302 The Leap Home Part II: Vietnam
 

The Leap Home Part II : Vietnam
April 7, 1970

Somewhere in Vietnam (along the Mekong River)


In Part 2 of "The Leap Home," Sam ends up in Vietnam with his brother Tom and gets a second chance to save him from being killed. But because the event happened over twenty-five years before Al's present time, Ziggy is having a hard time interfacing with the Pentagon computers to find out exactly how Tom was killed. This episode ends with a shocker that can not be missed!


Written by: Donald P. Bellisario
Directed by: Michael Zinberg


Rate and comment on Part Two of the third season premiere!

:disbelief
This one blew me away at the end.I mean Al never told Sam
he was one of the prisonors.I really did like a whole lot how
it was just great.

DEFINATELY one of the best episodes of the entire series!!

While I didn't like the whole Maggie Dawson angle of the story, Al's background really was excellent! And the ending STILL gets me in tears!!

Yeah, I love how they show you a whole new side to Al, I mean from other eps u know he has a deep sensitive side, like Jimmy and MIA, but this really hits you!

Ruthie

I really enjoyed this episode and would love to hear exec. commentary(Donald P. Bellisario) on the 3rd season collection! My favorite part of the whole episode probably was at the end when Sam discovers the picture of Al as he was taken prisoner of war and Maggie who died(the unfortunate side of the changed history) actually did win a pulitzer posthumously! Kudos to everyone who worked on and behind the scenes! And I agree BakFan!:D

~Steve(aka RossBeckett)

I thought the ending was just great.How Sam looked at pictures and the one P.O.W looking back was Al.I seen it so many times,but can still remember the first time I seen it.

I love how Sam gets a second chance to save his brother and Al sacrifices his freedom for Sam's brother.

jus a quick question - at the end, Tom says to sam "all thanks to you little brother"... never quite understood how tom knew sam was ... sam, or was it jus a biig coincidence? OH and what did Maggie say to Al before she died?

over'n'out
- Tess

It's kind of left open as to the little brother remark. But Maggie says "Pulitzer" to Al, seeing the man in the photo she took.

I think part of it was acknowledging that "Magic" was as insistent about Tom crawling into a hole and waiting out the day as Sam had been when Tom was home. It was like he was calling "Magic" Sam as a joke, without even knowing that they were in fact the same person at that moment.

It was also pretty typical of the late 60's and early 70's for people to refer to each other as "brother" or "bro'". So, I agree with Brian, it's got a couple of meanings.

Ahh thats clever init! thats the prize she wins for the picture right?

.. thats quite cool [chuckles to self]

Well, seeing the 2 parts of "the leap home", i'll have to say i found part 1 better. the reason is...i didn't find something really unforgetable during most of this episode. Don't get me wrong The Ending was great,unforgetable and deserve all the compliments you can think of, but great ending to an episode is not enough ,in my opinion, to make the episode Excellent.There must be more.
One thing i can say is, that if it wasn't clear enough during the series,'till this point- after "Vietnam" is completely clear -Don's favorite Character in QL is Al. I guess it's not surprising if you already knows Al's Character based on DPB(So i read somewhere in one of the forums here).

DBP denies it (In "A Kiss with History"), but both Scott and Dean have said that Al is based on DPB. I'm inclined to believe that Scott and Dean know what they're talking about. ;)

I wouldn't say that Al is DPB's favorite. I think he loves Sam best. Sam is his ideal. Throughout five seasons, he kept the series focused on Sam as the hero. Even in episodes that strongly feature Al, such as Killin' Time or The Leap Back, Sam remains the hero. The format for nearly all the episodes remains the same: Sam carries the episode, he's in nearly every scene, and Al makes several appearances.

I would say that DPB understands Al extremely well, better than anyone else. Of course he loves the character too--to be a writer, you have to love your characters. At least I think so. He gave Al some magnificent moments, and the one at the end of this episode is one of the best.

Sam is the main character so the series has to focus on him . Al's character is only a supporting role,so Al makes only a several appearances during each episode. However, can you think of names of shows that the supporting character there has so much depth Like the character of Al Calavicci in QL?!

But DPB is the show's creator. He could change that if he wanted to. The series could have become an ensemble show, in which we would see all of the PQL staff taking on larger roles, and stories could have centered on other characters. Or Sam and Al could have become equal partners, both portrayed as heroes who could carry an episode. There are moments where it approaches that, but generally Sam remains the hero throughout. (And I don't think I've ever seen a character wave the sidekick flag more proudly than Al Calavicci.)

