Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 1, Episode 7:
O Ye of Little Faith
Written by Margarita Matthews
Directed by Chris Grismer
Original air date: 10/31/2022
October 31, 1934
Ben leaps into a Catholic priest, Father James Davenport, on the evening of Halloween 1934. He's there to perform an exorcism on and save an eighteen year old young woman named Daisy Gray, who is apparently possessed, and who is fated to die six minutes after midnight.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion:
- Averted with Magic, the only regular who isn't in this episode, meaning that an episode with ghostly apparitions manages to avoid referencing a certain well-known supernatural franchise that featured Ernie Hudson.
- Ian wears a pair of cat ears, like Desire does at one point in The Sandman; both are played by Mason Alexander Park.
- Agent Scully:
- Ben refuses to believe that Daisy is possessed, and firmly believes that there is a rational explanation for what's going on. He spends the rest of the episode attempting to figure out exactly what.
- Dr. Watts feels that the Grays' religious faith is impeding his work keeping Daisy healthy, and is just as determined as Ben to figure out a rational explanation for what's going on.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- It's very strongly implied that Daisy, in her delirium, briefly saw Ben's real face.
- It's never stated one way or another whether Aunt Tessa was killed the same night as Daisy in the original timeline, or if Ben's changing things led to her death, but her passing isn't discussed by Addison or Ian until after it happens.
- Behind the Black: No one notices Aunt Tessa's body on top of Daisy's armoire until Daisy points and screams at it.
- Bookcase Passage: Ben discovers a secret passage hidden in Daisy's armoire, and realizes that someone has been sneaking into her room.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Addison finds Ian wearing cat ears while attempting to fix the Imaging Chamber problems. Ian tells Addison that they keep the cat ears around for "emeowgencies."
- Central Theme: Stepping outside of your own faith and beliefs to find the best answers.
- Ben struggles with this throughout the episode. He says he doesn't have religious faith or believe in demons, but is very clearly freaked out by the things that he sees. When he decides to play along and embrace Father Davenport's role as exorcist, this ultimately leads him to the rational explanations he's looking for.
- Late in the episode, Ben asks Daisy to step outside of her own faith and put her belief that she's possessed on hold so she can help them catch her would-be murderer. She's distraught at the thought of it, but agrees to help. She later shows tremendous mercy towards her mother and uncle because it's what she believes in. Ben later thanks Daisy for helping him to realize that stepping outside of someone's faith isn't a bad thing.
- Back at the Project, Addison and Ian are forced to keep faith that Ben will make it out of the leap on his own.
- A small moment, but Addison's backstory about being from a broken home, and not believing that she could get married until she met Ben, follows this theme as well.
- Cheating with the Milkman: Percy doesn't hide that he sleeps with the housewives he meets in his role as a door-to-door salesman, bragging that he considers it "a public service." Especially jarring given that he's bragging about this to someone he believes is a priest.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Jenn tells Addison about a concept in quantum physics, where "if you believe in something, it helps make it true."
- Closest Thing We Got: Right as Ben is at his most desperate, he retires back into the bathroom, wishing he could talk to someone about what he's going to have to do (since Addison had yet to reestablish contact with him). Upon noticing the priest's reflection and speaking to it, he decides to wing it.
- Deconfirmed Bachelor: Or bachelorette. Addison confides in Jenn that she never wanted to get married until Ben came along.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Dr. Watts suggests that Daisy's problems could be cured with electroshock or a lobotomy. Ben is visibly put off by this.
- Doing In the Wizard: As Ben eventually comes to find out, the demonic apparitions are mostly caused by some hallucinations induced by jimsonweed, the demonic stench comes from a rotten fish that Magda put out to ward off the "dybbuk," and the smoky demon is actually Janis attempting to make holographic contact.
- Engineered Public Confession: Ben, Daisy, Magda, and Dr. Watts work together to fake Daisy's death. They then pretend that the "demon" is reanimating Daisy to get Percy to confess, and they get the confession in front of a police constable.
- A Family Affair: Lola plans to run off with Percy, her brother-in-law, who is in love with her.
- Forgiveness: Daisy tearfully forgives her mother for being part of the plot to kill her.Lola: You forgive me? How?
Daisy: It's just what I believe in. - Flat-Earth Atheist: Ben repeatedly says that he's not a man of faith. However, ghosts, angels, vampires, psychics, aliens, a reanimated mummy, Satan, and God Himself were all encountered at various points in the original Quantum Leap. Ian even mentions to Addison that Sam Beckett believed that God was in control of the leaps; and Addison reminds Ben that he is literally possessing a person right this moment.
- Halfway Plot Switch: About halfway through, during Ben's hallucination, the plot shifts away from being an exorcism story to an Agatha Christie-style mystery yarn.
- Halloween Episode: Takes place on Halloween 1934, and originally aired on Halloween 2022.
- Hologram Projection Imperfection: Turns out that the smoky demon that Ben had been seeing all episode was actually Janis, who was attempting to break through with a holographic warning. However, Ben leaps out before she can tell him anything.
- I'm Mr. [Future Pop Culture Reference]: After discovering that Daisy is being drugged and poisoned, Ben verbally bemoans the lack of internet. As it's 1934, Magda has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.Ben: This would be so much easier if we had the internet.
Magda: The what?
Ben: Encyclopedias! The original internet! - Inheritance Murder: On Daisy's 18th birthday, Aunt Tessa cuts Charles out of her will. This leaves Daisy, then Percy. Percy starts dosing Daisy with jimsonweed to induce hallucinations evocative of demonic possession, kills Aunt Tessa and frames the "demon," then poisons Daisy in the original history. When Ben stops him, it's revealed that Percy colluded with Lola to run away with the money to pursue Lola's dreams.
