Quantum Leap
Season 2, Episode 17:
Good Night, Dear Heart
Al: She could have shot herself.
Sam: Where's the gun?
Al: Maybe it fell into the lake.
Sam: No, I don't think so.
Al: Why not?
Sam: If Hilla committed suicide, I wouldn't be here. The only thing that makes sense is that I'm here to find out who murdered her.
Written by Paul Brown
Directed by Christopher T. Welch
Airdate: March 7, 1990.
November 9, 1957
Sam leaps into a small-town medical examiner and must discover the truth about the death of a beautiful young woman. Did she commit suicide or was she murdered?
Tropes:
- Arc Words: Hilla - “That’s what’s missing from my life: someone to love.”
- The Baby Trap: Stephanie accuses Greg of inverting this trope to keep Hilla from leaving him.
- Back-Alley Doctor: Hilla went to the local hairdresser who performs illegal abortions on the sly. In the end, Hilla didn’t go through with it.
- Blatant Lies: Variation: Stephanie isn't lying when she says she doesn't believe Hilla committed suicide, but she is when she claims she doesn't know who could've murdered her.
- Celeb Crush: Discussed – Al asserts that since she’s a teenager in the 1950s, Hilla had to have a crush on either William Holden or James Dean. Al’s money is on William Holden. note
- Darker and Edgier: Downplayed: This is a mystery episode where Sam is the town mortician, and the culprit turns out to be a girl who had a massive crush on her.
- Died on Their Birthday: In "Good Night, Dear Heart" Sam must discover the truth about the death of a beautiful young woman and determine whether she died by suicide or if she was murdered. After Al informs him of the date, Sam pulls the victim's ID out of her purse and realizes its her 19th birthday.
- Downer Beginning: When Sam leaps in, he's helping a police officer translate the German writing on the back of a gold locket. Then the cop mentions that the girl in the locket's photo must be "her"... prompting Sam to turn around and see a corpse on the table behind him, which is how he learns he leapt into a mortician.
- Downer Ending: Stephanie is revealed to have killed Hilla when she tried to explain that she wanted to be with Greg instead of her (since he had impregnated her), and Sam is ultimately only allowed to leap out when he says goodbye to Hilla at her grave.
- Driving Question: Did Hilla commit suicide, or was she murdered?
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Sam is putting shoes on Hilla’s body, he suddenly realizes how she died and who killed her. (see Improvised Weapon below)
- Exact Words: Towards the end of the episode, while showing the film of Hilla to everyone, Sam states the person who shot it killed Hilla. Greg, the guy who shot it, argues against it... until Sam mentions that he's referring to the part currently playing, the portion of the film that Stephanie shot.
- Fix Fic: The Comic Book story "Up Against a Stonewall" is one for this episode, setting up a Redemption Quest for Stephanie Heywood.
- Foreshadowing:
- The way Sam figures out the cause of Hilla's death towards the end is the same way he figures out someone dragged her out onto the dock towards the start: looking at her shoe.
- Pay real close attention to Stephanie when she and Sam discuss Hilla's death. When Sam states he believes she was murdered, Stephanie starts to panic.
- If I Can't Have You… / Psycho Lesbian: When Hilla told Stephanie that she was leaving her, Stephanie snapped.
- Improvised Weapon: The fatal wound in Hilla’s temple was not caused by a bullet or an arrow. It was a high-heeled shoe.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: After Stephanie tries to claim that her heel couldn't have been used to kill Hilla, Sam promptly embeds the heel into the closet door, showing that it made a similar hole to the one in Hilla's head.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: After showing that the heel he found was capable of killing Hilla, Sam tries to get Stephanie to put it on (to show it matched her shoe size instead of Hilla's). Instead, Stephanie comes clean then and there about what happened.
- Orphan's Ordeal and War Refugees: Hilla had a rough childhood and just when things were starting to turn around, she was murdered.
- Rape As Back Story: Variation: It isn't outright confirmed, but Greg suspected this of Hilla after hearing her backstory:Greg: Some of the things that Hillie tried to tell me make sense now. All that time she spent growing up in the displaced person camps after the war... she had to fight off men all the time, I even think she was raped. She said it was so bad that the only people she could let get close to her were women... and even that got confusing.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Sam comes to realize that he needs to perform an autopsy on Hilla to see if there's a bullet in her skull, Al promptly leaves the Imaging Chamber.Al: (uneasily; opens the Imaging Chamber door) I think I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee. (leaves)
- Skewed Priorities: Zig-zagged: While explaining how Hilla's death was actually a murder, Sam makes a point of saying the film Greg shot of Hilla was poorly done. This is done to draw attention to the portion of it that was filmed more professionally... and was filmed by Stephanie, not Greg.
- Snow Means Death: The last scene of the episode sees Sam at Hilla's grave, where a light snow begins to develop.
- Title Drop: When Sam quotes from a Mark Twain book (see Wrongfully Attributed below)
- Wrongfully Attributed: The couplet Sam quotes was not actually written by Twain. He adapted it from an 1893 poem by Robert Richardson. note
- You Look Familiar: W.K. Stratton (Sheriff Roundtree) previously appeared in the series pilot, Genesis.
Sam: I found this book of Mark Twain in her room, I think it was her favorite. Twain wrote this when his daughter died: "Warm summer sun, shine kindly here. Warm southern wind, blow softly here. Green sod above, lie light, lie light. Good night, dear heart, good night, good night."
