Heading into the two-part finale, the Quantum Leap team is short one member, with Gideon (James Frain), who provided the chip Ian (Mason Alexander Park) used to find Ben (Raymond Lee) and was none too pleased with what happened in the aftermath, insisting Magic (Ernie Hudson) fire Jenn (Nanrisa Lee). Instead, Magic resigned.
“There’s a point when you live to fight again, and so sometimes you got to give up this battle, but you know that this is not the end of me,” Hudson tells TV Insider. “I’m more than what I appear to be. There’s something about the arrogance that Gideon has that assumes I have no other options or that I’m going to quietly disappear and let you come in and do whatever you want to do. So I think right away Magic is thinking, ‘Okay, what are the options?’”
He also has to consider how much of a threat Gideon is. “He’s not just going to roll over and say, ‘Okay, get rid of someone and then everything is going to be fine and I’ll let your team continue on,’” Hudson points out. “If this kind of technology [at Quantum Leap and the information about the leaps the chip could give him access to] really gets completely in his hands, the damage that he could do to everything [is a concern], and I think that Magic is aware of that as well. So immediately probably once he decided to take the hit, he’s automatically in the next mode of, ‘What can I do? How do we stop this? What are my options and how do I play this?’”
In the two-part finale on February 20, we will see the team react to Magic’s resignation. “If Magic’s not there, they have to figure out what to do without him, and you’ll see how well—or not well—that goes,” Caitlin Bassett (who plays Addison) teases.
The logline for the first episode, “As the World Burns,” reveals that Ben, after leaping into the body of a Baltimore firefighter in 1974, is unexpectedly reunited with his time-crossed love, Hannah (Eliza Taylor), and her son; while trapped in a towering inferno, he must find a way to repair their troubled relationship and save their lives. Since they last saw each other, Ben tried to save her husband’s life after learning he dies of a ruptured aortic aneurysm; he still dies, in a car accident.
Taylor can’t say anything about where Hannah is in her professional life—she was the first woman to chair the Physics Department at Princeton last we saw her—but “it’s safe to say that she’s been doing a lot because every time we see her, she has done the most in her career. She’s just such a trailblazer, and it’s epic and really wonderful for me as an actor to play such a kick-ass character.” Bassett credits both the writing and acting for that part of Hannah’s character. “You need an Eliza,” she explains. “You need somebody who clearly is just going to go change the world, and that’s what she brings with her, which is really special.” In turn, Taylor praises Bassett for making her feel “very comfortable and welcome” and giving her “a safe space to play.” (We need an episode just with these two working together.)
Jordin Althaus/NBC
Taylor does promise there will be action in the two-part finale. “We got to do a lot of fun stuff. I felt like I was on a blockbuster movie,” she says.
As for Ben and Hannah’s dynamic, she is in love with him, and that’s why “it doesn’t seem to matter how complicated things are,” according to Taylor. That being said, when they cross paths this time, she previews, “there’s a lot of layers. You’ll see a different side of their relationship.”
Where’s Addison’s head when it comes to Ben heading into these two episodes? After all, she and Tom (Peter Gadiot) are now broken up, and while she told him that wanting time and space when she hit pause on their wedding plans had nothing to do with Ben, he saw right through her.
“Nothing’s changed. Ben’s still leaping. Addison’s still here. Even if Ben were to leap home right now, I think their relationship has fundamentally changed,” says Bassett. “And just because I know I’m not ready to marry somebody else doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going back to your ex. It just means that I’m not there. Addison needs to figure out Addison, and I think that’s not only a great place to land for the season, but a great place to land for the show moving forward because there’s just too much to figure out.”
After all, she adds, “the person that she is now is very different than before Ben leaped. And I think in a lot of ways, Tom saved her life.”
Though Hannah can’t see Addison, she does know the other woman serves as Ben’s hologram as he leaps through time and into different people’s bodies and has acknowledged that. Bassett has named one such scene, from the episode that took them to Egypt, as one of her favorites to film of the season. “I love that there is this unlikely relationship that has formed between Hannah and Addison,” Taylor agrees. “It’s funny because Hannah can’t see her, but there is a real mutual respect and knowing between them, which I adore.”
Neither can say anything about the next scene they share, though Bassett does reveal that it’s probably one of her favorites to film. And the only tease we can get about the last time we see each of their characters this season is Taylor’s “epic.” We can’t wait.
Quantum Leap, 2-Part Season 2 Finale, Tuesday, February 20, 9/8c, NBC