Diksha Sundriyal
NBC’s ‘Quantum Leap’ reinvents the original series by adding more complicated plot lines and introducing new characters and events over the course of the story. In its fifth episode, it drops a huge surprise on Ben Song and his team as it turns out that he might not be the only time traveler around. There is another leaper, someone whose identity and motives are just as much a secret as Ben’s. It is also very clear that this leaper is not on amicable terms with Ben and outright threatens him when they cross paths. Who is he, and what does his past presence mean for Ben? Here’s what we know. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Mystery of Leaper X
Leaper X first appears in the 1879 timeline where Ben helps save the town of Salvation. He addresses Ben by his real name, he knows which year Ben has leaped from, and he asks him to stop following him. This proves that this person is not someone from 1879, but is actually another time traveler. Considering that he had leaped into someone else’s body makes it tricky to figure out his identity because Ben’s team wouldn’t know what he actually looks like. But then, Jenn comes up with a theory that helps move along the investigation.
Because Leaper X has also used technology like the Quantum Leap project, his predicament is quite similar to Ben’s. The team views the past and them in it through the imaging chamber, which filters out a lot of stuff, including the way that they look. In the past, both Leaper X and Ben jump into the bodies of other people. To the people in that timeline, they appear as the person whose body they have occupied. But, to the people in their original timeline, who view them through the imaging chamber, they appear as their own selves. This is why Addison sees Ben as Ben and not as Diego, John, Danny, or Eva. This means that Leaper X must also appear to them as he is.
Once they know what Leaper X looks like, they use facial recognition to figure out his real identity. It turns out that he is someone from the present, a man named Richard Martinez. He is a marine and for now, seems to be completely oblivious to the time travel project. After talking with him, Jenn and Magic become sure of the fact that he hasn’t time traveled yet. If he had, he wouldn’t have been present in the original timeline. Like Ben, his body would have disappeared into the past. But because he is still here, Jenn’s theory, that he will leap sometime in the future, becomes more believable.
Further, Ian wonders if the very fact that they reached out to him might have pushed Martinez on the path of becoming Leaper X. Before he met Jenn and Magic, he knew nothing about any secret project. He had an illustrious career in the military, and he was dedicated to serving the country. A sudden visit from people on a top-secret project might spark his curiosity. This might be the event that leads him to look into the Quantum Leap project and then, eventually, become a part of it.
While Ian’s theory puts a lot of things into perspective, it doesn’t explain how Martinez is connected to Ben. Ben leaped in 2022, and Martinez sometime in the future, months or probably years later. To their knowledge, there is nothing that links Martinez to Ben. But then why would Ben follow him into the past? There might be something that Martinez does in the future that leads Ben to chase after him. But this still doesn’t explain how Ben could have known about it. How can he know something that happens in the future?
Perhaps, there is something that happened in the past that Ben knows about. Something that would lead Martinez to leap in time and take a disastrous step, which in some way, impacts Ben’s life. At this point, everything is speculation for the audience as well as for Ben’s team. Every answer leads to more questions, and now, with another time traveler and the prospect of the connection of a future timeline, things have become all the more convoluted.
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