Recap / Quantum Leap 2022 S 2 E 6 Secret History

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Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 2, Episode 6:

Secret History

Written by Drew Lindo

Directed by Pamela Romanowsky

Original air date: 11/15/2023

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May 15, 1955

Ben leaps into Professor Henry McCoy at Princeton University in 1955, right as he meets the professor's friend Professor Lawrence dying after being attacked. Ben's disappointed to find that he missed getting to meet the late Albert Einstein, but Ziggy projects that he's there to help find a secret formula developed by Einstein, which led to Lawrence's demise.

However, Ben is also astounded to cross paths with Hannah Carson, who he first met in New Mexico in "Closure Encounters," and resolves to help her receive proper credit for her achievements.

Meanwhile, Rachel's company surreptitiously calls Ian to remind them of the agreement that they made to get the quantum chip, and declares that they can lock the project out of using it if Ian doesn't let them freely mine data.

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Tropes:

• Big Damn Kiss: Ben plants one on Hannah right before leaping out.
• Bookcase Passage: Tom went to Princeton and found it, so he hops into the Imaging Chamber to tell Ben where to look. Turns out to be a subversion; the entrance had changed in between 1955 and Tom's time in college, and the door is hidden behind a grandfather clock.
• Broken Masquerade: Ben mentions to Jenn that he feels like Hannah somehow knows that he's there. He later invokes the name of his previous leapee Agent Robert Cook to tell Hannah the truth about himself in order to stop her from doing something he knows will cause her to die in a fusion explosion.
• Call-Back:
  • Invoked by Ben to stop Hannah from going back to the lab and dying in an accident. He mentions Agent Robert Cook, whom Henry McCoy shouldn't know about, and specific details of what "Cook" and Hannah talked about.
  • Magic is said to be taking a day off, and it's mentioned that it's likely because of how the previous leap affected him personally.
• Chekhov's Gun: Early in the episode, Hannah asks Ben if he has the time, then uses the Stellarator device to magnetically pull Ben's pocketwatch out of his pocket, adding that her little joke "never gets old." Later in the episode she uses it to pull the metal fencing saber out of Donovan's hand.
  Hannah: Never gets old.
• Dead Man's Switch: Simone tells Ian that the company has to enter a special authorization code daily in order for the quantum chip to work, and that they can lock the Project out of using the chip whenever they want. And they very much don't want Ian stopping them from mining Ziggy's code.
• Doctor von Turncoat: Played with; turns out that "Donovan" was recruited during Operation Paperclip, never lost his Nazi ideology, hates the Allies for winning the war, and is more than happy to use fusion weaponry to bring Nazism back.
• Game Changer: Ben willingly breaks one of the major rules of quantum leaping and tells Hannah that he's a time traveler from the future who had met her once before. The last times he'd mentioned the truth, the timelines were either erased (as in "Leap Die Repeat" or "Judgment Day") or Ben was under the influence of a drug (as in "Ben Interrupted").
• Godzilla Threshold: Tom tells Ben that Hannah still dies in an accident that night due to the discovery of Einstein's formula, so Ben urges her to not go forward with the discovery. Hannah understandably doesn't understand why "Professor McCoy" has shifted from excitement to horror, and starts to leave. Ben yelps out "Agent Robert Cook!" in order to get her to pause, then spills the beans about himself and his hologram to convince her. It works.
• Have We Met?: Hannah says this to "Professor McCoy," to which Ben defers by saying that he just has "one of those faces." However, he tells Jenn that he feels like it's as if Hannah subconsciously knows him as Ben rather than his leapee, and this is what later spurs him to reveal his identity to her.
• Internal Homage:
  • To "Temptation Eyes," in that the leaper drops The Masquerade to a love interest while in the middle of a leap, while their hologram angrily tells them that it's against the rules.
  • To "Trilogy," in that the leaper repeatedly crosses paths with a woman whose life he changes for the better, who he develops a romantic attraction to. The year 1955 was even the location of Sam's first leap in "Trilogy Part 1."
• The Missus and the Ex: Since Jenn is helping Ian with a security matter, Magic is on leave, and Ben doesn't want Addison around, Tom is forced to step into the Imaging Chamber and take over as hologram. Ben isn't particularly happy about it, and Tom lampshades how awkward it is.
• Mythology Gag: Hannah calls Ben "Future Boy."
• Never Say Goodbye: At the end, Hannah gives Ben a "see ya later," slyly adding that "electromagnetism between two polarities" is what brought them together twice.
• Old Soldier: Ben's leapee Professor McCoy is one, although he's just a decade removed from World War II. In addition, Professor Lawrence had served with McCoy in the war.
• Posthumous Character: The recently-deceased Albert Einstein, whose missing formula drives the plot of the episode, and who Hannah knew and calls "Al."
• Red Scare: The police officers questioning Ben about Lawrence's death ask him if he has Communist sympathies.
• Secret-Keeper: Ben breaks the anonymity rule for the first time and reveals to Hannah that he's a time traveler from the future, and is being assisted by a holographic companion. She agrees to keep mum about it, and even says that she'll tell Professor McCoy that he got amnesia after a concussion from his fight with Donovan.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Back to the Future trilogy gets a handful. Ben is in 1955, "Papa Loves Mambo" plays during the montage where he and Hannah look through the library, and Hannah even calls him "Future Boy" after she learns that he's a time traveler. Ben also tells her that he's a time traveler from the future, similar to how Doc told Clara the truth in Part III, although Hannah immediately believes Ben.
  • There's a guy named Donovan who explains the mission and appears to be on the side of the hero, but is secretly a Nazi working against the hero, just like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He's also working for the United States thanks to Operation Paperclip, while secretly hoping to use a dead scientist's discovery to bring Nazism back to power, just like Voller in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
  • Ben's leapee's name is Dr. Henry McCoy, like Beast from the X-Men.
• Something Only They Would Say: Ben tells Hannah details about their first meeting at the cafe in New Mexico, something that his leapee Professor McCoy shouldn't know about. It's what leads her to believe him.
• Spotting the Thread: During a discussion of sparring scars on the faces of the Nazi elite, the team realizes that Donovan has the same kinds of fencing sabers on display in his office...right when Ben is telling him about finding Einstein's secret formula.
• There Are No Coincidences: Ben is so surprised to see Hannah again that he asks Jenn if she's another leaper, and Jenn confirms that this isn't the case. He then starts thinking that it's not a coincidence that he's crossed paths with her again, since he never crosses paths with the same people twice on his leaps. After Hannah learns the truth about Ben's quantum leaping, she doesn't believe it's a coincidence, either.
• Time-Travel Romance: After The Masquerade is dropped, Hannah says that having a time-traveling guardian angel is "romantic." At the end they resolve to meet again, and Ben kisses her.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: From Ben's perspective, it's been three leaps and approximately three days since he'd last met Hannah. From Hannah's perspective, it's been six years.