Quantum Leap
Season 4, Episode 8:
Dreams
Written by Donald P. Bellisario & Deborah Pratt
Directed by Anita W. Addison
Airdate: November 13, 1991
February 28, 1979
Sam leaps into Detective Jack Stone, who is investigating a woman’s murder. He prevents the dead woman’s husband, Peter Decaro, from committing suicide. He then seeks information from her temporarily mute son and her therapist.
Tropes:
- Alone with the Psycho: Sam’s situation in the episode’s climax.
- Beneath the Mask: Dr. Mason Crane, The Shrink, pretends to be a responsible and ethical professional, but his true self is far more disturbing.
- Call-Back: Sam mentions that previously he had mixed some of his personality with Al’s. He believes that on this leap, some of Detective Stone’s mind has mixed with his.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Seeing a dead body triggers the detective’s childhood memory.
- Emotion Control: It’s implied that the therapist has worsened Peter Decaro’s depression and suicidal tendencies.
- Flashback: We see Jack Stone as a young boy.
- Freudian Couch: Dr. Crane insists Sam lie down for his therapy session.
- Living Lie Detector: Dr. Crane instantly realizes that Sam isn’t fully telling the truth. He claims he can always tell.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Dr. Crane fell in “love” with his patient, then killed and mutilated her.
- Manipulative Bastard: Dr. Mason Crane is manipulating his patients.
- Past Experience Nightmare: Sam has nightmares from Det. Stone’s boyhood.
- Psycho Psychologist: Dr. Crane turns out to be an Ax-Crazy murderer.
- Sanity Slippage: Sam worries this is happening to him.
- Start to Corpse: The episode begins with Sam seeing a dead woman, Janice Decaro.
