| Screencaps Click to enlarge |
2x17 "Good Night, Dear Heart" | |
          
                     |
. . |
|
|
Leap
Date: |
||
| Episode
adopted by: MikeKraken Additional info provided by: Brian Greene |
||
|
Teaser: A young, orphaned woman from Germany named Hilla, who moved to the USA after her family was killed in the war from a firebombing, turns up on the mortician's table as an apparent suicide on her 19th birthday, However, Sam believes it may have been murder. |
||
|
|
||
| Episode Menu |
||
| TV Guide
Synopsis Place Leap Date Name of the Person Leaped Into Broadcast Date Synopsis & Review Music Project Trivia Sam Trivia Al Trivia Al's Outfits Worn in the Episode Miscellaneous Trivia Bloopers Guest Stars Guest Cast Notes Guests who appeared in other Quantum Leap episodes Say What? Quotable Quotes Best Scene Awards Production Credits Podcasts |
||
| Production # 65424 | ||
| TV
Guide Teaser: Sam leaps into a mortician who becomes obsessed with preserving the memory of a young woman by proving she didn't commit suicide. Roger: William Cain. Stephanie: Marcia Cross. Aggie: Deborah Strang. Sam: Scott Bakula. |
||
| Place: Riven Rock, Massachusetts |
||
| Leap
Date: November 9, 1957 |
||
| Name of the
Person Leaped Into: Melvin Spooner, a moritican/coroner for the small town |
||
| Broadcast Date: March 7, 1990 - Wednesday |
||
|
Sam leaps in to find
himself seated at a desk with a police sheriff dangling a heart-shaped
locket in front of him. Sam opens the locket to find a black-and-white
photograph of a smiling family. The sheriff, Lyle Roundtree (played by
W.K. Stratton), guesses that the youngest girl in the photograph must
be "her". Sam turns around, and gets up in shock as he sees a young
woman lying motionless on a table and covered by a sheet. He says the
woman is dead, and Lyle quips that Sam should have been a detective
instead of a mortician. It's November 9, 1957, and Sam has leaped into Melvin Spooner (played by Marvyn Byrkett), the local mortician and coroner of Riven Rock, Massachusetts. The woman on the table is a nineteen-year-old German girl called Hilla (played by Suzanne Tegmann). Lyle tells Sam that Hilla's purse was found at the end of a dock, and one of her shoes was floating in the water below. Sam is horrified to hear that Hilla drowned herself, and is visibly uncomfortable at the sight of the young woman's corpse. Lyle comments that maybe the job is starting to get to Sam. Sam and Lyle hear the buzzer of the front door, and Lyle goes out to greet a young man named Greg Truesdale and his father, Roger. Lyle had called Greg with the news of Hilla's death, but Roger insisted on coming along, explaining that Hilla was one of his best employees. Sam offers a handshake to Roger, who looks at Sam's hand and declines with a polite smile. Lyle takes Roger and Greg into the back room to see Hilla. Sam asks Greg, who is distressed at the sight of Hilla's body, if the two of them were close. Greg says they were friends, then leaves without saying anything more. Roger explains that he hired Hilla as a desk clerk at the lodge he owns, and her family was killed during the war. He offers to pay for Hilla's burial, then leaves with Lyle. Sam finds a passport in Hilla's purse, then quickly puts it away after looking at her picture. He looks at the locket again, and a voice behind him tells him that it belonged to Hilla's mother. The voice belongs to Stephanie Heywood (played by Marcia Cross), who starts to cry as she looks at Hilla. She says that she and Hilla were friends, and that she should have stopped her. Stephanie leaves in tears, refusing Sam's request to drive her home. Al appears, and gets a fright when he finds himself standing in the middle of an open coffin. Sam tells Al that he doesn't need him on this leap, because he arrived to late to save Hilla's life. Al says that according to Ziggy, Hilla committed suicide by drowning. Sam checks Hilla's passport again, and realizes that she died on her nineteenth birthday. He notices a small, circular wound on Hilla's left temple, and announces to Al that she was murdered. He assumes the wound was made by a bullet, but he can't find an exit wound. He guesses that the bullet never came out, and picks up a scalpel, telling Al that the bullet is the only clue they've got. Al quickly leaves when he realizes what Sam is going to do. Later, Sam has extracted a small piece of metal from Hilla's temple. Al hesitantly returns to Sam, and asks if Sam found the bullet. Sam responds that it's shrapnel from a wound Hilla suffered during the war, and there was no bullet, but he still believes that Hilla was murdered. Al suggests that maybe