Quantum Leap (2022)- 2x06 - Secret History

In which secret Nazis, Albert Einstein, and Forbidden Physics are a useful backdrop for a grounded and emotional story about love, loss, grief, and 1950s sexism.

Welcome back, dear reader! It looks like there have been increasingly large gaps between episodes of QL recently, so I decided to push this review back, to come out closer to the next episode—a little refresher. Thank you for your patience, and looking forward to more QL!

In 1955, Ben Leaps into Princeton Physics Professor, Henry McCoy, who must solve a MURDER and unravel a NAZI PLOT to steal Albert Einstein’s SECRET FORMULA. Is it a formula for fusion and clean energy? No! It’s for a bomb! A bomb the Nazis really want!¹ That’s why it was a secret! In the process, Ben and Hannah—reunited for the first time since their 1949 connection (Closure Encounters), when Ben convinced her to apply to Princeton—alter history by finding the formula, leaving Ben no choice but to reveal his secrets: Ben is a time traveller, he and Hannah have met before, and now they are kissing (I ship it)!!! Together (with Jenn and later Tom), they burn the formula and stop the Nazis, including Hannah’s supervisor, which has the ancillary effect of ensuring Hannah gets credit for her work! Take that, 1950s sexism! Also, hologram shenanigans and Ian dealing with quantum chips and evil corporations.

Procedural Storytelling: Just like in Closure Encounters, the zanier plot elements (Secret Nazis subbing in for Possible UFOs)² serve as a backdrop to character development. The actual plot elements border on ridiculous, but the emotional beats between Ben & Hannah, Tom & Ben, and Tom & Addison more than make up for what is otherwise a ‘turn-your-brain-off-and-punch-some-Nazis’ conspiracy thriller / action adventure.

Over at Textual Variations, Friend of the Blog Mikhail Skoptsov explored Emotional Realism vs. Plot Holes in Film & TV. A central thrust of the article is that strong and coherent character development—the character layer of storytelling—can help paper over plot holes in the plot layer of storytelling. Conversely, when the character layer involves bizarre character choices and unearned twists or resolution, it all falls apart.

This, to me, explains much of why I am enjoying S2 so much more than S1. In S1, a lot of Ben and Addison’s motivations and feelings were wrapped up in a mystery, so we never quite understood why Ben had betrayed Addison and Leaped without telling her. While it ultimately came down to trying to protect her, it also robbed her of her agency. And, sure, the timey-wimey-ness of it all acts as a plot layer defense of Ben’s bad choices,³ but knowing Ben’s character as we do now, it doesn’t quite make sense. And with the character layer failing, the failures of the plot layer are laid bare.

In contrast, in S2, almost every character gets to shine.⁴ The team members at HQ, especially the hologram-of-the-week, get to deliver emotional beats rooted in the case-of-the-week, which itself has been rooted in strong character-driven storytelling. This Took Too Long told a story about a group of misfits struggling to make it home tied to Ben’s similar struggles, featuring nonsensical military explosions. Closure Encounters told a story about one (grand)father’s grief tied to Ben’s grief about his relationship ending, featuring nonsensical military explosionsdrugs and UFOs. Secret History told a story about love lost and won across time (for Tom and his wife, for Ben and Hannah, for Tom and Addison), featuring controversial military programs and nonsensical explosionsNazi conspiracies. One Night in Koreatown told a story about resilience and trauma in the face of systemic oppression, although nothing nonsensical here.⁵ Not every episode has landed (The Lonely Hearts Club), but the writers are making a serious effort to connect everything together thematically in a way I find compelling.

My point is that plot nonsense doesn’t bother me when it exists to add flavour and excitement to otherwise deeply emotional and consistent character-focused stories.

Serial Developments: Ugh, that being said I am really not enjoying Ian’s B-Plot, which is frustrating, as they are my favourite character and should be featured as the hologram-of-the-week. While a few of the emotional beats in this story have been interesting, this is one area where the character layer is falling apart. I don’t feel like we understand Ian and their partner’s connection, because nothing would have suggested to me that she was going to give up her entire career to fix Ian’s mistake, after Ian lied to her and also promised not to put their work between the two of them. I can’t imagine we’ve seen the last of this plot, resolved via the threat of government intervention; it just feels like too meaningful a story to end there. But it’s also just so been unsatisfying, doled out too slowly since the premiere. I suspect Hannah will be connected to this plot in some way (maybe her granddaughter owns the tech company she started), but, for now, it’s all just theorizing and bland too-slow serial developments coupled with uninteresting character and emotional beats for one of the team’s strongest players.

