Recap / Quantum Leap S 5 E 01 E 02 Lee Harvey Oswald

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Quantum Leap
Season 5, Episode 1-2:

Lee Harvey Oswald

Al: Don’t you remember all the conspiracy books and the movies?
Sam: No. But I do remember that day in November like it was yesterday. I was ten and my dad was teaching me how to drive the tractor in the field behind the house. All of a sudden, Mom came out yelling at us. She ran up right to the fence and she was yelling and we thought it was because of what we were doing. But then she told us that the president had just been shot.

Written by Donald P. Bellisario

Directed by James Whitmore Jr.

Airdate: September 22, 1992.

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October 5, 1957 – November 22, 1963

Sam finds himself leaping into various points in the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, from the young man’s early days in the Marine Corps to his attempted defection to the Soviet Union and ultimately to a fateful day in Dallas. All along the way, Sam and Al search for the truth: was there a conspiracy or did Oswald act alone?

Note: This double episode dispensed with the "leap out" scenes that tease the upcoming next episode.

Tropes:

• Alternate History: Variation: By the end of the two-parter, it's revealed that (in the original timeline of the show) Oswald had killed both Kennedys that day in Dallas, not just JFK.
• Author Tract: The entire episode is one, for Bellisario's opinions on Lee Harvey Oswald being the lone assassin. Most individual scenes would qualify on their own as well: there's no real in-universe reason for Sam to leap to most of the time periods in Oswald's life that he goes to, but they're the key points in Oswald's life that are crucial for Bellisario's Oswald story.
• The Bad Guy Wins: If you couldn't tell, JFK dies. And because the episode doesn't cover Oswald's own death at the hands of Jack Ruby, the only saving grace we have is that Jackie was spared.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: With minutes to go before Sam shoots Kennedy, Al goes into the Waiting Room to interrogate Oswald one last time about if he's acting alone, before pulling a pistol out of his pocket and threatening to blow his brains out. He actually does fire at one point, but past his ear to get him to talk.
• Big "NO!": Al before Oswald opens fire.
• Bittersweet Ending: Sam can't stop Oswald from shooting John F. Kennedy, but he is able to prevent Oswald from shooting Jackie. It's implied her death alongside Jack's would have sent the entire nation past a Despair Event Horizon, and that she is who Sam was meant to save in Dallas. As such, the episode ends with a montage of Jackie leading the nation through mourning.
• Book Ends: Sam tells Al about what he had been doing that day in November. Al repeats the story to Sam after his mind had been taken over by Oswald’s.
• Call-Back: During Sam's very first leaps, he was preoccupied by the thought that his father was still alive at these points in time.
• Celebrity Casualty: In the original history, Jackie Kennedy was also assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. The episode was made two years prior to her real death.
• Chekhov's Classroom: Sam mentioning that his father was teaching him to drive a tractor when he learned of the assassination.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Al is convinced that there was a conspiracy behind the assassination and that he and Sam are going to blow it wide open.
  Al: Could have been anybody. Could've been the FBI, Secret Service, CIA, the military, the Mafia, defense contractors, John Birchers, you name it. They all had something to gain from Kennedy's death.
  • Subverted in the end when Al finds out none of the conspiracy theories fits what he's witnessing.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When in Russia, worried about how much information about U2 he gave to the Russians as Oswald, Sam becomes convinced that he had leapt into this point to (once again) prevent the U2 incident.
  • Al starts into a story about when he and Chip were on liberty in Japan. We met Chip in the previous episode.
  • As in the previous episode, the leapee is put in the accelerator; this time, to untangle Oswald's and Sam's minds. But Sam points out that individual mesons and neurons can't be leapt without drawing surrounding particles, so this actually merged their minds even more.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • Extremely downplayed: it is extremely apparent watching both back to back that they had to reshoot the leap-in segment from the end of "A Leap for Lisa"; not only is Oswald's wife played by a different actress, but she's wearing a completely different outfit (along with the absence of a head scarf). Also, Sam had leapt in prior to the rifle photo being taken in the "A Leap for Lisa" segment, but the episode proper has him leap in after.
