I just realised something. This is the first time that Sam has leapt overseas, what one would assume is a great feat. Since at the time of his leap he was so fixated with trying to save Tom, one might think that he actually willed himself there...
302 The Leap Home Part II: Vietnam
- Thread starter alsplacebartender
- Start date
This is a leap with some real powerful elements.
We have Al conflicted between his own fate and the irrational but heartfelt desire of his best friend to save his brother's life. I've discussed in regards to M.I.A how Al's lack of disclosure which ultimately caused him to make it impossible for Sam to succeed in saving his marriage and here he's done it again. It is my belief and the final scene of the episode confirms this that had Sam known he would have distributed equal importance to both his brother and best friend. Though I've said this about him in MIA for not throwing Donna in his face and once again here Al shows how amazing a friend he is and how much Sam means to him to put Sam's personal agendas over his own.
Let's talk about Sam's selfishness here. Believe it or not I've come to appreciate this because it gives an otherwise too perfect character a sense of realism which makes him human and believable. The first part of the episode starts us off on that path with Sam openly admitting that his own timeline was the only one allowed to be an exception to the rule. Personally I am considering that this comment could have been more emotional than sincere and Mirror Image seems to support this but I digress.
Here we have that selfishness almost invalidated by the fact that Ziggy doesn't seem to know what he should be doing having made multiple fruitless suggestions from ensuring the success of the unknown mission which turned into the POW rescue to saving Deek from the sapper attack. Which brings me to my next point.
Consider how the first part ended, the nature of Sam's leap out of the Basketball game; his hand reaching out for his brother, yelling his name in desperation to save him only to land him in the exact position to do so. Now add to our brainstorm soup when Al the Bartender reveals that Sam can take control of his leaps in Mirror Image. Something which it's implied that he has actually unconsciously done in many episodes but for obvious reasons I'm going to stick to Vietnam here.
My theory which came to mind watching it just yesterday and combines all the above ingredients together quite nicely (wow lol, all that Food Network I've been watching suddenly took over there XD), is that perhaps a task could not be determined because this was a leap of Sam's choosing not GTFW's. Still though as Al pointed out in the first part Sam isn't able to change what isn't supposed to be changed. So there is another factor at play here that allowed his success. Either Tom's death coincidentally happened to be considered a wrong or Sam was being given an exception, perhaps because of the difficulty of the previous leap.
That does make his success with Beth at the end of Mirror Image difficult to decipher however. Was this another exception? Why? Or was it a wrong that Sam didn't succeed the first time? That's another subject though.
Correct, though they didn't know the identities or exactly how many POWs there would be, the mission was to find and rescue up to three or was it four?
In the original timeline when the Chu hoi double crossed them she'd personally shot Tom in the back and two other men on the squad were injured, Maggie had not been brought on the mission.
That day had marked the end of Magic's good luck spell.
Not exactly. The rescue mission had been unsuccessful in both timelines. What Maggie's photograph changed was that it sentenced Al to two more years as a POW. Is my information right? He'd originally been repatriated in '73 (stated in MIA) but then at the end of this episode which takes place in '70 he said five years which makes it '75. So the difference would be two years. Anyway how it did so isn't clear but the novel Pulitzer offers an amazing explanation to make that connection, I highly recommend it.
Never apologize for asking questions, questions are what educate us and everyone here at Al's is more than willing to answer and all.
We have Al conflicted between his own fate and the irrational but heartfelt desire of his best friend to save his brother's life. I've discussed in regards to M.I.A how Al's lack of disclosure which ultimately caused him to make it impossible for Sam to succeed in saving his marriage and here he's done it again. It is my belief and the final scene of the episode confirms this that had Sam known he would have distributed equal importance to both his brother and best friend. Though I've said this about him in MIA for not throwing Donna in his face and once again here Al shows how amazing a friend he is and how much Sam means to him to put Sam's personal agendas over his own.
