105 Double Identity

This was a great episode. This was the first time that Sam leaped twice in one episode and it was also the first time that you actually saw his hosts other than in the mirror.

i will always love this episode becasue it was my very first episode. my best friend did not wanna start be off with the pilot because she had already seen it three times previously and was kinda sick of it momentarily lol, so she showed me this one. i loved the whole volare scene where Scott does a sensational job of faking that he can't sing worth sh*t, hehe. plus i was very confused thoughout this whole episode, see i had no idea that we were seeing Sam as Sam so i thought we were seeing frankie and when he looked in the mirror i was like "there's something werid about his reflection". but i kept my mouth shut thinking it would explain later, and then by the end when he leaped into GIno and still looked the same i finally asked my best friend and she told me "no no, we see Sam as Sam, his reflection is the person he leaps into" and then i understood all.

and there are tons of lines from this episode that i loved that i could easily quote right now, hehe. i would have to say though that my favorite scene was when Sam and teresa were up in Ginos attic and Sam tells her that shes special.

basically this episode had me laughing even though i basically had no idea what i was laughing at, hehe. it had me hooked instantly. i'll never forget it, the episode that started it all for me.

I love the Volare scene, but my fave is the scene in the salon where Sam has the razor to his neck and Al is feeding the Italian to him. Sam's Italian accent and inflection cracks me up and so does Al when he goes on his rapid Italian tangent. Great scene...

Samantha Beckett

While it isn't one of my favorite episodes, "Double Identity" is one that I enjoy. I get a kick out of Sam's mangling of Volare, and I liked listening to Al speaking in Italian - and Sam's pitiful attempts to repeat after him. And it was interesting to see what happens to the people Sam leaps into after they leap back.

Another good episode.I like seeing Sam when he is in sink or swim situations.

I love this one it has so many quotable lines and is just really funny!!!

Haha one of my fav lines that cracks me up everytime is when Primo and Segundo are on their way to buffalo with the hair drier
Segundo: I don't understand why we have to go all the way to buffalo?
Primo: If Frankie says we do it, we do it.
Segundo: Oh so if Frankie says we jump off the Brookyln Bridge we jump?
Primo: No, that'd be stupid.

And I just love the tone Primo had in that last line, hahaha.

Oh man! There are so many good bits in this episode!

Sam singing...:sing ....:dreaming

Al's comments about Frankie when he appeared in The Waiting Room....Sam looked so embarrased....

Primo and Segundo...they were just funny...

The part where the father and sons are trying to send signals to Sam to say "It was my fathers Idea" :help

The part when Primo and Segundo are looking for a power socket....then pointing a gun at someone to show them where it is. :whip

Sam acting as Don Geno! :heybaby

Cool episode. One of my faves from season one!

Yeah I loved when Al was reading Ziggy's intructions for the leap attempt and he said that the activity taking place at the time of arrival must be duplicated, Sam got this adorable look on his face that totally said
"Al, that is so NOT funny!"
hehe poor Sam.

I am confused about something though as I just finished watching the ep. Where did Tersea come up with the lightning excuse for when Sam leaped from Frankie to Geno?

That was quite a good episode,like most episodes DPB had written for QL but... there were something in the episode i just didn't like and i just can't put my finger on it. May be it the ending,which in my opinion was a disappointment,,may be it's the all Teresa - Frankie affair which in my opinion wes a bit exaggerated and may be it something else...
Anyway it was good but not more.

isz said:

Teresa - Frankie affair which in my opinion wes a bit exaggerated

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Not in the mob it's not. Gino was the Don or in other words the boss and Frankie's God-father and he was doing his girl. Have you seem Married to the Mob? cuz some charactors in this ep were taken from it.

Watching this ep now I just realized Scott got a free hair wash right there on set when he's in the salon getting his hair done by Taresa lol.

:dreaming The Best Part: The double-Leap was terrific! It's a tie with Sam singing Volare.

