404 Justice

This was a great episode. Sam leaps into a situation where he has to go against his own beliefs and it's a difficult leap. It shows how prejudice against black people was.

One of the best episodes in the series. You really felt the tension and the atmosphere.

Very interesting topic and story,but as much as the idea for this episode was good,i didn't find this episode more then Average,sorry.

I found this episode very intense and emotional. It's a great desplay of how Black People were treated as only 1/5 of a person. That's a fact too I learned it in school a long time ago, that black people were only consitered 1/5 of a person. It was hard watching Sam desplay behaviors that he was very uncomfortable with and was not in his nature. Personally for me it was very hard watching Sam turn doen Nathanial and Nathanial accusing Sam of betraying him when that's no what he was doing. It's a very meaningful scene especially when Nathanial says
"what if I called you a red-necked, white-butted, stump dumb cracker. Still stings, doesn't it? Even if I didn't mean it."
And then when he drives off Sam tells Al that he feels like throwing up. I just feel so bad for the poor guy.

Another very strong scene was Sam's speech at the end of the episode when he threatended to let himself hang. I remember seeing a picture of Sam in the noose from this episode I think it was my soundtrack booklet, this was before I had seen past seaeson three and I remember really being intriged by it and wondering what happened and what episode that was.

The scene where Al talks to the little kids in the church is also one of my favorites its so adorable hearing all their ideas of who they think Al is hehe.

I think this is a very strong episode with strong emotions and messages.

Sam Beckett Fan said:

It's a great desplay of how Black People were treated as only 1/5 of a person.

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Yes and no. First, it was 3/5 - not 1/5. This clause that was included in the Constiution had a two-fold purpose. First, it helped to strengthen the policitical power of slaveholders in the south. At the 1787 Consitutional Convention, anti-slavery delegates wanted to the base the size of each state's representation in the House of Reps. and the Electoral College on on the number of free people. The compromise was to count enslaved people as only 3/5 of a person. Second, Enslaved people were also only counted as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of taxation. This clause in the Constitution was rendered moot after the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 which stated "Representatives shall be apportioned ...counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed..."

I will agree that this is definitely a very powerful episode. Despite the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1870 which guaranteed all American citizens the right to vote without prejudice of race, skin color, or previous condition of servitude; "Justice" aptly demonstrates how, 95 years after that amendment was ratified, the southern states still found ways deny African Americans the franchise of the vote through the Jim Crow Laws.

The ideas and emotions brought forth is this episode do not relate solely to this period of time in US history but can be adapted to other places and other times. Dislike of another culture, race, religion is something that grows over time and can be handed down from one generation to the next without any real knowledge of "why" - just a hate.

The reason why I love this episode is that the white characters are so well drawn. The same folks who belong to the "hunting club" immediately jump at the suggestion that they all take a day and rebuild a guy's barn. They love their families, help their neighbors - AND YET, they have an irrational hatred in their hearts that they think is normal and right and necessary (for protecting their way of life). I love that the writer was able to capture that, and didn't just make them EVIL RACISTS. In the end, it's the fact that the Grand Wizard loves his family that makes him call off the lynching. Does he change his attitude? Probably not, but he's a deeply flawed but human person.

I play and replay the scene where Sam has to insult Nathaniel (and does it so, so badly), then is crushed when Nathaniel gives it right back to him. I never felt more sorry for Sam in the whole series than in that moment.

bluedana said:

I love that the writer was able to capture that, and didn't just make them EVIL RACISTS. In the end, it's the fact that the Grand Wizard loves his family that makes him call off the lynching. Does he change his attitude? Probably not, but he's a deeply flawed but human person.

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This is the one of the reasons why I favor this episode as well. It would have been so easy to write the characters as carictures of the "evil racist". It's so much easier to hate them that way. Instead, as the characters are written, they're just people. The dichotomy between how they act towards each other and their irrational hatred is so poignant. It doesn't take much to imagine the confusion that Sam's feeling toward these people. They're simple people who feel about their family and neighbors the same way Sam's parents did but they stand for everything his parents taught him to hate.

jmoniz said:

Yes and no. First, it was 3/5 - not 1/5. This clause that was included in the Constiution had a two-fold purpose. First, it helped to strengthen the policitical power of slaveholders in the south. At the 1787 Consitutional Convention, anti-slavery delegates wanted to the base the size of each state's representation in the House of Reps. and the Electoral College on on the number of free people. The compromise was to count enslaved people as only 3/5 of a person. Second, Enslaved people were also only counted as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of taxation. This clause in the Constitution was rendered moot after the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 which stated "Representatives shall be apportioned ...counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed..."

I will agree that this is definitely a very powerful episode. Despite the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1870 which guaranteed all American citizens the right to vote without prejudice of race, skin color, or previous condition of servitude; "Justice" aptly demonstrates how, 95 years after that amendment was ratified, the southern states still found ways deny African Americans the franchise of the vote through the Jim Crow Laws.