Hilla shot herself, but Sam counters that if Hilla committed suicide, then he wouldn't be there. Sam visits Greg at Truesdale Lodge. Greg smiles as he greets Sam, but declines to shake his hand. Sam asks which room was Hilla's, explaining that he needs a dress to bury her in. Greg, looking saddened, tells Sam that Hilla's favorite was a blue dress with a bow in the back. Sam asks Greg if he loved Hilla, but Greg walks away without answering. Sam enters Hilla's room, and starts playing a record as he looks around at Hilla's belongings. He sees a book of Mark Twain stories, and a porcelain doll partially covered in burn marks. Opening Hilla's drawers, he finds a diary and starts reading. In the entries he reads, Hilla writes about needing someone to love, then about meeting Greg and going to the movies with him. In the diary's final entry, on the Fourth of July, Hilla writes that she has met someone she could fall in love with, and had an argument with somebody else over it, which ended their relationship. As Sam reads the entry, a slip of paper falls out, and Sam looks shocked when he reads it. Suddenly, Stephanie walks in and wants to know what Sam is doing there. She turns off the record player and puts Hilla's diary away. She looks at a photo of Hilla that she took, and tells Sam she wanted to make a career out of her photography hobby. She and Hilla were going to go to New York together, Hilla as a model, and Stephanie as her photographer. Sam tells her that Hilla may have been murdered, and asks if she knows who could have done it. Stephanie says that everyone loved Hilla, and nobody would have wanted her dead. She then mentions that Roger fired Hilla after she had a fling with Greg. Sam asks her to keep that to herself for now. After Stephanie leaves, Al, who has been listening in, guesses that Sam suspects Roger of murdering Hilla. Sam responds that it could have been Greg, guessing that Hilla's final entry was about breaking up with him. He tells Al that the slip of paper he found is the result of a blood test that proved Hilla was pregnant when she died. Back at the mortuary, Sam and Lyle are arguing over Hilla's death. Sam tries to convince Lyle that Hilla didn't kill herself, and that she was shot. Lyle responds that being around the young Hilla's body is having an effect on Sam's thinking. Sam angrily grabs Lyle by the arm as he turns to leave, but Al urges Sam to stay calm. Sam suggests that if Hilla shot herself, then the gun will be at the bottom of the lake, and if Lyle finds it, then he'll drop the subject and agree to bury Hilla. After Lyle leaves, Al tells Sam that even if the gun is found and traced to somebody else, they still haven't found the bullet. Before Sam can respond, a woman named Aggie enters with a make-up kit. Al realizes that Aggie is going to prepare Hilla's face for the funeral, and quickly leaves. Aggie asks Sam what dress he's burying Hilla in, and Sam realizes he left the dress in Hilla's room at the lodge. Later, Sam is watching a film on a projector in Hilla's room, taken of a smiling Hilla in a Statue Of Liberty costume. Al asks Sam what he's doing there, and accuses Sam of becoming obsessed with Hilla. Sam watches an earlier part of the film showing Hilla by a lake, smiling and laughing at the camera, and asks Al if Hilla looks like the kind of girl who could kill herself. Al says that unmarried pregnant girls in the fifties were treated as outcasts, which could have led to Hilla's suicide, but Sam still believes that Greg murdered Hilla after she broke up with him. Al insists that Sam is imagining what he sees in Hilla, but Sam thinks she's trying to tell him something. Al leaves without another word. Sam and Lyle are at the lake where Hilla's body was found, and the gun is nowhere to be seen. Sam insists that someone shot Hilla, but Lyle angrily argues that Sam has no evidence and no motive. Sam tells Lyle that Hilla was pregnant, and hints that Greg was the father. Sam and Lyle meet Greg and Roger on an archery range at the lodge, and Sam confronts Greg with Hilla's pregnancy, surprising Roger. Greg admits he knew about the pregnancy, and claims that he and Hilla were going to elope on the night she died. Sam argues that Hilla broke up with Greg on the Fourth of July, but Greg responds that he was in an archery tournament in Boston that weekend, which Lyle confirms. Greg says that he and Hilla had just started dating at that time. Roger angrily tells Sam to get his facts straight. Back in Hilla's room, Sam is holding Hilla's locket and staring at Stephanie's picture of her. Al returns, and Sam admits that he's being a little irrational about