Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 1, Episode 11:
Leap. Die. Repeat.
Written by Margarita Matthews
Directed by Pamela Romanowsky
Original air date: 1/30/2023
September 12, 1962
Ben leaps into Colonel Jack Parker on the day of the demonstration of a new nuclear reactor. Ben is excited since he seems to be in his element. However, upon activation of the reactor, it explodes, killing everyone...
Ben leaps into Eugene Wagner, an engineer on the day of the demonstration of a new nuclear reactor. He's very rattled that he just died, but it becomes apparent that the goal of his leap is to prevent the explosion. Upon descending into the reactor chamber, he finds a bomb with a remote trigger, which goes off and fills the room with the reactor's hydrogen which explodes, killing everyone...
Ben leaps into Mallory Yang, a reporter on the day of the demonstration of a new nuclear reactor. He decides to interview everyone in the room at the time of the demonstration to figure out who may be the saboteur. He listens to Mallory's recording for more clues, right before the reactor explodes, killing everyone...
Ben leaps into Dr. Edwin Woolsey on the day of the demonstration of a new nuclear reactor. He confronts Mallory about her reporting, and finds out from Addison that he's on his next-to-last chance to solve the leap. The reactor explodes, killing everyone...
Ben leaps into Moe Murphy, a janitor on the day of the demonstration of a new nuclear reactor. He has just one more chance to find out who the culprit is before the reactor explodes and kills everyone again...
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Dr. Woolsey keeps calling Mallory by the wrong name. He finally gets it right in the end.
- Actor Allusion:
- Robert Picardo previously played another character named Woolsey on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.
- Joe Dinicol always plays a character with the last name Wagner on any show produced by showrunner Martin Gero, and this episode is no different.
- Armor-Piercing Response: As he's taken away, Eugene tells Ben that great technology always ends up in the wrong hands and is used to harm innocent people. This gives Ben pause, leaving him wondering if the same could be said of the project. He can't help but wonder how those in the future will judge him and the rest of the team.
- Artistic License – Military: The Colonel and the two soldiers keep their covers on indoors, which is against military etiquette. The two soldiers also salute the colonel indoors (and he returns the salute), which is not done.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Colonel Parker manages to do this against a pen — of course, that pen was the remote detonator for an explosive so it still counts.
- Big "WHAT?!": From Addison, when she overhears that Ben can only leap into everyone in the elevator once, and it's mostly because that means he's on the next-to-last person at the time.
- Cassandra Truth: In the second leap, Dr. Woolsey doesn't believe Ben's claim that the reactor is going to explode, since all operations appear normal. Technically Woolsey is right; there's actually a small bomb near the reactor that is designed to cause a hydrogen leak.
- The Chains of Commanding: As Jenn berates him for listening to Janis, Magic talks about how he's the one who has to make the big decisions, as well as how he has to live with the repercussions of something like denying Janis a place in the project. Jenn also inadvertently makes the point by noting how his choices affect everyone else.Magic: [weathered] I'm doin' my best.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Eugene's pen winds up being the key component to the reactor explosion.
- The letter Ben discovers in Colonel Parker's jacket becomes vital in the final leap.
- Similarly, the puddle of spilled soda ends up buying some time for Ben in the final leap.
- Death Wail: Upon witnessing Ben's first "death," Addison stumbles out of the Imaging Chamber, collapses into Ian's arms, and just screams.
- Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: While grappling with the reveal that Eugene is behind all this, Ben remarks to Addison that he was the villain without even realizing it. When Eugene asks what he's talking about, Ben sheepishly tap dances his way into a Kirk Summation to cover.
- Enemy Mine: Magic recruits Janis — also wants to see Ben succeed, but does not trust the team — to help them figure out the conundrum of the time loop, and help Ben leap out.
- Everybody Lives: Although the people in the control room all died in the original history, as well as in four other iterations of the timeline, Ben manages to save them all in the final leap. Even when Eugene gets shot, it's a non-lethal injury.
- Fake-Out Opening: Ben leaps in, and thirty minutes later he dies in the reactor explosion. The team watches despondently as Ben's vitals go offline, and Addison races out of the Imaging Chamber and breaks down in Ian's arms. Then Ben's vitals come back online.
