So, the other day in post #"128 - Leaping" I asked you all to remind me not to forget to talk about the implication of the end of the Lee Harvey Oswald episode of Quantum Leap. Well, literally thousands of you have been flooding my inbox with requests to do just that, so it appears that the only way to get this non-stop clogging up is to get off my butt (not literally; I am sitting down as I type) and do it...
It's an unusual episode in that throughout Sam doesn't just stay in a fixed point in the life of the person he's leaped in to. Here, as Lee Harvey Oswald, he keeps leaping through Oswald's life at various points, all of which are heading closer to the inevitable date of November 22nd 1962. And Sam's mission to stop the tragdey that took place that day.
Another unusual aspect is that somehow Oswald's personality starts to take over, and control, so that Sam is gradually becoming more powerless to stop the assassination of JFK. It gets to the point, in the book depository, where Oswald is in total control. And just before he fires, Sam leaps out of Oswald, and in to the Secret Service agent Clint Hill.
Of course, Sam doesn't save JFK.
But after the event Al says to Sam that his swiss-cheese mind probably doesn't remember that the first time round Oswald killed Jackie as well.
Some people think this was a cop-out, just a simple twist that doesn't work. I think the exact opposite, because of what it implies.
And to my mind the implication of the ending is that the world we are living in is the world that Sam's leaps have made better. We don't remember Jackie dying because Sam put right what once went wrong. The world around us is the world Sam has created, and we are all the better for it.
That makes me happy when I watch the show.
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