Hilla. Al says that he agrees with Sam about Hilla being murdered, since he and Hilla are both orphans and should stick together. Al has Ziggy look into the people Sam has met on this leap, and discovers that in six years, Aggie is going to be indicted for performing an illegal abortion. Sam confronts Aggie at her beauty shop, and Aggie admits that Hilla came to her asking for an abortion, and was accompanied by Roger Truesdale. Aggie says that Hilla couldn't go through with the abortion and left, which is the last time Aggie saw her alive. At the mortuary, Sam tells Lyle to arrest Roger for Hilla's murder, but Lyle refuses, telling Sam he has no weapon, no bullet, and no witness. He insists that Hilla committed suicide, and orders Sam to bury her. Hilla is lying in her coffin and wearing her blue dress. Sam puts Hilla's locket around her neck, then notices something strange as he starts putting her shoes on. Later, Sam has gathered Lyle, Roger, Greg and Stephanie in Hilla's room at the lodge, showing them the film of Hilla he watched earlier. Sam points out that the footage of Hilla by the lake was taken by an amateur, looking pointedly at Greg, who admits that he shot it. Roger insists that it doesn't prove that Greg killed Hilla. Sam tells Roger that he suspected him of shooting Hilla with an arrow, which would leave a similar wound to a bullet hole and explain the absence of a bullet, but then discovered that the arrows Roger uses at his lodge don't match the size of Hilla's wound. Sam then points out that the murderer shot the more professional-looking footage of Hilla in her Statue of Liberty costume, and looks at Stephanie. Stephanie claims that she didn't shoot the film. Sam says that he thought Hilla had ended her relationship with Greg on the Fourth of July, but that she actually ended her relationship with Stephanie. Greg is stunned, and Stephanie claims that she and Hilla were just friends. Not believing this, Sam says that things changed for Stephanie when Hilla fell in love with Greg. Stephanie claims that she hasn't shot anybody, and Sam shows her the shoe that was found near Hilla's body. He thought the shoe belonged to Hilla, but it wasn't her size. Sam guesses the shoe belongs to Stephanie, and that the point of the heel inflicted the wound to Hilla's temple. Sam asks Stephanie to try on the shoe, and she confesses to Hilla's murder, blaming Greg for getting Hilla pregnant so she could never leave him. Stephanie starts to cry as she says that she loved Hilla, but Hilla no longer loved her. Sam is standing at Hilla's grave when Al joins him. Sam says he doesn't think he did Hilla any good, but Al tells him that he did. Sam asks why he's still there, and Al says that maybe Sam needs to say goodbye to Hilla. Sam reads a passage from Hilla's book of Mark Twain that Twain wrote after his daughter died. He kneels down and places a bouquet of flowers on Hilla's grave, then leaps. Source |
||
|
Personal Review by MikeKraken: This is one of the most dramatic and touching episodes of "Quantum Leap" and sits highly on my own personal rankings. It plays out like a murder mystery, with Sam trying to discover if Hilla committed suicide or was murdered by any number of the people she knew the best. Scott and Dean, as usual, exhibit their excellent acting abilities in this episode. |
||
|
Music: "Love
Theme from Picnic" by George
Dunning Sam plays the same song (Moonglow) in two different scenes on Hilla's phonograph. The second time, Al says it's a "beautiful melody; haunting, beautiful. I used to like to play that on rainy nights, sittin' in front of a roaring fire by the fireplace." This song also played in "Genesis". |
||
| Project Trivia: This episode marks possibly the first instance of Sam mind-melding with the leapee. He sees flashes of Hilla and has never met her. Handlink: Second version, flat, calculator style |
||
| Sam Trivia: We find out that Sam knows German, one of his seven modern languages, when he reads "Meine Leibe für evig“ from Hilla's mother's locket, which he translates to "My love for ever" (but it's actually "My love for eternity"). |
||
| Al Trivia: Al reinforces his fear of dead people by leaving when Sam performs the autopsy and when the beautician, Aggie, comes. Cigars: He has a cigar in his hand for the first four visits with Sam, but never smokes them. |
||
| Al's
Outfits