- Foreshadowing: Eugene's intended suicide mission, and his rant about how great technology will "be the end of us all," directly foreshadows what we will learn about the Project's future and Martinez's mission in the season finale.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: This is not only the first leap in the entire franchise that directly shows the same events being reset over and over again in a loop, but also the first with five separate leapees in a single leap.note
- Gender Bender: One of Ben's leapees is Mallory Yang, a woman.
- Godzilla Threshold:
- Since Janis has done research and published a paper on time loops, Magic brings her expertise in on this leap given Ben's dire situation.
- Eugene is willing to commit suicide rather than let the government have nuclear weapons.
- Government Conspiracy: In the original history, the government covers up the explosion by saying that everyone involved in the explosion died by other means. Jenn and Addison figure this out just moments before the first explosion.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The reactor explosion restarts the leap for Ben, and he only gets five chances to repeat it, leaping into each person in the elevator once. The first time it happens he even lampshades it:Ben: What in Groundhog Day is this?
- I Did What I Had to Do: As Eugene rants about their research being used to make weapons, Dr. Woolsey says he had to make the deal because the government would've taken his life's work away from him.
- Intrepid Reporter: Mallory, whose objective is to figure out what Dr. Woolsey is hiding. By the end, her expose causes the nuclear weapon research to end, and the reactor is used for its intended purpose.
- Irony: Ben finds the bomb that causes the incident when he leaps into Eugene. It was Eugene who planted the bomb.
- It's All My Fault: Dr. Woolsey blames himself for Eugene's downfall.
- Kirk Summation: Ben gives one to Eugene at the end.Ben: The government will call it an accident and cover the whole thing up, but here's where you're wrong: we won't leave this technology alone. There will be a hundred other experimental nuclear reactors that'll replace this one. Eventually, we'll develop time travel, maybe even flying cars, but what you do today won't change anything except for the lives of the people in this room. The colonel's daughter has a ballet recital today. She's gonna grow up without her dad. Mallory has a sister who won't be able to get through the eulogy at her funeral. Dr. Woolsey is looking forward to going to the movies in a couple of weeks. I have a fiancee who's waiting for me to come home. You want to save lives, start with the people in this room. You see, in the grand scheme of things, Eugene, your life matters, what you do with it matters, and you won't get another chance to do the right thing. Please.
- My Greatest Failure: Magic tells Jenn that he sincerely regrets having listened to Beth and not bringing Janis into the project, saying that Project Quantum Leap was her birthright.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the second leap, Ben clicks open Eugene's pen. This starts the timer on the bomb, and is innocuous enough that Ziggy doesn't notice and mistakenly eliminates Eugene as a probable suspect because Ben has already leaped into him and Ben wouldn't have knowingly triggered the bomb.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Ian posits that Janis and Addison aren't so different.Ian: You know, you and Addison are more similar than you think: stubborn, loyal, sensitive. Not that either one of you would ever admit it.
- Oh, Crap!:
- At the beginning, when Jenn and Addison review information on each of the people involved in the leap, they realize that all five died on the same day, but from different causes. They then realize that there must've been a cover-up, and Addison screams to get the Imaging Chamber back online so she can warn Ben to run.
- Happens again during the fourth leap, when Janis and Ian read Ziggy's data and conclude that the time loop is finite to the number of people in the elevator. Addison gives out a Big "WHAT?!" when she overhears, and Ben is none to happy to hear about it.
- Our Time Travel Is Different:
- For the first time, a leaper is actually seen stuck repeating the events of a single leap.note This is chalked up to a nuclear reaction interacting with a time traveler, which also hearkens back to comments made in the original series about nuclear explosions possibly influencing leaps.
- This episode explicitly says that Ben's leaping is directly tied to the quantum accelerator. It's briefly discussed that the project could shut it down to attempt to save Ben from dying again, but the team doesn't know whether doing this would bring him home, kill him, or cause him to be lost in space-time like Sam Beckett.
- Out of Continues: Ian and Janis review Ziggy's data on the time loop, and conclude that he can only leap into each person in the elevator once, and if he fails the final loop, then he's done for. Not helping things is the fact that they only figure this out towards the end of his next-to-last loop.
