Welcome back to my episode-by-episode recap of and reaction to Quantum Leap. The spoilers ahead are only through this episode. I provide a short summary at the top, a long and much more thorough recap below that, and a reaction section at the bottom.
My previous episode recaps can be found HERE.
THE QUICK AND CLEAN SUMMARY:
Sam leaps into Archie Necaise (Bob Hamilton), a small-town sheriff in the middle of Hurricane Camille. He must keep his host's girlfriend, Cissy (Marilyn Jones), from being killed, either by the storm, or by anyone else.
THE EXTRA DUSTY RECAP:
via https://quantumleap.fandom.com/wiki/Hurricane
Sam leaps into Archie Necaise, the deputy sheriff of Jackson's Point, a small Mississippi town on August 17, 1969, right before Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He and his current girlfriend, Red Cross Nurse Cissy Davis (Marilyn Jones), are helping to evacuate Archie's ex-girlfriend Lisa (Tracy Kolis). Al reveals that in the original course of events that occurred on that day, Cissy was killed by debris that night when she attempted to return home. Sam and Cissy try to evacuate a 'hurricane party' but they refuse to leave and so the pair go to a local hurricane shelter.
Sam bond and Lisa comes back to ask Sam to be together again but Sam tries to make her understand that while 'might have beens' are nice for daydreaming, some things just can't be changed and she leaves. The details of Cissy's death change a few times and as Cissy is last seen leaving the house with a violent ex-boyfriend, they suspect him. In a fit of jealousy over seeing Sam and Cissy kissing, the ex lets her dog out into the storm and Cissy is determined to go home and get him. In order to save her, Sam convinces Cissy that he can evacuate the hurricane party and get her dog and that the fewest number of people possible should be out in the storm. Sam quickly manages to save the dog but finds out he only has fifteen minutes to save the party and Cissy.
Not messing around, Sam breaks through the door to the apartment and shoots into the air to convince the people to leave and hurries back to the shelter. Lisa lies about her evacuation route being cut off and tries to kill Cissy to try and win Archie back because of her deep abandonment issues that make her think she can't find anybody else who won't leave her. Sam arrives and tackles Lisa just as she is about to deliver the fatal blow to a stunned Cissy. Lisa, in turns, tries to kill Cissy, Archie, and then herself but Sam stops her and in a few years Al says she'll be fine. Sam holds off on leaping until the storm is over, everyone is gone, and he convinces Cissy to go back to school to be a psychologist.
REACTION:
This was a good one, well-paced, with a slow build mystery, and then a well-hidden twist ending. Was the hurricane going to be the killer? The hot-tempered ex-boyfriend? The ex-girlfriend of Sam's host? Well, it turned out to be the last of those. And as is often the case, the Leap isn't complete until some secondary task is also complete. So not only does Sam need to save Cissy, he needs to convince her to go back to school and become a psychotherapist. (I'd love to see an episode where Sam convinces someone that *not* going back to school is the right choice.)
For a network TV show in the early 90s, I thought this episode does an excellent job of simulating hurricane conditions on the screen. That helped to create a sense of growing dread throughout the episode.
The episode does a weird thing, early on, wherein the people who see Sam (in his host) seem to think they are seeing two people instead of one, depending on how they look at him. If Sam and Al ever explain that, I missed it. My guess is that the season premiere, with Sam and Al kind of mixing, might have planted some seeds for a bigger plot as we go through the season. We'll have to wait and see there.
Overall, though, really good story and we get a pretty big next-leap-reveal to end the episode, with Sam leaping into someone who is being inducted into the Ku Klux Klan.
Oh boy, indeed.
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