Of all Sam's leaps, none had it worse than poor Katie McBain.
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Season 1
- "Genesis." Sam leaps into a baseball player in 1968, but he's stuck on the fact that he's alive at the same time as his father John who, in his own time, had long since passed. Sam gets through to his father by phone, passing himself off as a long-lost relative. It's everything Sam can do to not bawl his eyes out through the entire conversation.Sam: I don't wanna disappoint my dad, but I... I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year.John: Well, I know he'll understand.Sam: I hope so. It doesn't mean I don't love him; I do, and I miss him a lot too, even... even if I never told him.John: He knows.Sam: You think so?John: Well, a boy can't feel about his dad the way you do without his knowing it.Sam: Maybe. But when I don't show for Thanksgiving, it's-it's gonna hurt him.John: Sam, it's nice to have the children home for the holidays. But sometimes it can't happen. You're a young man trying to make your mark in the world, and how you go about doing that is a lot more important to your father than showing up for turkey. At least, it would be for me.Sam: [wipes eyes] Coming from you, that means... that means a lot.
Season 2
- In "Disco Inferno", Sam leaps into an aspiring musician's older brother, only to remember that he has an older brother of his own. He can't remember everything, though, and has a lingering sense of dread about the whole thing.Al: Sometimes it's tough bein' a big brother.
Sam: Yeah, now I know how Tom felt. I always thought he was putting me down; y'know, trying to tell me what to do. But by the time I figured out he was just lookin' out for me, it was too late because he was... [realizing] Tom's dead, isn't he?- Al then (reluctantly) reveals that Tom died in Vietnam, and admits "That's one part of [Sam's] memory [he] was hoping [he] wouldn't get back."
- The scene in "Jimmy" in which Jimmy's brother, who loves him and has fought with everyone, even his own wife, to allow Jimmy to have a normal life, is forced to break down and agree to have him institutionalized. This development especially alarms Al, who later explains why in a particularly horrifying monologue:Al: There was a girl named "Trudy."Sam: (annoyed) Al, I don't have time for-Al: She was retarded, Sam! Her IQ was lower than Jimmy's. And all the kids in the neighborhood, they used to tease her. Kids can be cruel. They'd call her names, like "dummy" and "monkey face." And I hated it. And I used to get in fights all the time over this. But that's what big brothers are for, right? My mother couldn't handle it. That's probably why she ran off with this stupid encyclopedia salesman. But my dad tried to keep us all together. He was a construction worker. He went from job to job, and then when it took him to the Middle East... I wound up in an orphanage and she wound up in an institution. When I was old enough, I went back there for her, but it was too late. She was gone, Sam. Pneumonia, they said. (barely restrained agony) How does a sixteen-year-old girl die from pneumonia in 1953, Sam?!
- If you want to make this worse, consider how Al phrases that question. Is that what actually happened, or is that what Al was told happened?
- Frank recalls the day Jimmy was institutionalized, particularly about how their father openly cried. Frank also regrets it took as long as it did to get Jimmy out.
- During "Animal Frat", after getting into a fight with Elizabeth and Duck in the library over their methods of stopping the war in Vietnam, Sam shoots down the accusations that he doesn't actually care by letting it slip that he lost his brother due to the war. Duck then promptly states "Well, maybe you should've cared just a little more about him before he went!", causing Sam to almost break down then and there.
- The end of "Another Mother": Al says goodbye to Theresa, the young girl he bonded with over the course of the episode.
- The final moments of "Freedom", before the leap, is devastating. Sam's just trying to get his (host body's) sick grandpa, Joseph, back to the reservation, where the poor old guy can die in peace, but a racist police chief, hunting them down all the while, finally gets in a lucky shot and hits Joseph. Sam just picks Joseph up off the ground, calls the police chief out for his disgusting behavior, and carries Joseph downhill to the reservation his damn self. And after all the running they'd done, Joseph doesn't even make it down the hill.Joseph: Why are you crying, Togo?Sam: I don't know.Joseph: You like the Redskins?Sam: Best damn team in America.Joseph: Don't cry, Togo. You're a good boy. I'll tell your father when I see him.
