Sam leaps into a familiar role-Jimmy, the young man with Downs Syndrome who lives with his brother Frank, and Frank's wife Connie and son Corey in Oakland. Sam is delighted because he was particularly fond of this character. But he is stunned to learn that all the good things that he expected to have happened once he righted the wrong that had happened previously to Jimmy, is no longer happening.
Al tells him that Frank and Connie are soon going to divorce and Jimmy will be institutionalized and Corey will disappear. Sam sees Frank being tempted by a woman who seems intent on breaking up his marriage. He tries to help but Frank won't listen. When Sam goes to approach Connie, he is shocked to discover that that woman is no more Connie than he is Jimmy. He learns she too is leaping from one life to another, supposedly to fix things. She has a hologram friend who seems to laugh evilly, like Endora on Bewitched.
Sam tries to work with her, but instead find this female leaper, named Alia, intent on having sex with him. Before they get too far, Frank comes home and Sam is again stunned to see that instead of doing what he (Jimmy/Sam) is doing, hastily putting clothing back on, she just sits on the bed and then suddenly scratches her own cheek bloody and starts screaming. When Frank comes in, she insists Jimmy tried to rape her.
Frank starts beating up his brother and winds up leaving. I won't totally spoil the ending, but it winds up with a war of words where Sam outtalks Alia to prevent her from killing him, thus defeating her-at least for now. Suddenly Sam seems to have moved back a couple of days, still as Jimmy and it is as if this horrible incident never happened as Frank and Jimmy are buddies again.
I found this a rather uncomfortable episode. Al tried to warn Sam that this leap looked like trouble even before they learned that Connie wasn't Connie. Sam foolishly thought things were good even AFTER he learned about the other leaper.
If we buy into what Sam was saying to Alia near the end, it seems that Sam believes that for every person out there doing good for the world like he is, there not only is, but HAS to be another person doing evil. If one dies, the matching opposite must also die. One could extract that thought and figure Sam would do just as much good for the world if he just killed himself, because that would kill a counterpart. It just doesn't make any sense.
The thought that all the good things Sam did for people could well have been undone by this evil leaper makes you wonder what good did Sam really do for anyone, if it can so easily be undone by some evil force?
As far as the script went, the lust (can't possibly call it love) scene with Sam and Alia was far too long. Sam was portrayed as being uncomfortable the whole time, yet he had no will power to resist this evil person. He seemed to be possessed by the spirit of Al, as it were. When TV or movies portray people truly being in love a passionate love scene can be fitting and proper and enjoyable. In this case, it was two almost total strangers who appeared about to share a most intimate experience just because they could. This is not something most viewers find enjoyable. It was about as romantic as watching the depiction of sex acts between a prostitute and her John. This made it painfully un-enjoyable to watch.
So with the plot being more disturbing than satisfying and absolutely not funny at all-I not that producer Deborah Pratt was one of the writers and her scripts are almost never funny-I cannot justify a one-to-ten score higher than 3.
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