  • Less forgivable, though, is the fact that events of this two-parter are stated to be taking place the week of Valentine's Day 1999 back at the Project, when the events of "The Leap Back" took place September 18th. And it's not a case of Anachronic Order: this two-parter takes place after "The Leap Back".
• Creator Cameo: The Marine who questions Lee Harvey Oswald about why Oswald is intentionally reading Communist propaganda is the producer Donald Bellisario (played by an actor). He served on the same California base with Oswald and remembered getting into an argument with Oswald.
• Dirty Communist: Deconstructed – Oswald is a self-described Marxist and yearns to go to the USSR, but when he tries to defect, they don’t want him. Many people Sam meets are loyal communists or staunchly anti-communist, but neither group is portrayed as better, or worse, than the other.
• Driven to Suicide: Almost. Under orders from Ziggy not to mess up this bit of the timeline, Al tries to persuade Sam to replicate Oswald's suicide attempt, but Sam can't bring himself to do it. As the last moment approaches and he's wavering, he leaps further on in time.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Just minutes before JFK is meant to be shot, Al bemoans that he can't get through to Sam, "it's November 22, 1963, and it's all happening again". As soon as Al remembers what the date is, he in turn remembers Sam recounting what he was doing that day, causing Al to remind him that his dad is presently still alive.
• Exact Words: As Oswald insists to Al minutes before Sam is going to take the shot, Alex Hidell is the one who shoots Kennedy.^note If you recall, Alex Hidell was the name Oswald used to order his guns.
• Extra-Long Episode
• Failure Is the Only Option: Are you really surprised Sam can't save JFK in the end?
• Femme Fatale Spy: Al assumes this of Mariska, the Russian hooker Oswald has been seeing in Japan in 1957, positing that she could be Oswald's connection to the KGB. She's not, though — she's simply a hooker who has been sleeping with Oswald and teaching him how to speak Russian.
• Foregone Conclusion: You should already know that Sam isn't going to save JFK. He saves Jackie instead.
• Foreshadowing: Throughout the two-parter, neither Sam, Al, or Gooshie say who Oswald killed in Dallas^note only referring to "stopping Oswald" and "the assassination", to preserve the Twist Ending.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Sam leaps into a real historical figure for the first time in the series. And while this won't be the last, this is also the only time he leaps into the same person throughout multiple points in their life in the same (albeit two-part) episode.
• Futureshadowing: A variation; during a discussion in the Waiting Room with 1957 Oswald, Al makes reference to his time as a POW in Vietnam. Oswald, who has no idea what he's talking about — and thanks to Jack Ruby, ultimately never would — is confused.
  Oswald: You don't know your Marx, do you?
  Al: [seething] After six years in the Hanoi Hilton, I tend to repress it.
  Oswald: Where?
  Al: That's where I was held as a prisoner of war. And where they didn't give a damn about the Geneva Convention.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: Sam's actions get progressively worse with Oswald's mind psycho-synergizing with his, not helped by the Project shoving Oswald into the accelerator in a misguided attempt to untangle their neurons and mesons. It's just very narrowly averted when Sam is in the book depository squaring up the shot, and Al breaks through to him, causing him to snap out of it long enough to leap into Special Agent Clint Hill.
  Sam: If you hadn't reached me...I would've shot—
  Al: It wouldn't have been you pulling that trigger, Sam. Not really.
• Historical In-Joke: Jackie survived because of Sam Beckett.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Al keeps trying to help break Sam from Oswald's influence. At first, he gets Sam to recite complex equations and theories. When that finally fails during the climax, Al recalls what Sam said about his father teaching him to drive a tractor on this day.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Al when he tries to convince Sam that he and Oswald are not merging.
  Al: Oswald didn't leave a little anything in you, Sam. When you leap into someone, you're still Dr. Sam Beckett, with your personality, and your knowledge, and you... where'd you learn to field strip an M1?
  Sam: I didn't.