Let's talk about Sam's selfishness here. Believe it or not I've come to appreciate this because it gives an otherwise too perfect character a sense of realism which makes him human and believable. The first part of the episode starts us off on that path with Sam openly admitting that his own timeline was the only one allowed to be an exception to the rule. Personally I am considering that this comment could have been more emotional than sincere and Mirror Image seems to support this but I digress.
Here we have that selfishness almost invalidated by the fact that Ziggy doesn't seem to know what he should be doing having made multiple fruitless suggestions from ensuring the success of the unknown mission which turned into the POW rescue to saving Deek from the sapper attack. Which brings me to my next point.
Consider how the first part ended, the nature of Sam's leap out of the Basketball game; his hand reaching out for his brother, yelling his name in desperation to save him only to land him in the exact position to do so. Now add to our brainstorm soup when Al the Bartender reveals that Sam can take control of his leaps in Mirror Image. Something which it's implied that he has actually unconsciously done in many episodes but for obvious reasons I'm going to stick to Vietnam here.
My theory which came to mind watching it just yesterday and combines all the above ingredients together quite nicely (wow lol, all that Food Network I've been watching suddenly took over there XD), is that perhaps a task could not be determined because this was a leap of Sam's choosing not GTFW's. Still though as Al pointed out in the first part Sam isn't able to change what isn't supposed to be changed. So there is another factor at play here that allowed his success. Either Tom's death coincidentally happened to be considered a wrong or Sam was being given an exception, perhaps because of the difficulty of the previous leap.
That does make his success with Beth at the end of Mirror Image difficult to decipher however. Was this another exception? Why? Or was it a wrong that Sam didn't succeed the first time? That's another subject though.
Ladystoneheart said:
Correct, though they didn't know the identities or exactly how many POWs there would be, the mission was to find and rescue up to three or was it four?
In the original timeline when the Chu hoi double crossed them she'd personally shot Tom in the back and two other men on the squad were injured, Maggie had not been brought on the mission.
That day had marked the end of Magic's good luck spell.
Ladystoneheart said:
Not exactly. The rescue mission had been unsuccessful in both timelines. What Maggie's photograph changed was that it sentenced Al to two more years as a POW. Is my information right? He'd originally been repatriated in '73 (stated in MIA) but then at the end of this episode which takes place in '70 he said five years which makes it '75. So the difference would be two years. Anyway how it did so isn't clear but the novel Pulitzer offers an amazing explanation to make that connection, I highly recommend it.
Never apologize for asking questions, questions are what educate us and everyone here at Al's is more than willing to answer and all.
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Agreed, and I think that is exactly why Al didn't tell Sam. He knew it would be a terrible (and really impossible) decision for Sam to have to make, so he chose to not put him in the position of having to choose between his brother or his friend (and instead made the decision for him).
That's an excellent thought which hadn't occurred to me. To have to choose between two people you love is borderline wrong no matter what the circumstances and I can certainly believe that Al would never subject Sam to such a decision. He probably also considered the lack of difference his being rescued would have made. It wouldn't change Beth leaving him, she'd already even met Dirk the lawyer almost exactly a year prior let alone married him. Sadly he had no other reason to be in a hurry to get home.
Reminds me of the final line of the final verse of the Dixie Chicks song 'Traveling Solider'.
"One name read and nobody really cared, but a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair."
:'(
Look it up, it's a really well written song with a very Al and Beth theme.
I agree with you. This is why I like Catch a Falling Star as well, it's one of the few times Sam seems human. That, and when he perves on the sexy French lady in Blind Faith
The reason Ziggy didn't know what Sam was there to do was because the records of the missions were kept top secret. This is why Sam tried to have Maggie come on the mission in the first place - so that she could write an article about it. Unfortunately that backfired...
I totally agree that Sam willed himself to Vietnam.
