Recap / Quantum Leap S 5 E 17 Revenge Of The Evil Leaper

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Quantum Leap
Season 5, Episode 17:

Evil Leaper III: Revenge, a.k.a. Revenge of the Evil Leaper

Sam: You don't think they sent another leaper, do you?
Al: I don't know. Ziggy says that you gotta make sure you discover them before they discover you, and certainly before they discover her.

Written by Deborah Pratt

Directed by Debbie Allen

Airdate: February 23, 1993.

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September 16, 1987

After dual-leaping in the previous episode, Sam and Alia find themselves as Elizabeth "Liz" Tate and Angela "Angel" Jensen respectively, two female inmates at the Mallard Correctional Facility. Al shows up and confirms that Alia leaped with Sam and there are now two people back at Project Quantum Leap's Waiting Room, and says that that Sam and Alia's goal is to uncover a mystery surrounding a murdered inmate.

This is put into jeopardy when Zoey — who had previously been Alia's holographic observer — tracks down Alia and leaps into the prison's warden, Clifton Meyers, with the intent to kill Alia and Sam once and for all.

This originally aired back-to-back with the previous episode, "Return of the Evil Leaper."

Tropes:

• Affably Evil: Thames seems like a pleasant, funny guy who might be a lot of fun to be around, but he openly endorses killing Alia and Sam, and seems delighted by the idea.
• Big "WHAT?!": Vivian in response to Sam asking where Alia is.
• Broken Masquerade: Sam has to reveal himself and Alia to Vivian, one of the prison guards, in order to get help escaping Zoey. She fully believes him once she sees how Angel and Meyers were unaffected by bullets.
• Call-Back: After Ziggy suggests using hypnosis to alter Alia's brainwaves, Al brings up how Sam's personality shifts during "Shock Theater" messed up their holographic connection, and Sam tells Alia about the experience.
• Classy Cane: Thames carries one in his right hand, and holds his handlink in the other hand.
• Claustrophobia: Angel has a bad case of it, with Sophie saying they previously had to knock her out just to get her in the box in the first place. This later makes Alia a wreck when put in there. In the Waiting Room, the real Angel is clinging to the bottom of the table still in shock over her own experience.
• Curiosity Causes Conversion: Alia is still a bit fuzzy on the whole "Set Right What Once Went Wrong" thing, even if she finds it admirable. It takes a little bit more for her to figure out just why people do good deeds, culminating with a conversation with Vivian, who is helping them escape from Zoey.
  Alia: Why are you doing this?
  Sam: Does it matter?
  Alia: Yes. I wanna know why some people help other people.
  Vivian: 'Cause all my life, I never did anything really special. And if one tenth of what you've said is true, then this is special. For once, I wanna be the good guy.
• Devil in Plain Sight: When Zoey leaps into Clifton Meyers, she resumes her usual evil behavior, which is easily masked by the fact that her leapee is already a bit of a jerkass.
• Didn't See That Coming: Both sides have this reaction to the Glamour Failure between Sam and Zoey.
• Dies Wide Open: Zoey after Sam blasts her with a shotgun.
• Dramatic Irony: According to Thames, Lothos initially believes that Zoey leaping messed up their ability to track and sense Alia. They're completely unaware of Sam's mundane hypnosis gambit, later thinking more in terms of futuristic devices than anything else.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After enduring leaps where she was forced to do things to hurt people, undergoing torture from Lothos, and being abused by prison guards and Zoey during this leap, Alia finally leaps out and escapes Lothos' watch.
• Enemy-Detecting Radar: After accounting for both Sam and Alia, Ziggy detects the presence of another leaper, but not who they are or whom they leaped into.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Invoked in the final confrontation; while Sam is trying to help Alia escape a prison with the aid of one of the guards, Alia asks the guard to explain why she's helping them because she wants to understand why someone would risk their life for someone else.
• Evil Counterpart: This episode introduces Thames, who is probably meant to be Gushie's Evil Counterpart, in that he works behind the scenes on the evil project, and can be a backup hologram when needed.
• Facepalm: After the others leave the office, Zoey does this in response to Thames having a ball as a hologram.
• Fake Memories: A variation. Sam hypnotizes Alia into thinking that she is actually her leapee Angel, in order to throw off Lothos' and Zoey's brainwave tracking scan. It only partially works, as Zoey gets a close enough lock and leaps into Warden Meyers.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Variation: Not only is this the only instance of there being two visitors in the Project's Waiting Room (as a result of Sam managing to leap Alia with him) and the most leapers present during a single leap (Sam, Alia, and Zoey), but (excluding the circumstances of "The Leap Back") this is the closest Sam has leapt back to the present time over the course of the show.