What has been working for me are the evolving relationships between Addison, Ben, Tom, and Hannah. While Jenn being subbed out partway through the episode didn’t totally work for me—especially when she had neither plot nor character reasons to not rejoin Ben later on—I’ve been looking forward to a Ben/Tom team-up. The arc is obvious (Ben will, despite his reluctance, grow to trust and care about Tom), but it also comes down to execution, which is really great so far. In earlier episodes, fans complained that Tom seems either too nice (perhaps suggesting something sinister), or too bland, but I think the show is taking the time to deepen our understanding of him. Even if it leads to another potentially obvious place (Ben somehow saving the life of Tom’s wife in the past, removing him as an obstacle to a Ben and Addison reunion), I think this season has been pacing itself well enough to get us there effectively. It’s also nice to give Ben a romantic connection with someone like Hannah. It’s hard to build romantic relationships while leaping, and while Ben and Addison are currently broken up, it’s really cool to have someone see his soul through his myriad bodies.

Legacyquel Baggage: The introduction of both Tom (and his dead wife) and Hannah (a person Ben has Leaped near at least twice) seems to be leading us toward character arcs that echo the OG series. For Tom (and the possibility that Ben may save his wife), it recalls questions about what Sam could or should change, like saving his brother in Vietnam⁶ (The Leap Home: Part II) and failing to save Al’s marriage to Beth (M.I.A).⁷ Ben’s romantic tension with someone like Hannah calls back to Sam’s (problematic) connection to Abigail Fuller in the epic multi-decade three-parter, Trilogy. I don’t have more to say just yet, other than it will be interesting to see how these potential stories resonate across the two series. Will there be an actual connection to the OG series (e.g., Magic and Beth being involved somehow), or will it just be thematic?

Embodiment & Identity Corner: This is the first time Ben has Leaped into a physically impaired body, which remains consistent with S1 accounts of Ben’s mind wielding the Leapee’s body with all their physical strengths and challenges.⁸ As someone with a background in disability studies and neuroscience, I’ve been hoping to see the new QL examine the mind-body connection in a case like this. As it stands, the new QL (2022) supports a model of the Mind as separate from the Body (see: Dualism). But, if a Mind controls a Body independently of brain function, it suggests that there is no physical mind-brain-body connection in the world of new QL . Most importantly, this raises interesting questions about how the series might tackle neurodivergence.

Of course, in OG QL, Sam’s body existed underneath an image of the Leapee’s body, as when he stood up in Nowhere to Run despite the Leapee having no legs.⁹ And we’ve seen neurodivergent Leapees before, when Sam Leaped into Jimmy, a man with Down Syndrome. And yet, in that case, Sam found himself confronting ableism, impacting his self-confidence and behaviour in ways that also raised questions about whether Sam’s behaviour was somehow informed by Jimmy’s personality and challenges. All of that to say, QL has always broken its rules for the sake of storytelling, so I would be curious to see what kind of story the new QL may eventually choose to tell. This isn’t iZombie, with the original personality taking over—it’s all Ben’s Mind, all the time.

1. Why Nazis, in 1955? The show takes great pains to introduce the audience to Operation Paperclip, aka that time the US brought over a bunch of German scientists post-WWII, despite some (many?) of said scientists having problematic Nazi-affiliated pasts.

2. I do feel like Quantum Leap is kind of leaning (effectively) into Edutainment about the US government’s historic secret programs (not to mention civil rights and the LA Riots). I didn’t at all feel like S1 was trying to teach me anything; I wonder if this is a conscious shift. I’m super curious if we’ll get more stories about, say, the Tuskegee Study or MK Ultra.

3. But, to be clear, an extremely weak one. It makes very little sense that Ben told no one since, in the end, Ziggy knew everything / Martinez had access to the information the whole time.

4. Well, not Jenn. Sorry Jenn. Even in an episode where she gets to be the hologram, she subs out halfway through so Ben and Tom can learn to work together despite the tension in the room. As reddit user and Serially Engaged reader ModernCrust argued a few weeks ago, Jenn has been significantly “underserved” since she’s “never really given anything to actually do.” She’s given no emotional beats as the hologram, and then she’s off to play Bad Cop for Ian in their adventures. Even in this review, Jenn has been relegated to a footnote.

5. As always, see my co-written review of the pilot over at Episodic Medium for more discussions about nonsensical explosions that really don’t work in either storytelling layer.

6. As Magic! This was the Leap where Magic became a Leapee!

7. At least until the OG series finale.

8. It also means we can ignore the bank robbery episode almost retcon (Ben and Teller).

9. Jennifer Aniston guest stars, apparently!?!?!?