:lol The Funniest Part: His shave.

:realmad The Worst Part: I don't, for once, have a worst part for this one. This was a top notch episode!

My husband and I started watching QL together, this is the episode where by the end he'd thrown up his hands and said Nuh!! This is crap I'm not watching it... This is such a shame because there have been so many episodes since then that I think he'd have loved. I wasn't overly fussed on the whole series either even at this point but it grew and grew on me and now I love it. (of course or I wouldn't be here) I did love the "If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'" I have an italian friend and I she talks exactly the same way, I could imagine her say 'If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'" and it just cracked me up every time.

I must say that I want Al's handheld fan. That would come in handy in the Southern US summer.

Bexter said:

My husband and I started watching QL together, this is the episode where by the end he'd thrown up his hands and said Nuh!! This is crap I'm not watching it... This is such a shame because there have been so many episodes since then that I think he'd have loved. I wasn't overly fussed on the whole series either even at this point but it grew and grew on me and now I love it. (of course or I wouldn't be here) I did love the "If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'" I have an italian friend and I she talks exactly the same way, I could imagine her say 'If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'" and it just cracked me up every time.

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Aww Maybe you can get him to try it again. My mom had watched some of the show when it was new and a couple years ago when she noticed that I had gotten into it, she requested that I get seasons one and two from Kristen so she can see them, and it made me laugh because I had just returned them to her.

Sometimes things can happen and you can end up liking stuff you hated at one time.

Sam Beckett Fan said:

Aww Maybe you can get him to try it again.
Sometimes things can happen and you can end up liking stuff you hated at one time.

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Actually he's sat and 'read' the paper a couple of times in the room with me while i've been watching it since then and I could tell he was enjoying the episode despite himself, I can't remember which ones they were but he'd never admit it now that he liked them because he's already said he doesn't....... Men!!!

Hehe yeah guys can be so stubborn.

Surely we're not all bad...

One thing that got me wondering...

If Sam was there in the first place to help the old woman win Bingo, how could he have done so as Frankie if the Project hadn't interfered and made him leap into the Don...

leaper1 said:

Well Nona did say that she thought Frankie was lucky!

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Then wouldn't it have been luckier for Frankie to stay there in the first place? What good would Sam being there have done?

I enjoyed the way the episode played out...until the end with the jump. What I don't understand with this leap (and others) is how the leap-ee deals with what Sam does while in their body. For this one, he goes to the front of Bingo as Don Geno and says he approves of this relationship. Well what happens when Don Geno jumps back in? As we've seen in this episode, he's very possessive of Teresa, so even though he "made it public" Don Geno seems like the type of person who would have Frankie killed. So Sam didn't really accomplish anything, except the Bingo number. That's always irked me. Maybe someone can explain the logic in that.

The theory is that when the leapee leaps back, he/she ends up with memory of what Sam did during the leap.

This obviously takes a little while, since Frankie had no memory of the past few days when he leapt back.

I also remember Sam saying that he made the announcement of Frankie and Theresa's engagement and his approval public so that when the Don leaped back, he couldn't back out of it...

I've always loved this episode. This was the episode that got me hooked. The first episode I watched was How the Tess was won. I liked the episode and it made me want to watch more episodes, but this was the one that got me hooked. I enjoyed everything about it. One thing puzzles me though, why was it so important that the old woman win the game of bingo?

chris-oates said:

I've always loved this episode. This was the episode that got me hooked. The first episode I watched was How the Tess was won. I liked the episode and it made me want to watch more episodes, but this was the one that got me hooked. I enjoyed everything about it. One thing puzzles me though, why was it so important that the old woman win the game of bingo?

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God works in mysterious ways...

