Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 1, Episode 9:
Fellow Travelers
Carly: [singing] It's a one-way ticket, that's the price you pay. Another day, another song. Traveling on...
Written by Drew Lindo and Dean Georgaris
Directed by David Grossman
Original air date: 1/2/2023
April 24, 1979
Ben leaps into Jack Armstrong, a bodyguard for a singer named Carly Farmer (Deborah Ann Woll) who is set to perform in Chicago the following evening. He's there to make sure that Carly isn't murdered.
Meanwhile, the Project team reels from the revelation that Ben leaped in order to save Addison, and track down Janis to figure out what he meant.
Tropes:
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Jenn asks Janis how Addison will die, Janis tells her that she's asking the wrong question. Janis' question clearly rattles Jenn.Janis: Why did Ben come to me when he had all of you?
- Artistic License – Law: In real life, Belize does have an extradition treaty with the United States.
- The Bait: Addison's initial plan is to loop Carly in that someone is trying to kill her, but Ben is hesitant at first and more willing to prevent her from getting in bad situations in the first place. Later on, after he does tell her what's going on, Carly decides to put her concert on and draw out her killer once and for all.
- Bodyguard Crush: Carly kisses "Jack" on her balcony since he'd apparently previously said something to indicate he was interested in her, but Ben gently rebuffs her, saying that he still has a job to do. At the end, Carly asks him if he'll take her on a date.Ben: I think my calendar's opening up.
- Big Damn Heroes: Ben just barely makes it onstage to save Carly from being killed by some loose lights during her sound check. He later does it again when Loretta tries to stab Carly backstage before the concert.
- Call-Back:
- When Ben openly doubts that Jamie is Carly's killer, Addison has to remind him that Carla Jean was also much more dangerous than they originally thought.
- Jenn passes on Janis buying her a drink, mentioning Janis drugging Beth's tea. Janis retorts that family is complicated, and brings up Jenn's gambler father.
- Could Say It, But...: When Janis asks Ian if they used Ziggy to find her.Ian: Well, I'm not at liberty to say that that's exactly what I did.
- Drowning My Sorrows: When Ben calls Trevor to ask who else knew about the letters, Trevor, who has just been fired, is seen drinking heavily.
- Every Man Has His Price: Janis has hired some bodyguards to protect her, but they apprehend her at Jenn's order, because "Uncle Sam pays better."
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Addison tells Ben that Carly dies during her sound check...giving Ben just precious seconds to rush the stage and save her from some lights collapsing from the ceiling.
- Gender Bender: At the end of the episode, Ben leaps into Doctor Alexandra Tomkinson. This is a lead-in to the next episode, "Paging Dr Song".
- GPS Evidence: Ian repurposes Janis' prediction code in Ziggy to put together a list of locations where Janis might go. Jenn narrows this down to Belize City, since Janis would blend in with the tourists, flexible customs with no extradition treaty, and close enough to a power plant to run another homebrew imaging chamber.
- History with Celebrity: Addison spies Elton John at Carly's party.Ben: Maybe he murders Carly.
Addison: [serious] He would never do that. - Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Discussed with regard to Al, when Jenn says that he had "questionable fashion choices," eliciting a slight smile from Janis.
- Internal Homage: To "Glitter Rock", which also has a plot about a Seventies musician who might be murdered by a relative.
- Like a Son to Me: Magic states he loves Ben like a son.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Very much a theme of the episode.
- Regarding the previous episode's reveal that he leaped to save Addison. Addison is understandably upset that Ben didn't tell her, and Magic empathizes because the reveal crushed him, too. Possibly a Justified Trope, though — Janis tells Jenn that there was a specific reason that Ben went to her and not to the Project team.
- Addison encourages Ben to let Carly in on what's going on — namely, that Jamie is trying to reach out to her, and someone may be trying to kill her.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: In the original history, Carly was killed by some stage lights falling on her, ostensibly in some kind of freak accident.
- Meta Twist: The episode is a Whole-Plot Reference to The Bodyguard. In this case, the sister actually isn't the one behind the murder plot, but in some of the histories she's framed for it.
- Nothing but Hits: We get "I'm Every Woman" by Chaka Khan, "The Best of My Love" by the Emotions, and "Black Betty" by Ram Jam.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Carly has a conversation with Ben about how tiring it is going from place to place. Ben agrees.
- Previously on…: The episode opens with an updated Opening Narration by Addison, and a recap of the story so far: namely, that Ben leaped before the project was ready, is slingshotting through time trying to get to the future, and is doing so to save Addison from something.
- Recovered Addict: Jamie has pulled herself out of drug addiction, and is seeking a relationship with her sister again.
- Title Drop: Carly's song is called "Traveling On", and she dedicates her performance of it at the end to "all my fellow travelers out there."
- Vagueness Is Coming: Discussed heavily by the Project team with regards to Ben's statement that he leaped to save Addison. Ben doesn't know the details, and the only person who knows anything is keeping mum.
- We Will Meet Again: When Carly fires Trevor, and Ben kicks him out of the penthouse, Trevor says, "This isn't over."
- What the Hell, Hero?: Addison is furious that Ben kept her in the dark about needing to save her in the future, and angrily calls him out for it. Even Magic admits that he wanted to throttle Ben for keeping that info from the Project team.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Bodyguard, in that it involves a bodyguard keeping a singer — who is also a love interest — safe from a determined killer, with a character that has the surname "Farmer," and the use of the song "I'm Every Woman" in one scene.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: No matter what Ben does to save Carly from the calamity at hand, Addison says that Carly still dies from something else. Addison lampshades this at the end when she pretends to look alarmed while checking her handlink, then smiles and admits that she's just teasing Ben, and that Carly is safe.