- The worst part? The leapee, Joseph's real grandson, Never Got to Say Goodbye because of this.
- The season finale "M.I.A." with Al's wife Beth, the only woman he ever truly loved. He was M.I.A. at the time, and Beth thinks he is dead and has given up hope of him being alive. He tries to get Sam to stop Beth from falling in love with another man she meets, but they can't alter their own timelines. And if that isn't sad enough, the very end has Al, a hologram, talking to Beth in her home. She seems to reply to something he said, but it turns out that she was just reacting to the record that was playing. The change in Al's face from hope that she could hear his voice to pure sadness when he realized she couldn't... And then Beth puts on "Georgia On My Mind". The last scene of the episode is Al "dancing" Beth to the strains of the song, begging futilely for her to wait for him before "kissing" her... and vanishing in a familiar blue light as Sam leaps out. And Beth could sense he was there.note
- Meanwhile, you have Sam learning what was going on. As mentioned above, Al kept insisting to Sam that he was there to prevent Beth from moving on from "her husband", and keeps linking it to when he was M.I.A himself, and came home to find his own wife left him. The penny doesn't drop for Sam until towards the end of the episode, when Sam finds Al's picture in Beth's place, causing him to leave and confront Al over his behavior during the episode.Sam: (sees Al attempt to leave the Imaging Chamber; runs over to him) Al, don't close that door! Al, if you close that door, don't ever open it again.
- And then you have Al lamely insisting that Ziggy says Sam is there to save his marriage, citing "real good" odds that this is the case. And when it's clear his lies aren't working, Al all but outright cries as he explains how much he loves Beth.
- According to Don Bellisario
, it was a tearjerker for Dean Stockwell, too. After the script came in, everyone else liked it, but Dean found it very painful for the character and requested that there not be any scripts like that again.
- Meanwhile, you have Sam learning what was going on. As mentioned above, Al kept insisting to Sam that he was there to prevent Beth from moving on from "her husband", and keeps linking it to when he was M.I.A himself, and came home to find his own wife left him. The penny doesn't drop for Sam until towards the end of the episode, when Sam finds Al's picture in Beth's place, causing him to leave and confront Al over his behavior during the episode.
Season 3
- "The Leap Home" two-parter. In Part 1, Sam leaps into his younger self to win a championship basketball game. However, he desperately wants to change his family's future (prolonging his father John's life, stopping his brother Tom from dying in Vietnam, and preventing his sister Katie from marrying an abusive drunk). Despite his efforts, however, he is forced to realize that there are some things he just can't change.Sam: It's not fair, Al. I mean, c'mon, it's not fair.Al: Well, I think, uh, I think it's damn fair.Sam: What?Al: I'd give anything to see my father and my sister for a few days, be able to talk with them again, laugh with them, tell 'em how much I love them. I'd give anything to have what you have, Sam. Anything.
- The acting in the above exchange really bears mentioning: Sam's rage and despair is expertly portrayed by Scott Bakula, while Dean Stockwell gives Al a quiet wisdom. It's arguably one of the best-acted scenes in the entire series.
- The "Imagine" scene. Just the "Imagine" scene...
- Part 2, meanwhile, provides Sam the opportunity to save Tom, but at an unforeseen price. Maggie, a war photographer who survived in the original history, dies during a mission to rescue some POWs. Additionally, her last photograph reveals that one of the POWs was Al, who won't be set free for another five years.
- Even deeper, consider that Al must have known his past self was at least in the area, and he accepted the loss of an opportunity to escape because he recognised that Sam needed to save his brother more.
- There's also Al's speech about his presence in the photograph.Sam (anguished)" You could have been FREE!"Al: [pointing to his head] I WAS free. Up here, I was always free.