- Papa Wolf: Ben notes to Eugene that the Colonel has a daughter to go home to and that she'll suffer a horrible tragedy if the bomb goes off. The Colonel ultimately shoots Eugene to resolve the situation.
- The Pen Is Mightier: Eugene's pen contains the trigger for the bomb.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: "Leap. Die. Repeat." Named for the Tagline of Edge of Tomorrow: "Live. Die. Repeat."
- Rage Against the Mentor:
- Eugene angrily calls out Dr. Woolsey at the end for agreeing to use their reactor for nuclear weapon research, as it means that people will die instead of the world becoming a better place.
- Jenn angrily calls out Magic for listening to Janis' advice, and for taking sole responsibility for decisions that affect the rest of the team.Magic: I told you the fallout of my choices, it's on me.
Jenn: Except it's not! The choices you make affect all of us. If Ben dies, the fallout is on all of us. To Janis, Ben is just a piece of some plan that we don't understand, but Ben is my friend, Magic. The...that's my family.
- "Rashomon"-Style: Ben lampshades this when he realizes that his leaps are finite, saying that he's actually living Rashomon instead of Groundhog Day.
- Red Herring:
- During the third leap, Ben listens to Mallory's recording, and finds out that she thinks that the reactor is a "cover" for something else that Dr. Woolsey is doing. This leads him to suspect Dr. Woolsey, and it's not helped by how hostile Mallory acts when Ben-as-Woolsey confronts her in the fourth leap.
- In the final leap, upon finding a classified document in a trash can, Ben is held up at gunpoint by Colonel Parker, making it seem like Parker is the culprit. However, it turns out Parker had actually been receiving threatening notes from the true culprit, and was suspicious of everyone.
- Rewatch Bonus: When you watch the episode again, it's not only easier to Spot the Thread with Eugene, but also easy to see that the trigger isn't Colonel Parker's lighter (which Ben never lights), or Dr. Woolsey's watch (which Ben never winds).
- Shoot the Hostage Taker: When Eugene effectively takes everyone hostage in the final leap, Colonel Parker shoots Eugene's arm to prevent him from clicking the pen.
- Ten Little Murder Victims: One of the five individuals in the elevator, and later in the control room, is the killer. However, this episode puts a spin on the trope by having Ben literally become each of these individuals and cycle repeatedly through the murder plot to figure out who the killer is.
- This Is Going to Be Huge: Dr. Woolsey predicts flying cars by the year 2000. Ben scoffs at this.
- This Is Gonna Suck:
- You can read it all over Ben's face right before the third explosion.
- Magic can tell Jenn's Rage Against the Mentor moment is coming by simply saying, "Ah, here it comes."
- Tragic Intangibility: Discussed by Addison and Magic, when she says that being Ben's observer while he's leaping makes it feel like Ben died and is a ghost, not helped by his memory issues. Seeing Ben repeatedly die during this particular leap makes these feelings bubble up in Addison.
- Wham Line: What Janis says to Addison at the end:Janis: When it mattered most, your team gave me the benefit of the doubt. So, I'm gonna give you a name.
Addison: A name.
Janis: The name of the person who told Ben to leap in the first place. - Well-Intentioned Extremist: Eugene is aghast that the reactor research could be used for nuclear weapons instead of renewable energy, so he comes up with the plot to destroy the reactor so the government will not pursue the research.
- Villain Has a Point:
- Ben concedes that stopping the reactor research may be better than millions dying from nuclear weapons, although he's understandably unwilling to do so via death by fiery explosion.
- Eugene also says, "Great technology always falls in the wrong hands! One day, it'll be the end of us all!" Ben reflects on this at the end, worrying about quantum leaping technology falling into the wrong hands.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: The team initially assumes that Ben is in an infinite time loop and will have unlimited opportunities to solve the problem, until Janis deduces that he will only cycle through each of the five people in the elevator once. Lampshaded by Ben. "My mistake was thinking I was in Groundhog Day when I was really in Rashomon all along."
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: As Addison helpfully points out, Ben remembers the plots of various movies (in particular Rashomon), and yet it took him four leaps to remember their relationship.