Worn in the Episode: First appearance: Grey dress shirt, black and white vest with a swirled pattern, thin silver tie, white dress pants with a cream belt. Second through fourth appearance: Burnt Sienna dress shirt, with puffy arms, black-and-brown patterned vest; thin tie that matches vest; black dress pants; black belt with silver buckle. Fifth appearance: White dress shirt with blue pinstripes, black dress pants, black belt with silver buckle, metal clip in place of a tie. Sixth appearnce: Blue shirt, dark pants, dark-blue vest, white overcoat, silver shoes, white fedora with a black band. |
||
|
This episode is the second of two episodes that have snow in it (the first being the one that precedes it, "Freedom." When Al tells Sam this isn't Laura, he's talking about the film "Laura" from 1944 about a private detective who falls in love with a woman whose murder he is investigating. This episode, despite winning an award, was overshadowed by negative press from parts of the gay community. Some felt that writing a gay character as the villan was the wrong thing to do. This is the third episode where the credits scroll. |
||
|
The
comic book "Up Against
a Stone Wall" (#9 in the series) is a sequel
to this episode! Download it on our site!
|
||
| Regular Cast: Scott Bakula as Sam Beckett Dean Stockwell as Al Calavicci |
||
| Guest Stars: William Cain as Roger Truesdale Marcia Cross as Stephanie Haywood Robert Duncan McNeill as Greg Truesdale Deborah Strang as Aggie the beautician W. K. Stratton as Sheriff Lyle Roundtree Hal Bokar as Groundskeeper Suzanne Tegmann as Hilla Danner Marvyn Byrkett as Melvin (Mirror image) |
||
|
Guest Cast Notes: Marcia Cross as Stephanie Haywood: Marcia Anne Cross was born on March 25, 1962 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. As a child, Marcia always wanted to be an actress, so she set out to have a career in acting. Cross graduated from the Juilliard School in New York, a naturally gifted girl. Her career began in 1984, when she joined the cast of the daytime soap opera The Edge of Night (1956). After six months, the show ended its 28-year run. The following year, in 1985, she starred opposite Carroll O'Connor in the television film Brass (1985). Then she landed the lead role in Pros & Cons (1986) with comedienne Sheryl Lee Ralph. She kept busy by starring in The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James (1986) with many famous figures in Hollywood - including June Carter Cash, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. Marcia's career was looking up when she was cast as Kate Roberts in another daytime soap opera, One Life to Live (1968), and as Tanya in Another World (1964). Marcia was then seen opposite Tim Daly in the tearjerker romance Almost Grown (1988). Almost Grown (1988) was a television pilot that never got picked up, but is still very acclaimed to this day. Marcia was then cast as Ruth Fielding in Bad Influence (1990), a thriller that starred Cross, Rob Lowe and James Spader. She joined the cast of Knots Landing (1979) - an incredibly famous nighttime soap opera in 1991. After a year, she left to do work on a new television series called Melrose Place (1992). She was cast as the psychotic Dr. Kimberly Shaw on the prime-time soap opera. The show was a pop-culture phenomenon, going down in history as one of the most entertaining and memorable shows of the 1990s. Marcia, who was starring opposite Heather Locklear, Courtney Thorne-Smith and others, emerged as the fan favorite of the show. Then her longtime companion and fiance, Richard Jordan, died in 1993. Marcia reigned on, starring in films like Female Perversions (1996) opposite Tilda Swinton and Always Say Goodbye (1997) opposite Emmy-nominee Polly Draper, throughout her long run on "Melrose Place". In 1997, she left the show in order to get her Master's Degree in Psychology. From 1997 to 2003, she continued to act regularly. She starred in Dancing in September (2000), a critically acclaimed film, got herself the lead role in Living in Fear (2001), starred in The Wind Effect (2003), a disturbing film about family, and even filmed Eastwick (2002), a television pilot that never was picked up. Eastwick (2002) was based on the film The Witches of Eastwick (1987), and Marcia was cast in the Susan Sarandon role. She got back into the public eye by joining the cast of the critically-acclaimed television series Everwood (2002) with Treat Williams. After a year on the show, she left it when she auditioned for a new television series, Desperate Housewives (2004). In 2004, Marcia was cast as Bree Van De Kamp in Desperate Housewives (2004), which went on to be a monster-hit with the critics and audiences. Marcia began to be nominated for very prestigious awards - including the Emmy Award, Golden Globe, Golden Satellite Award, and a Television Critics' Association Award. Marcia even won a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2005.