- Internal Homage:
- Following on the end of the last episode, the beginning of the episode references "The Boogieman" in that it shows a house's address marker ominously switching to 666 just after the leaper enters the house. Also like that episode, the leaper is knocked out for a time and hallucinates demons.
- The plot also has similarities to "A Portrait for Troian," which features a leapee who was called in to investigate an apparent haunting, which later turns out to be a cover to steal an inheritance.
- There's also some similarities to "Blood Moon," which also has the leaper racing against the clock to save a relative from a grisly and seemingly supernatural death.
- It Will Never Catch On: Averted; Daisy says she's donating Aunt Tessa's fortune to a little charity that helps people get jobs, called Goodwill
. Ben tells her that he has a feeling that it'll do well. - Jump Scare:
- Addison first shows up with a playful, "BOO!" that scares the already jumpy Ben.
- Aunt Tessa scares Ben by asking how Daisy is doing.
- Liquid Courage: Twice before going to confront the "demon," Ben slugs down a gulp of gin left out. He later realizes that this caused him to hallucinate the "demon," and learns from Magda that Percy had recently purchased some jimsonweed.
- Magic Versus Science: Played with throughout the episode, but also turned on its head. Dr. Watts is the science to contrast Father Davenport's and the Grays' religious faith; however, given that the rationalist Ben is standing in for Davenport at the time, he's more than willing to discuss a scientific explanation for everything going on. Eventually Ben has to step outside his belief's comfort zone and accept that there's something strange going on, and this eventually leads him to the conclusions he's looking for. Daisy too has to briefly step outside of her own religious faith and acknowledge that there may not actually be a demon present.
- Maniac Tongue: When Ben attempts the exorcism in earnest, the afflicted Daisy devilishly licks her lips when looking at him.
- Meanwhile, in the Future…: Even though the Imaging Chamber isn't working, the Project is still able to maintain a lock on Ben's location and vitals. The moment Ben changes the past and solves the mystery, Ian sees the Reddit page about Tessa's murder disappear.
- Meta Twist: In the original Quantum Leap, it wasn't uncommon for an apparently supernatural plot to have a rational explanation, only for a Real After All twist to pop up at the very end of the leap.note In this episode, you'd expect some kind of reveal at the end that there actually was a demon present, but the actual twist is that it was Janis' hologram glitching out.
- Mirror Monologue: Since Addison isn't available, Ben speaks to Father Davenport's reflection in the mirror, gives himself a pep talk, and resolves to channel Father Davenport to help Daisy.
- Number of the Beast: The address sign on the house that Ben enters is 669; after Ben steps inside, the "9" comes loose and flips over to become a third "6". It's definitely foreboding, but ultimately a subversion as there actually isn't a demon present.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted; Ben leaps into someone else named Ben at the end. His first inclination when another character calls him that is to yell, "You know me?"
- Phlebotinum Breakdown: The Imaging Chamber glitches out and crashes when Ben begins the exorcism, locking Addison out from assisting Ben. While it initially appears to be supernatural, it turns out that it's actually Janis locking the Project out and attempting to contact Ben herself.
- Red Herring: The demon stench in Daisy's room is caused by a fish left in there by Magda, meant to help ward off the demon after Charles refused to let her place a Jewish hamsa in there. Dr. Watts wryly lampshades this by saying it's a new variation on a red herring.
- Rewatch Bonus:
- When watching this again, it's very easy to catch that Percy is offering "Father Davenport" gin only to try to get him to hallucinate the "demon."
- In one scene towards the end, Lola asks if she should have Magda bring Daisy more soup. Given that Percy has been poisoning the soup, and Lola is in on the scheme, that would make this the fatal dose.
- When Daisy talks about the things she's been seeing, she leaves out the smoky demon, which is also the only thing that Ben sees without the jimsonweed in his system. Turns out that it's because the smoky demon was actually Janis' hologram glitching out.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Ian playfully suggests that the Imaging Chamber issues are caused by the demon. They're right in the sense that the "demon" is actually Janis' hologram attempting to manifest after she locks the project out.
- Ripple Effect Indicator: When the Reddit page about Aunt Tessa's mysterious death disappears, Addison and Ian realize that Ben has succeeded in the leap.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Apparently people back at the Project are protected from the aftereffects of Ben changing history. Ian specifically notices the Reddit page's disappearance and has a brief conversation with Addison about it.
- Sadistic Choice: Downplayed. Daisy's devout faith means that she genuinely believes that she is possessed. But she tells Ben that putting her faith on hold for his theory about her poisoning would mean that her beloved uncle is a murderer. She says that between the two options, she'd prefer the demon.
- Spotting the Thread: When he gets knocked out by the visions of the "demon," Ben wakes up in a brightly lit version of Daisy's room, where Addison is waiting to embrace and kiss him. Between knowing that he's definitely not home yet, meaning Addison should be an incorporeal hologram, the fact that Daisy's room also looks like an amalgamation of the Gray house and Ben and Addison's apartment, and the fact that "Beyond the Sea" (from 1959) is playing, Ben immediately concludes that he's dreaming. He uses the dream time to develop a rational explanation for what the hell is going on.
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Ben briefly says that "The Great Depression was...is...a scary time for people."
- Wham Shot: At the end of the episode, right as Ben is about to leap, he sees the smoky demon again... and the image clears up, revealing it was actually Janis' hologram.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Since Addison isn't there to provide exposition at the end, we don't get a detailed rundown of what happens to the Gray family, Magda, Dr. Watts, or Father Davenport. All we really know is that Percy and Lola are going to jail for Aunt Tessa's murder, and Daisy is planning on donating her inheritance to Goodwill.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Exorcist.
