Quantum Leap
Season 2, Episode 1:
Honeymoon Express
Written by Donald P Bellisario
Directed by Aaron Lipstadt
Airdate: September 20, 1989
April 27, 1960
Sam leaps into a newlywed cop named Tom McBride who is taking his bride Diane to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon via train. Sam must fear for Tom and Diane's lives when her jealous and violent ex-husband Roget shows up on the train. Roget was a Resistance leader in Nazi-occupied France, but was unable to leave the violence behind and became a full-time arms smuggler. He doesn't accept Diane's decision to leave him and is determined to get her back. Diane seeks comfort in Sam's arms, but he knows that making love to her on her honeymoon would be wrong. He tries to explain that he is actually a quantum physicist named Samuel Beckett, but she mistakes it for a roleplaying game.
Meanwhile in Sam's present, Al must justify Project Quantum Leap's existence to a Senate committee who doesn't understand why it's worth spending millions to make small changes in individual lives, if indeed the whole project isn't a delusion of Al's. Al suggests that Sam prove the project's worth by having Diane call her Senator father and encourage his golfing buddy Dwight D. Eisenhower to hold off on launching the mission that would spark the U-2 incident and prolong the Cold War for decades. Unfortunately, Senator Brown is unreachable, and Al ends up with nothing to show the subcommittee, which just so happens to be chaired by Brown's protege, who won his seat after his death in an election against his daughter.
After a series of violent standoffs, Sam defeats Roget, and it becomes clear that he will have to perform Tom's husbandly duties. Stalling, Sam helps Diane study for her Bar Exam, and takes time to correct her on a factoid that, had she misremembered, would have surely caused her to fail the Bar Exam. Sam leaps out just in time for the real Mr. and Mrs. McBride to consummate their marriage.
As the committee is about to pull funding, an older Diane appears in place of the committee chair, having won the seat back in 1965 thanks to Sam's help studying. The now more sympathetic committee approves another year of funding for the project. Reading the name Samuel Beckett stirs something in Diane, but she can't remember where she met someone by that name.
Tropes:
- Batman Grabs a Gun: Even though previous leaps having included a gun-wielding noir gumshoe and an actual mafia hitman, this is the first time Sam has killed anyone: Roget's goon falls from the train and (judging by Sam's reaction), goes under the wheels. More directly, Sam stabbed Roget fatally.
- Chekhov's Gun: After boarding the train, Diane learns that Tom brought along her legal materials so that she could still study for the Bar Exam. She considers this a wonderful show of support from her new husband, but it's also a subtle clue that Sam is there to ensure she passes and ultimately gets on the committee overseeing the Project.
- Delayed "Oh, Crap!": Sam brushes off Al's concern about the committee, feeling that a higher power overseeing things trumps funding matters. It takes a moment for him to realize that cutting funding means losing contact with Al.
- Everyone Has Standards: Sam is very uncomfortable at the prospect of being on a honeymoon with a woman he doesn't know and who doesn't know the real him.
- Eyes Never Lie: Roget can tell from the look in Sam's eyes that he has no experience killing others. Roget feels that gives him the advantage over Sam.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Sam takes down Roget, but he doesn't leap immediately afterwards. At the very end, Max Brown accuses Al of trying to garner sympathy by invoking his old boss (Diane's father). He adds he sits on the committee now because he beat Diane in an election for the vacant Senate seat. It turns out that Sam still needs to ensure that Diane passes the Bar Exam so that the Project doesn't lose funding.
- Friendship Moment: In what could be their last contact, Al advocates the U2 plan, but he says he firmly believes that Sam could still accomplish his missions without help from the project.
- Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee: Project Quantum Leap's funding is being threatened because Sam hasn't changed history enough to please the committee. But how would they know if he had?
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Despite being armed with a pistol, Roget is taken down by his own switchblade.
- It Gets Easier: Roget picks up on how Sam is reluctant to simply kill and be done with it. After being fatally injured during their last fight, Roget tells Sam this trope before dying.Roget: ...next time... ...it will be easier.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Sam's initial victory over Roget comes about because while the latter is armed with a switchblade, Sam has leaped into a policeman and so is armed with a revolver.
- Oh, Crap!: When Sam points out she got a particular legal matter wrong, Diane is stunned and says that one mistake could've cost her the entire exam and so much more. Sam in turn is surprised to here this, realizing that's why he's here.
- Percussive Pickpocket: How Roget's goon gets Sam's gun.
- Punny Name: Sam leaps into Tom McBride, who is on his honeymoon.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: It's unclear how long it lasts, but Al's reaction makes it clear that he knows what happened when the original committee chair is replaced by Diane.
- Unwinnable by Design: Variation: Even though Al managed to get Sam to agree to his plan of preventing the U2 incident, it turns out it was never going to work: Diane's father couldn't have called Eisenhower, because he was currently on a fishing trip.
- Wham Episode: In waves: While the Project became at risk of being shut down, it was only through Sam ensuring Diane would have a future in law that this gets prevented. But in the long term, this is the first time Sam was forced to directly kill someone on a leap.