The point that was trying to be made is that right and wrong are concepts made up by humans. So what Sam needs to change ultimately depends on his own belief about what is right and wrong. At the time, Sam thought it was wrong to break the rules of the project and save Al's marriage. But seeing the pain that Al was going through, he realised that it definitely was something that shouldn't have happened to such a good person, hence became wrong in his mind.
Mirror Image proves to us that God or Time or Fate or Whatever ultimately is not as powerful as Sam makes out in his head. Rather, it's his own choices.
Unless Al meant that since the start of his incarceration as a POW he was there for five years. Which, if Sam didn't make life more difficult for Al, would have meant Al was captured in 1968. Seems reasonable...
This is definitely a big part of it, Sam realizing how much pain Al was in and that it was a wrong that did need to be made right. And not just for Al, but Beth too - in the original history, she had to move on with her life and not keep mourning Al forever, but I don't think she ever stopped loving him and I don't think a day went by that she didn't have regrets, especially if she saw Maggie's photo of him and realized that she'd been mistaken.
But there is also the friendship angle. Not that Sam didn't realize what a great friend Al was before, but in Mirror Image he has time to really reflect on that, about how there isn't anything Al wouldn't do for him - and that he didn't quite reciprocate completely (when Bartender Al points out 'and you for him'). In a way, Sam becomes a better and humbler friend to Al in this episode.
Exactly (and as you already know, I'm in the 'it's all Sam' camp).
This is what I think, or that Al just miscalculated in that emotional moment. Though as Sam Beckett Fan pointed out, in the novel Pulitzer L Elizabeth Storm did a nice job presenting a plausible scenario for Al's extra two years in captivity.
Lightning McQueenie said:
I know right?! The last time I watched that episode I was like "wait a minute, did he check out her a** as she was walking away!?" XD I'm not sure I'd ever noticed that before.
Lightning McQueenie said:
A very in depth thought but I don't completely agree, not in reference to Quantum Leap.
Now that you have me thinking about that, it's true that whenever Ziggy is pitted against Sam's gut feelings she always loses. So perhaps Sam does at times choose what he changes however there are some conflicts with this. He doesn't choose to leap into to these particular situations, he saw Delilah's innocence in her eyes in So Help Me God but he didn't decide to leap into that courtroom. Usually he doesn't know what the situation is until told.
Here's a brain twister, how was Sam not able to save his father and sister? This says to me that GTFW does have limitations on what is meant to be changed.
Lightning McQueenie said:
Good thought but no. The exact line was:
"What the hell? I get repatriated in five years."
Blue_enigma said:
As am I though I do believe that GTFW still plays a role, it just didn't have to be nearly as large of one as Sam had allowed. Al the Bartender even tells him that the key to being in control of his leaps was to believe in it and actually I came across an interesting passage which made me think of this in my Yoga class reading (weird I know but yes, my yoga class had reading). It's called Locus of Control:
http://i61.tinypic.com/x25cg6.jpg
http://i58.tinypic.com/2s984jp.jpg
Blue_enigma said:
This is an excellent point and I believe Beth must have seen the photo as it would have been famous but even in the original history in which the photo did not exist she must have been told I imagine. So in both timelines she did find out that she'd made a huge mistake to give up on Al and probably lived the rest of her life in guilt and shame, which possibly even ruined her marriage to Dirk.
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I wish they'd put more of these subtle perving gags into the show
That's not what I meant. Yes, Sam gets put into situations and he knows there is something there that needs to be changed. Most of the time, he is able to get future knowledge from Ziggy, and because he has such a strong moral compass, if he hears someone is going to die or be severely injured or end up in a much worse situation, of course he is going to try to save them, that's the kind of person Sam is. The point I was making is that in the end, he always has a choice to make - he doesn't HAVE to do what Ziggy tells him. And if he feels there's a conflict of interest, or if he feels that there's too much that one person can do, then he has to make a choice about what he can and can't do. But that doesn't mean he can't stew over his decisions - hence his guilt about not trying more to help Al. And realising the pain that he and Beth both went through, he realised he had the opportunity to help them but didn't. He realised that there are more important things than rules (most likely from the opportunity he had to help his family).