No, and that's one of the reasons why I love QL!

Yummola! I forgot how HOT Scott looked in this ep. I wish there had been more episodes of Sam in short shorts. :drool

The final scene is fantastic, Scott does an incredibly believable job of being drunk. I love the conversation between Sam and Al and how all the other characters just think "Magic" has lost it.

This is one of my favs, I've got to go watch it again.

I'll have to watch this again now :heybaby

I think this might be my favourite episode alongside The Leap Home Pt1.

How many people would agree with me when I say that this is the first leap where Sam "fails"?

Was this episode anti-war? I ask because I know Dean never served and actually dodged the draft! He's a very impressive actor and just was amazed at how well he played this character so believably without having ever served!

Well, he did save his brother...

It would be more of a price he paid for altering someone's fate completely and somebody had to die in Tom's place, I think.

Well, I wouldn't say he fails exactly. He does save Colonel Grimwald, who died in the original history, so that was actually a successful change.

Saving Tom was more ambiguous of course because it came at such a high price with Maggie dying in his place. On the other hand she also won the Pulitzer, which she didn't in the original history and it's very clear that it was something she wanted badly. If Maggie had been given the choice who knows what she might have chosen? But there was a lot of collateral damage from this part of the leap.

Another favorite episode.

I like the fact that Sam getting what he wanted had it's costs. A very powerful statement in a show which at the time was at it's strongest.

That whole thing where his Tom calls him "little brother" at the end... here's my theory. Tom remembers how insistent that Sam was about him crawling into a hole on the 8th of April, and the whole thing about him saying he was from the future.

Maybe, he noticed a change in "Magic"'s behaviour which reminded him of Sam, and he thought it was very coincidental that it happened around the time that Sam told him he would die.

When Sam saves Tom's life and says "She was gonna kill you!" Tom realises that this is all happening on the date Sam warned him about, and then listens to him talk to Al (Sam makes no effort to conceal that he's doing it, cause he's quite drunk), having just listened to him moan for hours about "how he traded a life for a life".

Basically, I think Tom realised Sam was telling the truth the whole time, really is a time traveller and replaced Magic. You notice after Tom calls him little brother and Sam looks at him in astonishment, he's smiling as Sam begins to leap out. He knows it's him.

The thing that bugs me a little bit is there was never any follow up to this that would confirm Sam really did save Tom. He may not have died on April 8th but who's to say he didn't end up dying anyway some other time before the war ended. I was kind of surprised he did manage to save Tom, but we'll never know what happened to Tom afterwards.

Watch the Season 5 episode "Promised Land", Sam leaps into a bank robber in his home town of Elk Ridge Indiana. At one point Sam asks a bank patron about the Becketts. they say that Tom has recently returned home from Vietnam...

I forgot about that. Thanks. Still, it saddens me to think Sam never got to see Tom again and we never knew what became of Tom's life. We also never find out if Sam's sister avoids marrying the abusive alcoholic. Finally, one day Katie is going to realize Sam was telling the truth about being from the future . . . the first time she hears John Lennon's Imagine on the radio.

I believe that since Sam and Al are linked through Ziggy, they remember both timelines. So I'm sure Sam does remember seeing Tom again and knows what happens to the rest of his family too...

Incredible episode. My favorite part, the ending, of course, especially when Al says: "Up here, I was always free." That's what I loved from this season: The intensity of the stories had grown a lot. It focused more on mature situations and perspectives.

The only thing I didn't like was the character of Maggie herself. She got on my nerves most of the time, but I didn't completely dislike her, either. I even felt so bad when she died and was glad to know that she managed to get the Pulitzer. Everything that involved Al was so great and very well-written and played out. Another little no-no was the music. At times, it was a bit cheesy, especially on the scene where the zappers are supposed to be attacking. Other than that, nothing so serious.

Anyway...

My rating: Excellent. A two-parter to always talk about.

Did I get it right from the episode? So Sam's brother dies in a rescue mission for Al and the other prisoners in the original history?

The scene just killed me when it was shown that Al was on the photo. Maggie wins a Pulitzer for this shot so is Al still considered to be MIA then?

I am sorry for all these questions,first time viewer :o

Yes, their double agent was really a triple agent and was going to betray and murder them.

Yes, in fact, this act meant that Al was MIA as a POW for two more years.

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...

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. :)

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 love the Dixie Chicks. :)

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.

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.

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.

Good thought but no. The exact line was:
"What the hell? I get repatriated in five years."

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

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.

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.

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.

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.