- Right at the outset of "Leap of Faith", we learn that Sam leapt in the day of the funeral for a 12 year-old boy, Sonny, that had gotten run over by a train, with it being made very clear this wasn't an accident. The month prior, this other kid, Tony Pronti, had robbed and murdered a store clerk, with the only witnesses being the kid, and the priest Father Mac. Purely because of the crime of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, a child was shoved in front of a train.
- Even worse is the role Father Mac indirectly has in this situation: He never saw the murder. Sonny was afraid of being the only witness, and Mac lied to make him feel better about testifying.
- Father Mac in general has some major burdens to deal with throughout this leap; he eventually reveals to Sam that he was a gyrene during the Korean War, and had taken part in The Battle of Bloody Ridge. He wound up killing so many people he lost count, and wound up becoming a priest to try and make up for what he had done, but by the time Sam had leapt in, he was no longer sure if he accomplished anything at all. He has an entire trunk of war medals that he views as being worthless, even suggesting that Sam take them for himself, and his only source of comfort is the bottle.
- During the leap, Sam notices that Al is having some sort of hangup with him being a priest, which culminates in Sam outright asking what's bothering Al. We then get a little expansion on the situation with Al's father that "Jimmy" had touched on: as it happened, Al's dad had actually came back from the Middle East when Al was 10, and used the money he had gotten to buy "the greatest house [Al remembered] seein'" in order to keep the family together. He then promptly got sick due to cancer, and had to be taken to the hospital. And Al's dad had told him that everything would be okay if he kept praying for him.Al: Every day I went to church, and I prayed and I prayed and I prayed my heart out... until the day he died.Sam: I'm sorry. I... I forgot.Al: (reassuring) Oh, you didn't forget. You didn't know. I never told you. (quietly leaves)
- All throughout the episode, we get some implications that the reason why Tony was acting like he did was in part due to how his father had died. Eventually, while getting ready to kill Father Mac, he gets into a fight with his brother Joey over their father, which prompts him to reveal what actually happened to their dad: despite what their mother told Joey, their dad had hanged himself. And Tony knows this because he was the one to find him.
- Eventually, all of these threads come to a head when Sam takes Father Mac's place during confessions at church:
- Tony opens fire on Sam, and then flees the church right as Sam collapses out of the boothnote , which Al had the misfortune of witnessing the second he entered the Imaging Chamber. When it seems like Sam is dead, Al crouches down and tries in vain to pick Sam up, before making a desperate plea with God to spare Sam's life.note Al: (quietly) Oh, God, don't do this... (raises voice) I swore I would never have anything to do with you again... but you can't do this. He's done too much, he's helped too many people... You can't... take him like this... (clasps hands; prays)
- Father Mac then rushes into church to check on Sam, and after getting confirmation that he's still alive and that Tony had done this, Mac loses all composure, finds Tony, drags him to the train tracks, and forces him onto the ground at gunpoint to get him to confess to his crimes. And in front of an oncoming train.Tony: All right, just tell me what you want, and I'll do it!Mac: I want... I want you to bring Sonny back. I want you to bring back the clerk.Tony: I can't bring 'em back! I'm not God, and neither are you, man!Mac: (removes his clerical collar) ...then may he forgive us both, son.
- Tony opens fire on Sam, and then flees the church right as Sam collapses out of the boothnote , which Al had the misfortune of witnessing the second he entered the Imaging Chamber. When it seems like Sam is dead, Al crouches down and tries in vain to pick Sam up, before making a desperate plea with God to spare Sam's life.note
- Even worse is the role Father Mac indirectly has in this situation: He never saw the murder. Sonny was afraid of being the only witness, and Mac lied to make him feel better about testifying.
- "Black on White on Fire," in which Sam manages to talk down his host's older brother, only for him to be shot anyway because of a misunderstanding.