As for why he couldn't help his dad or Katie - well his dad was too set in his ways, and had no intention of changing his lifestyle. Sam can't force him to exercise and to eat good food. As for Katie, love literally makes people blind and deaf to what others think about that person. There's no way she would listen to anyone warning her against Chuck. Again, it was something she had to learn for herself.
Again, it's a question of interpretation. With his wording, a possible interpretation is that he could have been remembering the entire incarceration, and be like "What the Hell, it only took five years". The wording IS ambiguous.
Yes of course GTFW still plays a role, he after all is the one who puts Sam in the situations he is put in. Which means GTFW must have an idea of where things have gone wrong. But it all comes down to choices - the choices made by the individuals who went on their original path, and the choice Sam makes to 1 - attempt to help them, and 2 - try to make them realise there is a better path that could be taken.
Unfortunately we don't know anything about her marriage to Dirk. Judging by how much they were put together in MIA, one might think that Beth and Dirk were meant to be, so they might have been very happy (aside from the obvious guilt about hurting Al). Since we only ever see the story from Al's point of view, we can't say anything for certain. But I think we can all agree that Al didn't deserve what he came back to and after all he did to help Sam help others, it was fitting that he should finally find some happiness.
Lightning McQueenie said:
Agreed that the way Dirk's and Beth's paths would cross were so convenient that they even felt rehearsed, which almost has me wondering if Alia could have played a role. That line he'd cracked about his mother wanting grandchildren seemed way intentional. This is one reason Sam hadn't felt right about pursuing that task.
What I'd meant was that her guilt when she found out that Al had come home alive could have caused Beth's marriage to Dirk to fall apart. This doesn't mean that it hadn't been a happy marriage up until then. It's just a possibility.
Lightning McQueenie said:
That's arguable, it's not clear whether or not success has anything to do with the leaps out. There are conflicting suggestions. Al has warned Sam several times that if he doesn't complete a task he may not leap but both characters have also insisted several times that success has nothing to do with leaping.
Life is a series of choices; we choose to eat an English Muffin for breakfast when cereal was also an option, we choose to sit in front of the television when taking a walk is also an option, we choose to wear the blue shirt instead of the pink.
So yeah Sam has the ability to make any choice, but those choices aren't necessarily linked to leaping. One can make a choice that doesn't deliver the result someone else wanted. Perhaps your mom is bugging you to get your driver's license, so you decide to go take the test and you fail, thus no driver's license.
Sam could choose to do nothing to make a change in a leap and end up never leaping out because GTFW wanted a change made that wasn't made. Like Al's desire for Sam to convince Beth to wait for him GTFW also must have His desired leaps and also has the power to refuse the leap out if He's not satisfied.
Frankly, even if Sam's dad did change his lifestyle he was already well into his forties (at least) and a lot of the damage was already done. Starting to eat better and exercise, while it might have helped his blood pressure somewhat, wouldn't have reversed the plaque that had already built up in his arteries. Given the fact that Sam's paternal grandfather also died of a heart attack we know there was likely a hereditary predisposition there. I don't know that they had medicines to control cholesterol or bp at this time, or if they existed they were experimental at that point.
There also may have been a ripple effect with Katie once Sam stopped Tom from getting killed in Vietnam. With Tom around Katie may have not felt so desperate to leave home, he would've been around to see the way Chuck was treating her and put a stop to it, etc.
I wasn't necessarily suggesting that Dirk and Beth weren't happy, as I believe Beth needed to move on with her life. But it's very clear in M.I.A. that she loves Al very much - even if she was happy with Dirk and had a good life it doesn't mean she didn't also have regrets at the same time.
Or Dirk himself was intentionally putting himself in her path. He was very persistent, despite the fact that she had a wedding ring on her finger (yes, she had the M.I.A. bracelet, too, but...). It was clear that she was very vulnerable and to a certain degree he took advantage of that.