|
||
| Guests
who appeared in other Quantum Leap episodes: W. K. Stratton plays Larry Stanton III in the three 'Trilogy' episodes as well as Dr. Berger in 'Genesis'. He also voices two different radio dispatchers in "Hurricane" and "Black On White On Fire." |
||
| Say What? How does Sam keep on seeing flashes of Hilla before he has seen her films or read her diary? There's no evidence that Melvin knew Hilla or of any psycho-synergising with Melvin's mind. Hilla's passport number is missing from her passport. Sam and his mirror image have a hard time staying in sync. Was Hilla meant to die? Why didn't Sam leap in prior to the murder? We can see Hilla breathing lightly as Sam places the necklace on her. |
||
| Quotable
Quotes: Sam: "She's dead." Lyle: "Melvin, you should've been a detective instead of a mortician." Sam (voiceover while driving a hearse): "Whenever I quantum leap, I get to see what it's like to walk in another man's shoes, and sometimes what it's like to drive in his car." Sam: "I've got feelings." Al: "'Feelings'? That's a song! You've got no evidence. You got no gun, you got no bullet. You got nothing." Lyle: "Nobody owns me, Melvin... except maybe my wife." You
can come out now Al, it's over. |
||
|
Best Line: Sam (after Hilla's burial, reading from a Mark Twain book): "Warm summer sun, shine kindly here. Warm southern wind, blow softly here. Green sod above, lie light, lie light. Good night, dear heart. Good night, good night." |
||
| Best Scene: When Lyle and Sam are arguing over whether or not they should search for a gun in the icy water at the dock, at Melvin's office. There is great camera work with the conversation half taking place in front of a mirror while Lyle pretty much sums up the entire episode. |
||
| Awards: Paul Brown won the 1991 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Television Episode Teleplay |
||
|
Music by: Mike Post Panaflex ® Camera and Lenses by:
Panavision ® |
||
|
In the twenty-fifth installment of The Quantum Leap Podcast, Albie and Heather discuss season two, episode seventeen “Good Night, Dear Heart”. There are first impressions, an episode recap, thoughts and opinions, listener feedback, news, and a great interview with Jennifer Runyon, who played Peg Stratton in the pilot movie for Quantum Leap Genesis. Also, a commentary on Good Night, Dear Heart by Jill Arroway, an article from Hayden McQueenie about Good Night, Dear Heart, and it’s comic book sequel Up Against a Stone Wall. 00:00:00 – QLP opening 00:02:34 – Hello – First impressions 00:07:30 – Episode recap 00:18:14 – Main discussion 00:57:00 – Episode breakdown 01:26:08 – Interview with Jennifer Runyon 01:55:32 – Interview reactions 01:56:32 – A commentary on Good Night, Dear Heart by Jill Arroway read by Tawny Fineran 02:02:20 – Chitchat 02:03:00 – 02:06:46 – Feedback 02:27:35 – Hayden McQueenie segment (Up Against a Stone Wall spoilers) 02:37:03 – News 02:40:24 – Trivia 02:42:26 – On the next episode 02:44:46 – Goodbye 02:46:03 – Credits 02:47:17 – Bloopers 02:48:44 – PS Let us know what you think… Leave us a voicemail by calling (707)847-6682. Send in your thoughts, theories and feedback, Send MP3s & Email to quantumleappodcast@gmail.com. Also join us on Facebook.com/QuantumLeapPodcast and Twitter.com/QuantumLeapPod |
||
| Back to top | ||