• Just in Time: Zig-zagged: it appears that Al managed to finally get through to Sam to prevent him from shooting JFK... and then Sam abruptly leaps out, causing Oswald to take the shot. However, Sam instantly finds himself in Secret Service agent Clint Hill, and the second the shot rings out, he jumps onto JFK's car and winds up protecting Jackie Kennedy, the person he was meant to save.
• Manly Tears: Sam in the hospital, once it's all over.
• Morality Chain Beyond the Grave: With a twist. Al reminds Sam that his long-dead father is still alive in 1963 and spending time with his ten-year-old self.
  Al: At this very moment, your dad is still alive, and he's teachin' ya how to drive a tractor, Sam! On the farm in Indiana! He's still alive!
  Sam: [looks up] Dad... [leaps out]
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: This is the only episode of Quantum Leap to contain an opening disclaimer, which is Bellisario's way of saying what happened in Lee Harvey Oswald's life was very real, and he's simply using Quantum Leap as a way to tell that story.
  The following story is based upon the known evidence and established facts collected in the three decades since the JFK assassination.
• Not So Above It All: Not only is it revealed that Al thinks there was a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy (a notion he grows to abandon as the two-parter progresses), but it's suggested that both Gooshie and Ziggy did as well.
• Not so Dire: Downplayed: When Al catches up to Sam when he's in Russia, he's understandably concerned when the Oswald part of his brain is making him spill information about the U2 plane to the Russians... only it soon becomes apparent that there wasn't anything he said that the Russians didn't already know. And when Sam is worried that he might have contributed to the U2 incident, Al informs him that the plane was taken out by a lucky shot, "a hundred to one shot".
• Occam's Razor: What it all comes down to: There never was a grand conspiracy to kill JFK but instead Oswald alone as most believed at the time.
  Gooshie: What, one guy?
  Al: Yeah, one guy. And we tell ourselves it was a conspiracy because it's easier! Because if one lone nutcase can knock off the most powerful man in the world, how safe are any of us?
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: It isn't shown (due to the fact that the episode doesn't show Sam leap into said event), but Al mentions how Marina locked Oswald in the bathroom when Nixon visited Dallas shortly after he tried killing General Walker.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • It is made quickly apparent from the get-go that things are going to go wrong by having Sam leap into Oswald when he hears his wife speak to him in Russian... and responds back in Russian without hesitation. And then Sam begins abusing her when she becomes dismissive.
  • When Al tries to convince Sam that there's no way Oswald left anything behind when Sam leapt into him, he abruptly stops when he realizes Sam had field-stripped his M1 rifle... something Sam shouldn't be able to do.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Throughout the series, we have known Sam as the scrupulously moral women’s rights advocate. Watching abuse Marina and the prostitute shows us how deeply he is losing control.
• Sanity Slippage: Sam, because his mind is being taken over by Oswald’s. Oswald is also portrayed as having some kind of borderline personality disorder.
• Split-Personality Takeover: Oswald is able to assert control over Sam for much of the two-parter. Conversely, Sam is able to reach Al through Oswald during a scene in the waiting room.
• Tragic Intangibility: The second Oswald leaps back in and starts taking his shots, Al tries in vain to stop him somehow, despite being a hologram.
• Wham Line:
  • When Al is interrogating Oswald in the Waiting Room about the assassination, Oswald tries to claim someone else is going to do it:
    Oswald: I'm not gonna shoot the president. But... I know who is.
    Al: Who?
    Oswald: Hidell. The guy who ordered the guns through the mail. He's the one who- (in Sam's voice) I'm lying, Al.
  • When Al reveals Sam’s true mission after he had completed it.
    Al: Your Swiss-cheese mind probably doesn’t remember, but the first time, Oswald killed Jackie, too.
• Who Shot JFK?: It was Oswald, and he acted alone.
• Young Future Famous People: Sam leaps into Lee Harvey Oswald at age nineteen, though this would be more along the lines of infamous. He also interacts with a young Marine: Sgt. Donald Bellisario.

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Al: You’re going to shoot the president from the sixth floor window of the Texas Schoolbook Depository.
Oswald: You’re crazy!
Al: You’re damn right I’m crazy. (pulls out a gun) I’m crazy enough to blow your brains out through your ear if I don’t get the truth!