As for Sam, he had a bit of a double standard when it came to deciding what was 'meant to be' and what wasn't. However, as I mentioned in the M.I.A. thread, this leap was clearly not for Al and Beth when it first started - Sam was nowhere near Beth when he leaped in and wouldn't have even crossed paths with her had Al not pushed him in that direction (because of the date and the fact that they were in San Diego, which is a big place). By the end of the leap, though, I think that changed or Sam would've leaped out as soon as he saved Skaggs' life. He didn't. He hung around long enough to be standing outside of Beth's house with Al - and it's interesting that he took that as a sign that Al was being given a chance to say goodbye to her, not that he was being given the chance to fix things for Al and Beth.
blue_enigma said:
That was also on my mind and probably the more likely scenario. He'd made very direct suggestions from the moment they'd met and seemed to have no regard at all for that M.I.A bracelet, never once even commenting on it. It was his mother who'd showed sympathy there though she'd tried some picking up as well, inviting some young woman she'd just met to dinner with herself and her son is an obvious set up attempt.
Dirk had then once again showed little interest in the fact that she was married and to a Vietnam MIA when she'd shown him the photo of Al and was telling stories about him. He didn't have a whole lot of response to any of it, it seemed more like he'd tolerated it to be polite. I can imagine him being more pissed off than sympathetic if he'd ever seen Maggie's photo or even in the original history when Beth received the message that Al was home, alive.
What bugged me the most along with the grandchildren line was how he'd made Sam out to be a douche for accusingly trying to pick Beth up when he'd done the same damn thing, in fact he'd been heavily direct:
"Oh no I love Italians, it's just too bad you have a husband."
you're the douche Dirk!
Honestly Alia is more of an entertaining consideration. I could see a lot of Dirk's behavior also having been her acting and it certainly resembles their types of leaps.
blue_enigma said:
Excellent catch which goes back to the theory that Sam chooses what is right and what is wrong. Though he'd not seen this as a valid exception to the rule he did express regret at the thought of not being able to do it.
"God Al I wish I could", there was genuine pain in his voice in this delivery. So it the fact that he'd stayed after saving Scaggs could very well have been much like Thou Shalt Not when he'd chosen to stay for the extra credit task of bringing the father and daughter back together. Except in this case as you said, he'd read it the wrong way.
Alia is definitely an entertaining consideration, and once they introduced the evil leapers it certainly became a plausible explanation in canon. They loved their simple home-wrecking assignments.
As entertaining as the idea of Alia leaping into Dirk is, I have to disagree. Didn't Sam manhandle Dirk while "apprehending" him? There was no quantum magnetic field interference then...
He did, which is why it's not the theory I believe. As I said it was only an entertaining consideration (plus it would be a great explanation for the pink sweater HA XD Sorry small joke).
How did we manage to get so far off topic that we turned the Leap Home part 2 thread into an MIA thread? Haha back on topic, I absolutely ADORE the scene where they're water-skiing with the helicopter. They were really worried they couldn't do the water-skiing scene because they had a ban on boats on that river, so they got a helicopter instead. Worse, it was a special military helicopter that took FOREVER to be able to find and acquire They really went all out in this episode
They really went all out in this episode
Sorry, my bad. I've got a bad habit of taking threads off topic. XP
Interesting tidbit about the helicopter scene, I absolutely adore how preciseness and quality control in this show.
Interesting tidbit about the helicopter scene, I absolutely adore how preciseness and quality control in this show.
Me too. It's a lot of fun, and I like how it shows us that side of Tom Beckett. Tom was a good, strong leader of his team, but he also had a sense of humor and fun (I like his banter with Colonel Grimwald after the water-skiing scene too).
Another part I love is when during the first scene in the bar with the squad Sam, in voice over, says, "Tom never talked about what SEALs do off-duty. And after a few hours with BRAVO squad I knew why. Mom would've had a cow." I crack up every time he says that. It's hilarious and so Sam.
