Legacyquel Baggage: Identity Corner: Again, it’s interesting that Ben talks about being in a relationship with a ‘her’ as Summer (of course, Ben means Addison, but it lets Neal see Summer as a queer woman). But we don’t actually know anything about Summer’s identity, so it rings hollow. It’s nice that Ben Leaping into a woman is played off as normal, but, as with last season’s Ben Song for the Defense (1x15), I’m not sure it’s brave to have Ben perform queerness on behalf of a woman, as he exists as a straight man.

Otherwise, in what I imagine could be a throwback to the OG series, with similar beats and themes, I wonder if Ben will eventually save Tom’s dead wife (like Sam convinced Al’s first wife to wait for him), changing the future of Quantum Leap and giving them a timey-wimey reason to get Ben and Addison back together for S3.

Thanks for your patience this week, glad I got this up before 2x05. Happy Halloween!

1. This is my favourite response to those posts, a really nice analysis of the situation.

2. How did they do that!? Isn’t the ‘ability to return’ problem kind of the whole point???

3. I’m curious about whether Hannah, or Eliza Taylor, will figure into this development.