• Funny Background Event: After the Glamour Failure, Sam runs off, and Zoey orders Thames to get a lock on him. Al was standing in the background next to Thames, so this leads to him looking around and wondering who Zoey was just talking to.
• Gender Bender: Sam leaps into female convict Elizabeth Tate, while evil leaper Zoey leaps into warden Clifton Myers.
• Genre Blind: After a history of evil leaping, Alia doesn't exactly know how to be a good leaper, nor is she psychologically prepared to run from Lothos.
• Genre Savvy: Zoey adapts to her first leap rather quickly, which is probably justified given that Lothos specifically targeted the prison warden.
• Glamour Failure: Zoey and Sam make physical contact and are immediately revealed to each other.
• He Knows Too Much: After Sam relays the truth about Carol's death, Meyers and Sophie want "Liz" placed in their custody. State Police won't hear of it, for obvious reasons, and intend to fully sort all this out.
• Idiot Ball: Thames tells Zoey that it's likely that Alia and Sam leaped together, meaning if they find Sam (or figure out what Sam's mission is), they will find Alia. It apparently doesn't cross either of their minds to first check the two inmates that are in front of them who are accused of someone's murder, and who would be powerless to defend themselves.
• Impeded Communication: Ziggy is able to use the prison's electrical fence to jam Lothos' search and lock on Alia.
• Incoming Ham: Upon entering the evil project's imaging chamber, Thames immediately begins hamming it up and expressing delight that no one else can hear him.
  Thames: I feel goooooood! Hey hey hey hey! They can't even hear me! Hahaha! Ooh, I'm gonna love this!
• I Never Said It Was Poison: When Al asks Liz in the Waiting Room about Carol, Liz says that she doesn't remember her own name (due to Swiss-cheesing), much less anything about Carol being killed. Al calmly says that she remembered that Carol was killed.
• Irony: Lothos comes up with a theory about the Impeded Communication and what to do about it. Just as Thames is finished explained it, the power goes out as a result of the jailbreak.
• It's Personal: Zoey tells Thames that she sees Alia's defection as a betrayal, explaining her motivation for revenge.
• I Want Them Alive!: She makes it very clear to Thames that she wants to find Alia alive so that she can personally kill her.
  Zoey: I want Alia. And I don't want anything to happen to her before I get a chance to rip her head off!
• Kick the Dog: Upon leaping into a prison warden, Zoey finds out that Angel — who she doesn't know is actually a hypnotized Alia — has claustrophobia and fears solitary confinement. With a smirk, she orders the terrified woman back into solitary confinement.
• Late to the Realization: As Sam and Al hash out how Zoey is the new leaper, it takes a few moments for Sam to realize that she'll have a holographic observer of her own.
• The Load: Alia doesn't seem to possess the grab bag of skills and talents Sam possesses, and she has a tendency to create more problems for Sam than she helps to solve. She ends up not contributing much to this leap due to her hypnosis, and Sam ends up doing most of the busywork. That is, up until the end, when Alia saves Sam's life and leaps out while getting shot, and even then, Sam picks up the remaining slack by shooting Zoey.
• Loophole Abuse: According to Thames, there is a 95% chance that Sam will try to break out of prison. Zoey is thrilled, saying it provides a legal excuse to shoot him outright.
• Never Found the Body:
  • According to Al, in the original history, Fiddler — the only person with information relevant to Carol's murder — completely disappeared shortly after being released.
  • It's not clarified whether Alia is killed when she takes a bullet meant for Sam; the bullet appears to pass through mid-leap as she's leaping out, and doesn't affect Angel, meaning that Alia might be safe. But as Al says, "Wherever she is, she's free."
  • Immediately after, when Sam shoots Zoey in self-defense, Thames' image gets glitchy and he starts yelling at Lothos to leap her out. She promptly leaps out, and given that Sam doesn't ever meet her again, it's unclear if Sam actually killed her or not.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: For Sam and Alia to escape the prison, the power has to be temporarily shut off. Between that and leaving the perimeter, the Impeded Communication is broken and there's nothing Ziggy can do about it.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Thames had listened in on Sam and Al's conversation in the courtyard and left to report information to Zoey. By the time he was to go back and shadow Sam, though, he was no longer able to get a lock, due to some last-minute jamming by Ziggy.
• Noodle Incident: According to Sophie, Fiddler has a hearing problem, due to an accident of some kind the previous spring.
• Only One Name: It's unknown if "Thames" is his first name, last name, or nickname.
• Opponent Switch: Zoey takes up the mantle of leaper in order to get her revenge.
• Our Time Travel Is Different:
  • Lothos' project has its own version of the Waiting Room, called the Holding Chamber.