This was a great episode. A real classic. Light-hearted also, but in a good way, like for adults and not only for kids (like some of the previous episodes from this season). Very funny and I liked the fact that this is like a parody for the movie "The Godfather" or maybe any other mafia-style flick. This was still a very early stage for Quantum Leap to go into any specific direction, and so Bellisario tried this one. They didn't use the parody element that often in the show, but I think he succeded in using it with this episode.

I also loved the acting from everyone here, even from the bad actors (the guys in the power station, for example), because, even if it was a bit over-the-top at times, I think it was supposed to be that way. The only thing I didn't really dig was the character of Teresa. Her constant cackling, yelling, her overreactions to almost everything and her favorite line ("If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'...") with her somewhat fake accent was not really my cup of tea, haha! Even with all that, she adds to the fun of it all, and it's still one of the eps. I play too often.

My rating: Excellent.

Bexter said:

My husband and I started watching QL together, this is the episode where by the end he'd thrown up his hands and said Nuh!! This is crap I'm not watching it... This is such a shame because there have been so many episodes since then that I think he'd have loved. I wasn't overly fussed on the whole series either even at this point but it grew and grew on me and now I love it. (of course or I wouldn't be here) I did love the "If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'" I have an italian friend and I she talks exactly the same way, I could imagine her say 'If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'" and it just cracked me up every time.

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I can understand this ... I found the episode a bit of a struggle to get through. I just don't think the genre is my cup of tea.

Another thing I've noticed about season one - it almost seems like they've thought up the type of story before the actual story itself. Like - let's make Sam a boxer, let's make Sam a gangster, let's put Sam on a farm! Which I guess is understandable, given they were establishing the show and a big variety like that was one way of drawing people's attention. Later seasons from memory are a bit more plot orientated, and character orientated, rather than situation orientated.

I've always loved this one. The Italian scene in the salon is my favorite. The Italian phrases interspersed throughout the episode, the accents, the sons' names (First and Second), and the likabilty of all the characters - including Don Geno - really sold this episode for me. I enjoy watching this one so much, it's in my "Favorites" list on my profile. This one earns an "Excellent" rating from me.

P.S. Someday I'll learn Italian, so I can understand everything Al is saying when he runs off on a tangent in the salon!

Fun fact. This is the first episode of Quantum Leap I ever saw. It is also one of the very best episodes in the series, in my opinion. It could very well be the best episode Bellisario wrote. I know it's a high bar, but I really think it is that good. First of all, I have to admit that it being the first episode of QL I ever saw does give it an extra special place in my heart. I was only a kid at the time, in the early noughties. It was unlike anything I'd seen before. I immediately fell in love with the series as a whole, and I largely have this episode to thank for that.

There are so many things I love about this episode. First of all, it's an all around fun episode (these kind are usually my favourites). Yes, some of the characters are stereotypes (Don Geno, Teresa, etc), but it's all in good fun. The Volare scene is hilarious, as too is Sam accidentally telling Geno to fly away. Primo and Segundo work as good comic relief, too.

Another one of my favourite aspects of this particular episode is because it's the only one that gives us a glimpse of what happens when the leapee leaps back in. Frankie has literally no memory of anything at all. That's interesting to me. I think later on people start remembering the future (as Sam implies in Roberto). Personally, I think in most cases the leapee thinks they've done all the things that Sam did during the leap. But it's interesting to see Frankie having no memory.

Another good aspect to this leap is that we get to see the project try and retrieve Sam once again. Of course, the effort is a failure and results in Sam leaping into the Don! I wonder if Geno had not interrupted if it would have been a successful attempt? Ziggy did seem certain, and they did succeed in leaping Sam out of Frankie even though his mission had not been completed... And that segue's me into my least favourite part of this episode. The reason for the leap.

A game of bingo? Seriously? Lol. Again, another jokey reason for a leap. I know these are meant to be funny, but ultimately it just seems to cheapen the idea of leaping.

My rating. Excellent. It's hard to choose a best ever episode of Quantum Leap (because I love so many episodes), but this one is definite top 5 material. A fantastic episode.