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Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 1, Episode 4:
A Decent Proposal
Written by Moira Kirland
Directed by Rachel Talalay
Original air date: 10/10/2022
July 29, 1981
Ben experiences his first leap into a woman, as he leaps into Eva Sandoval, a Los Angeles bounty hunter in 1981.
Tropes:
- Bittersweet Ending: Carla is arrested, and the drugs she had trafficked in the original timeline aren't present in the new timeline. Eva and Jake also end up together with Babies Ever After. But as soon as Ben remembers his relationship with Addison, he finds that he can't touch her holographic hand, and then leaps out before they can talk.
- Call-Back:
- To the previous episode. When Ben punches out a perp, Jake asks "Eva" if she's been practicing boxing. Ben says yes.
- We finally get Magic's perspective on having been one of Sam Beckett's leapees in "The Leap Home Part 2: Vietnam". His dreams about Sam for years after, combined with reading his top-secret file in the old Project Quantum Leap's archives, and his gratefulness to Sam for saving his and his squad's lives, is what spurred him to get Project Quantum Leap restarted.
- Dramatic Irony: When Sam leapt into Magic, he had at one point become convinced that in his quest to save his brother, he accidentally doomed the entire squad to die. As Magic reveals to Ian, prior to Sam leaping into him, the entire squad dying was the original history.
- Evil All Along: Tammy Jean isn't in danger; she's actually a murderous cartel boss.
- Gender Bender: Ben leaps into bounty hunter Eva Sandoval.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Almost the Arc Words of the episode. Eva's dad explains to Ben that one of the first rules of bounty hunting is that the answer is right in front of you. This is relevant when "Tammy Jean" isn't who she says she is, her parking tickets were all given in one place, and Ben realizes the truth about him and Addison.
- I'm Mr. [Future Pop Culture Reference]: A variation. Ben snarks that the ditsy, pink-clad Tammy Jean is "Elle Woods." Because it's 1981, both Tammy Jean and Jake are confused by the reference.
- Internal Homage: To three classic Quantum Leap episodes:
- To "A Hunting We Will Go", which was also into a leap into a bounty hunter, and also involved being handcuffed to a woman who wants to escape. Unlike in that episode, however, the woman in this episode is actually a dangerous criminal without any altruistic motives.
- To "Another Mother", which was Sam Beckett's only leap into 1981 (and occurred two months and a day after Ben's leap), was also into a woman, and which also prominently featured a Blondie song.
- To a lesser extent, "What Price Gloria?", which was Sam's first leap into a woman, and which also featured the male leaper experiencing sexism and sexual harassment from a woman's perspective.
- Missing Time: How Magic describes his experience when Sam leaped into him, which he had written off as battle fatigue before learning the truth.
- "Mister Sandman" Sequence: We get a nice one immediately following the leap-in, with The Human League playing in the club, Prince Charles and Diana's wedding on TV, and the clubgoers' (and leapee's) early-80s styles.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Tammy Jean, a ditsy young woman with too many parking tickets, is actually the cover for Carla, a very dangerous drug cartel boss.
- Rejected Marriage Proposal: Played straight in the original timeline but subverted by Ben. In the original timeline, Eva turns down Jake and they go their separate ways, never marrying anyone else. After Ben leaps in, when Jake proposes to "Eva," Ben doesn't say no, but instead says that he needs more time, mostly because he doesn't want to answer as his leapee's proxy. Jake spends the rest of the episode angsting about it, and the conclusions he comes to allow the couple to end up together.
- The Reveal: Magic reveals to Ian that Sam had leapt into him, and it turns out that he had previously told Jenn.
- Tragic Intangibility: When Ben remembers his relationship with Addison, they reach out to touch hands...which they can't do because she's a hologram from 2022 and he's in the past. And then he leaps.
- Villain Ball: Carla lets Jake and "Eva" tell each other a Public Secret Message, but she figures that they're just being mushy and does nothing to stop them.
- The Vietnam Vet: When Ian tells Magic that they're going to have to go through all the Project's personnel files to try to figure out what Janis is using Ziggy to predict about them, Magic takes Ian to get a cup of coffee. Ian is clearly thinking that they're about to hear a tragic war story, and tells Magic that they won't judge him, but Magic instead tells them the story of when Sam Beckett leaped into him in Vietnam in 1970 and saved the entire squad's lives.