  • Zoey explicitly reminds Thames that she has a 48 hour window for a successful retrieval, and after that — and with each subsequent leap — the percentage for success drops. Given how problematic PQL's retrieval program could be, it seems that the Evil Project may have improved on PQL's math.
• Race Against the Clock:
  • Why Zoey is eager to settle up with Alia as quickly as possible. She says she has 48 hours for a guaranteed return leap home. If she fails to do so, her chances decrease with every leap.
  • Vivian explains to Sam that once the power is cut, he will have 15 seconds to do his part in the escape before the back-up generator activates.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Vivian is a kindhearted prison guard, and Sam is able to secure her help when he really needs it. According to Al, she ends up running the prison after Meyers is taken down.
• Redemption Equals Death: Alia pushes Sam out of the way when Zoey raises a shotgun, and begins leaping in blue energy right as Zoey fires. However, the bullet passes through mid-leap, and doesn't affect Angel — whether or not it affected Alia is unknown, but Al tells Sam that wherever Alia is, "she's free."
• Remember the New Guy?: Despite not being mentioned in the two prior Evil Leaper episodes, Thames seems to be pretty good friends with Zoey, and he absolutely terrifies Alia when she eventually sees and recognizes him. Justified for the same reason we don't see or hear about Gushie too much: he's just some guy who had been working behind the scenes and isn't plot-crucial until needed.
• Riddle for the Ages: Alia was made a leaper because Zoey felt she owed her one. The details are unknown, but it was apparently major enough for Zoey to feel they had a genuine Villainous Friendship.
• The Scapegoat: Liz and Angel are the primary suspects for Carol's death and were to be grilled before Zoey leapt in. They are completely innocent, as Meyers was truly responsible and Sophie helped him cover it up.
• Shout-Out: As Sam tries to gain her help by telling the whole truth, Vivian remarks she's practically stepping into the Twilight Zone.
• Showing Off the New Body: Gender Flipped. After leaping into Clifton Meyers and getting settled into the role, Zoey dismisses everyone from the room and takes time to admire Meyers' reflection in the mirror.
• Snap Back: When Zoey dies, she leaps out, with her leapee returning unharmed. Alia also leaps out as she's being shot with her fate being ambiguous.
• So Crazy, It Must Be True: Invoked by Sam when the circumstances seem so dire that he breaks protocol and reveals the truth about himself and Alia to Vivian to secure her help. When Vivian asks why she should believe what she was just told, Sam asks if Liz would make up such a story. It works.
• The So-Called Coward: Thames says that Alia was too weak and cowardly to be an effective leaper. Alia later proves him wrong by taking a bullet for Sam.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Averted. After Alia escapes, Zoey remarks they can still finish off Sam. This, however, gave Sam enough warning to grab a nearby shotgun and shoot her first.
• Terminator Twosome: Zoey leaps after Alia and Sam, not necessarily to subvert their mission, but to get revenge.
• This Cannot Be!:
  • Zoey in response to no one being in their Holding Chamber. Thames points out it's actually very possible, due to the business they're in.
  • A frustrated Thames in reaction to Ziggy finding a way to jam them and prevent a signal lock.
  • Vivian over Angel being perfectly fine after seemingly being shot.
• This Is Gonna Suck: After Sam reveals the whole truth about Carol, Meyers and Sophie have these expressions as state police take "Liz" into custody.
• Token Good Teammate: If Zoey's and Thames' conversation about Alia is any indication, Alia was considered this by the evil project. Considering all of the dark deeds that Alia has done — including everything she did to Sam and the LaMotta family, and the things that she and Zoey said she's done in the past — that's really saying something.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The two plotlines in this episode — keeping Alia safe from Zoey and Lothos, and solving the mystery of Carol's murder — are interwoven.
• Villainous Friendship: Zoey thinks she had this with Alia; she and Thames discuss going against Lothos' wishes and insisting on making Alia a leaper, because, as Zoey tells Thames, "Let's just say I owed her." Hence, why she feels so betrayed when Alia defects. On the other hand, for poor Alia it was anything but friendship.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Warden Meyers is a straight example, having gotten away with the murder of an inmate who was pregnant with his child, which is why Zoey leaps into him: he's already in a position of power and gets on well with the prison guards, making Zoey's task of finding Alia and Sam a whole lot easier.
• Wardens Are Evil: Having convinced the aforementioned evil leaper to make a Heel–Face Turn, both are pursued by a replacement evil leaper who leaps into the prison warden and thus effectively having her acting in this trope. Then, once she is killed and the original warden returned in her place, he is revealed as being responsible for a murder for which another inmate had been accused.