- "Future Boy" goes to lengths to make it seem like actor Moe Stein's desire to build a time machine is caused by senility, and that he's not mentally fit to live on his own. The ending reveals the true reason for his actions: To change a good review he received when his wife was pregnant with their daughter, Irene.Moe: I was just about to give up the business and settle down.
Sam: And then you got that.
Moe: Then, all of a sudden, offers started pouring in: National tours, revivals. The next thing I knew, thirty years had gone by. Well, I want those thirty years back!
Irene: That's why you built this machine.
Moe: Crazy, huh? An actor in search of a bad review. But I figured if I could change that one moment, I could change it all. I could have been the father I never was; the husband I should have been. We could have been a family.
Irene: [starts crying] Oh, Daddy, we are a family. We got lots of time to make up for all those things. - In "Shock Theater," an electroshock treatment in 1954 causes Sam to shift through the personalities of former leapees like Samantha Stormer, Jesse Tyler, Herbert "Magic" Williams, Tom Stratton, "Kid" Cody, and Jimmy LaMotta — all of which have panic attacks whenever electroshock is mentioned. It's the closest we come to meeting all of these leapeesnote , but Sam-as-Jimmy is easily the most heartbreaking — mentally he is a childlike, kind-hearted young man with Down Syndrome stuck in a 1954 mental institution, and he ends the episode extremely frightened as he tearfully begs Al not to leave him, and begs the nurse to shock him again so that Sam can recover and leap.
- Retroactively, if you have watched the sequel series, it's very gut-wrenching to see Sam-as-Magic freaking out when he thinks he's been captured by the Viet Cong, given how kindhearted and level-headed Magic is in 2022. Al, who spent much of the war as a POW, instinctively and grimly recognizes the cries of "VC, SIR! VC!" and knows to tell Sam-as-Magic to provide his name, rank, and serial number to get him to calm down.
- Speaking of Al, he spends the episode helplessly watching Sam cycle through these personalities while the holographic connection fizzles in and out. By the end, as he is fading out, he is screaming through tears at the nurse to shock Sam.
Season 4
- In "The Leap Back", Sam finally remembers that he has a wife, Donna, and blasts Al for not telling him. Sam and Donna have a blissful reunion, but by the episode's end, he must return to leaping to save Al's life. Al is seen talking to Donna and consoling her over the fact that she's not only lost her husband again, he doesn't even remember coming home to begin with. And we see Sam, having leaped back, clearly struggling to remember something, but eventually giving up.
- In "Raped", Katie McBain, the young woman who Sam has leaped into, is forced to temporarily come out via Al's gateway to help Sam give testimony over what happened to her. Slowly, the camera shifts to her instead of Sam and, in a touching effect, Sam's voice goes silent, letting Katie (played by Cheryl Pollak) give the testimony in her own voice. When she shakily says "I was raped," you believe her.
- Watch Al's silent reactions in the background. He'd been playing devil's advocate earlier in the episode, but now, he's hanging on every word and very obviously trying not to cry.
- The worst part of that scene? In the very next scene, her rapist is found not guilty. There isn't even any breathing room, just a smash cut to Kevin getting off scot-free, with no consequences whatsoever. And to rub salt in the wound, Katie's attorney admits after the fact that she really thought she could win... because she was a victim at a young age, and became a prosecuting attorney to seek justice. Fortunately, Sam gets a little justice of his own and puts Kevin in his place when the man tries to rape him/her again.
- For extra resonance, Sam's beloved little sister is also named Katie. He's already tried and failed to protect her from an abusive future husband.
- In "Temptation Eyes", Sam has a two-week interlude of happiness with Tamlyn the psychic, who can see him as himself; but he knows he'll have to leap out, and so does she. And his leapee is going to be devastated that his best friend and work partner of 25 years is the serial killer they've been hunting, and took his own life when caught.