The ideas and emotions brought forth is this episode do not relate solely to this period of time in US history but can be adapted to other places and other times. Dislike of another culture, race, religion is something that grows over time and can be handed down from one generation to the next without any real knowledge of "why" - just a hate.

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ok 3/5 right, I knew it was somewhere around there. I learned this in sixth grade I believe so it's been forever.

bluedana said:

I play and replay the scene where Sam has to insult Nathaniel (and does it so, so badly), then is crushed when Nathaniel gives it right back to him. I never felt more sorry for Sam in the whole series than in that moment.

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I know I have a hard time watching that part, Poor Sam. However its one of the most powerful scenes in thge episode.

Ok this is where i admit to you all that although I am coming to leap back... I HAVEN'T FINISHED WATCHING THE SERIES YET. So donig major QL Fests in order to finish Series 4 & 5 and hoping that I don't come to the end and think I've made a huge mistake booking myself in.

However... dont' think that is going to happen.

Although I tend to enjoy brighter, cheerier, funnier episodes I don't mind the more serious ones because they are written so well. This one was beautiful and the last scene was excellent. I really loved it and its now one of my favourites that i have watched so far.

I found this episode really excellent, easily on of my top five of the whole show. The topic is very intense and courageous, that's for once and like almost all Quantum episodes which deal with the problem of racism or prejudice, it was treated in an intelligent way, IMO. It's more about white people than about black ones and it underlines very well, I think, the double dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde nature than can be spotted in most of "normal" people.
The members of Ku Klux Klan are not shown as monsters or criminals - they are just ordinary people, nice people, and the whole business about Klan is mostly some kind of entertainment, an excuse for stag parties and a play for big boys. But then, how easily the whole matter takes another run and those nice people are driven to do most hideous things, like blowing up a church or killing an innocent man. The effect is far more frightening than it could have been if they had been shown simply as "evil".
The other interesting point is that Sam is saving Nathaniel, yes, but more than all he is saving Clyde's family: his father in low, his wife and his child: he saves him from ethical point of view and it was also very nicely shown.
Then there is of course one of the rare occasions when Sam is forced to act against his believes, to pretend something he really hates (I couldn't really think about one single situation like this in the whole show). The first confrontation with Nathaniel is a very powerful scene and such an excellent acting: Sam really looks as if he were to throw up after having said "nigger".
The pacing of the second part of the episode is superb and it is fascinating to see Sam risking his life for a cause he totally believes in. He is so convincing that even the last scene, with hanging come naturally and believable (it was very much at risk to become cliche'): you can feel he is ready to die for what he thinks is right. It is interesting to compare Sam's fear of death in episodes like Last dance for Jesus or Dreams and his boldness here, which makes the message of the episode even more touching.
And, last but not least: Al's concern for Sam. You can see he is genuinely scared in some scenes and it's done beautifully by Dean Stockwell.
Can I think of anything else? But yes, of course, the church scene with little children: for all the gravity of the situation it's simply hilarious!

I loved the ending of this episode. Although in real life the little speach that Sam gave wouldn't change anything, they'd have still hanged them both anyway.

What I don't get about the KKK, they're all Christians right? They were treating people terribley and killing them because they are black, yet judging from where Jesus came from and who his mother and father were, there was no way that Jesus Christ could have been white.

Justice is an extremely, extremely powerful episode of Quantum Leap. One of the best episodes of season four, Justice sees Sam leap into a (somewhat reluctant) member of the Klu Klux Klan.

Quantum Leap has quite a few episodes that tackles the tricky subject of racism, but few do it better than Justice, in my opinion. The only superior episode to this that deals with the same theme, would be season one's The Colour of Truth. Here, though, the stakes feel much higher. Everything is just so vicious from the get go. That opening scene after the credits still makes me feel uneasy. To see Sam so choked by his robes that he literally throws them away from him. If not for Al, I'm not sure he would have held it together there.

What really makes this episode is the characters. Nathaniel is a good, strong character, with a real sense of purpose to him. Ada is a very likeable character, just trying her best to do her job amongst such rampant racism and bigotry... Another rather odd character, who I did enjoy seeing on screen, is Gene, the father-in-law of Sam's host, and leader of the Klan. Unlike the rest of the goons on show here, Gene still seems to have a spark of humanity underneath his bigoted ways. Of course, trying to kill kids in a church does suggest otherwise, but the naive fool in me likes to believe that every soul can be saved. It's clear that on some level, Sam did reach him in the end. Al doesn't reveal his fate, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't renounce his racist ways. But at least we got to see a spark, just a spark of compassion in him.

Best scene? Al getting the kids out of the church. Very, very funny. Al being mistaken for Abraham Lincoln was probably the exact funniest moment. The look on Al's face just after that is priceless.

My rating. Excellent. A powerful, hard hitting episode.