Personally the choice of phrasing there amuses me, "Mom would've had a cow." considering the Becketts are Dairy farmers haha.
This is one of my favorite episodes of the series - maybe even my favorite. The sets, the costumes and props, the cinematography, the story; everything is fantastic here. Of course, the final scene is a ---- sucker punch to the emotions, especially after what happened in MIA. It just shows how far a friend would go for another friend. And how Al just shrugs it off - WOW.
But really, the entire episode is fantastic. It felt like a feature-length film, not a 45-minute television show. This episode is on my "will watch over and over" list.
I'm sure it goes without saying that this one gets an Excellent from me.
But really, the entire episode is fantastic. It felt like a feature-length film, not a 45-minute television show. This episode is on my "will watch over and over" list.
I'm sure it goes without saying that this one gets an Excellent from me.
This is another episode that I rated unfairly 6 years ago. Turns out I rated this one only as Good, when in actuality it probably does deserve to be ranked Excellent. To be honest, though, I do think this is a drop down in quality from the first part of The Leap Home.
Leaping out of the US doesn't happen often enough in the show, so I'm always interested when it happens. Here Sam finds himself in Vietnam, finally having been given the chance to save his brother's life. Now here's where I think things get interesting. I have always been of the belief that while GTFW guides Sam, it is always Sam who is actually in charge. And here's a classic example. It seems clear to me that it was Sam, not God that chose the destination of this leap. It's no coincidence he goes from his home in Elk Ridge to just hours before Tom is due to die in Vietnam. I think that's also why the mission of this leap is never 100% clear, because I don't think this one was supposed to happen.
I do like many things about the episode. I just love the feel of the episode, and the dialogue between the various characters. Due to the high stakes and personal touch, this one has gone up a grade in my personal rankings. But unfortunately, there are a couple of things that I just don't like about the episode.
First of all, the whole business with the chu hoi. It's so obvious that Tia Carrere's character is bad. I think it could have been handled better. But my main gripe with this episode is what happens to Maggie. Her getting killed just goes against what the show stands for. Here the message seems to be that a life had to be traded for a life. Maybe this was God's way of punishing Sam for saving his brother. That's what I've always read into it. And while I understand the powerful impact of those last few seconds and Al's final words, it just ends up leaving me with a slight sting of pain. I just didn't like that so much had to be sacrificed to save Tom's life.
My rating. Excellent. A powerful episode that brings this opening story of the 3rd season to a close.
Leaping out of the US doesn't happen often enough in the show, so I'm always interested when it happens. Here Sam finds himself in Vietnam, finally having been given the chance to save his brother's life. Now here's where I think things get interesting. I have always been of the belief that while GTFW guides Sam, it is always Sam who is actually in charge. And here's a classic example. It seems clear to me that it was Sam, not God that chose the destination of this leap. It's no coincidence he goes from his home in Elk Ridge to just hours before Tom is due to die in Vietnam. I think that's also why the mission of this leap is never 100% clear, because I don't think this one was supposed to happen.
I do like many things about the episode. I just love the feel of the episode, and the dialogue between the various characters. Due to the high stakes and personal touch, this one has gone up a grade in my personal rankings. But unfortunately, there are a couple of things that I just don't like about the episode.
First of all, the whole business with the chu hoi. It's so obvious that Tia Carrere's character is bad. I think it could have been handled better. But my main gripe with this episode is what happens to Maggie. Her getting killed just goes against what the show stands for. Here the message seems to be that a life had to be traded for a life. Maybe this was God's way of punishing Sam for saving his brother. That's what I've always read into it. And while I understand the powerful impact of those last few seconds and Al's final words, it just ends up leaving me with a slight sting of pain. I just didn't like that so much had to be sacrificed to save Tom's life.
My rating. Excellent. A powerful episode that brings this opening story of the 3rd season to a close.