- In "Stand Up", Sam confronts Mack in the bathroom over how he's been treating Frankie like crap all episode, when she clearly loves him. And the reason why that is? He loves her, and is worried about what would happen if they got together.Mack: (frantic) What happens if she finds out I'm crazy about her, huh? Then she-she'll go out with me, and then... Then we're really gonna like each other, and then we're gonna wanna see each other all the time, and then maybe we're gonna end up gettin' married, and having kids, and then... And then we'll buy a house. That's when the trouble really starts, too, 'cause there'll be fights over the bills, then the anger and the hatred, and then, (slaps hand) BAM, ends up in divorce. The next thing you know, we don't talk to each other ever again, and the kids-Sam: (interrupts) Mack, why don't you start by asking her out again?Mack: What?Sam: Before you ruin your kids' life, take the first step: Ask her out.
- In "A Leap for Lisa," Al realizes which night it is, and frantically asks Gushie to center him on Lisa, who he helplessly watches die in the car accident she'd been fated to die in. Even when Sam apologizes for having asked Lisa not to be his alibi since he'd thought the affair might ruin both Lisa and Bingo's careers, Al is more relieved that no one is going to gossip over Lisa's grave this time.
Season 5
- It was kind of a bit of a Foregone Conclusion, but it's still really hard to watch Sam try and fail to prevent John F. Kennedy's assassination towards the end of the "Lee Harvey Oswald" two-parter. Especially since it seemed like Al was about to do it for Samnote , managing to get through to him at the last moment by reminding him his dad was still alive in 1963... and then Oswald forces Sam to leap out, allowing him to take the shot.
- Even the revelation of the Bittersweet Ending is still hard to see: Sam wound up leaping into a Secret Service agent. And while at the hospital, Sam all but breaks down on the spot as he bemoans to Al that he failed... only for Al to reveal Sam hadn't really... Since he still managed to save Kennedy.Al: Your Swiss-cheese mind probably doesn't remember, but the first time, Oswald killed Jackie, too.
- Even the revelation of the Bittersweet Ending is still hard to see: Sam wound up leaping into a Secret Service agent. And while at the hospital, Sam all but breaks down on the spot as he bemoans to Al that he failed... only for Al to reveal Sam hadn't really... Since he still managed to save Kennedy.
- In "Deliver Us from Evil", it is viscerally upsetting to watch Frank LaMotta beat Sam, especially given Sam's previous experience with the LaMotta family, his earlier narration about loving them like his own family, and the fact that Frank is doing this to someone who he believes is his own mentally-handicapped brother.
- In "Return of the Evil Leaper", Sam leaps into a college student, Arnold, who has a habit of dressing up as a costumed hero and risking death to save innocent people. It turns out that Arnold is an orphan, losing his parents in an ex-cop's shooting rampage and only surviving because he left to get his jacket out of the car. As Al talks to him about this, Arnold breaks down ("I should've died, too").
- "Goodbye Norma Jean", where Sam leaps into Marilyn Monroe's chauffeur. By the end, Sam does what he needs to do to leap (get her in shape for her last film, The Misfits, despite her collapsing personal life) and is then informed by Al that she's still going to die after the movie is finished. A grateful Marilyn calls Sam over after her successful first rehearsal, but Sam leaps right before he can talk to her one last time.
- There's also an undercurrent of a Foregone Conclusionnote if you pay close enough attention: Sam leapt in on April 4th, 1960. He is informed by Al that "[t]here's only four days until Marilyn's suicide." Only problem? Marilyn historically died on August 4th, 1962. And if you go into this episode knowing this, after Al says that line, you would already know how this episode ends.
- "Mirror Image", and the final moment of the show: "Sam Becket [sic] never returned home."
- On the other hand, some fans see this as Sam accepting the Call to bigger and better challenges.
- The last thing Al said to Sam was that he'd get him back home no matter what it took. By the time of the revival, we learn that Sam still hadn't gotten home, the Project was shut down shortly after the series finale, and Al died in 2021.
