Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 2, Episode 9:
Off the Cuff
Written by Alex Berger
Directed by Joe Menendez
Original air date: 12/13/2023
April 10, 1970
Ben leaps into Nick Peterson, a bounty hunter assigned to deliver a slippery lawyer so that he can testify against his former bosses. He also runs into Hannah Carson yet again, but finds out that in the nine years since they last met, she's gotten married.
Meanwhile, the team may have finally found a way to bring Ben home, which has left Addison conflicted.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: The mere fact that the plot of the episode sees Ben stuck dealing with an asshole named Kevin.
- Asshole Victim: In the original timeline, Kevin Zatt was killed off by hitmen sent by his former boss, Sonny Fox. Considering that he was a slimy asshole, not many people mourned him.
- Black Sheep: Kevin Zatt is estranged from his brother Josh Nally because of his criminal activities.
- Contrived Coincidence: Ben winds up getting both the date he leapt in, and his current location, when a newspaper blows onto the phone booth he's using to call Nick's bond agent.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Kevin genuinely loves his nephew Jeffrey, although that has not stopped him from using gifts to Jeffrey to hide his ill-gotten goods.
- Family of Choice: Josh and Kevin consider each other brothers since being raised together in foster care, although they are not related by blood (hence the different surnames), even with all the current tension between them.
- Never My Fault: Kevin refuses to take any responsibility for how his life has turned out. He even refuses to be honest about how he lost out on being the valedictorian at his high school. He claims the school unfairly passed him over for the honor in favor of a brown-noser. His brother Josh reveals the truth; Kevin stole petty cash from the school the week before graduation and the school docked him accordingly.
- Outside-Context Problem: Played with: Kevin winds up being completely left in the lurch when Ben and Hannah, after Addison informs the former that Nick's bond agent is showing up to kill Kevin, begin brainstorming a plan to take out her and her men.Kevin: (near-pleading) I'm sorry, what is happening? Do you two know each other from before-?
- Something Only They Would Say: Indirectly: It's only after Kevin brings up during dinner that "Nick" recently had a date in Cairo that Hannah realizes she once again has crossed paths with Ben.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Kevin is essentially the male equivalent of Diane Frost from "A Hunting We Will Go" of the old series, being an untrustworthy, sneaky fugitive figure who contrasts the bounty hunter that the leaper has leaped into, with Ben at the wheel this time instead of Sam. And like Diane, Kevin eventually turns into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold towards the end and helps Ben take out the assailants who were coming after them, with Ben and Kevin making peace afterwards.
- Too Dumb to Live: When faced with the prospect of needing to pee while still handcuffed, Kevin pleads with Ben to uncuff him, promising to not flee. As such, he only has himself to blame when Ben does uncuff himself from Kevin... before immediately handcuffing him to the toilet.
- Wham Line: In-universe, for Hannah: “Tell ‘em about your date in Cairo...”
