Quantum Leap’s New Love Story Raises a Big Question

This article contains spoilers for Quantum Leap season 2 episode 8.

Finding love as a time traveler isn’t easy and Quantum Leap is no exception. You discover through your swiss-cheesed memory that your hologram is actually your fiancé but then woops, some time travel shenanigans happen and they thought you were dead for three years and have a new boyfriend. It’s cool, you can always just start something up with a woman you keep meeting in the past on different leaps.

Such is the case for Ben (Raymond Lee) in season 2 of Quantum Leap. Broken up with his fiancé, Addison (Caitlin Bassett), Ben has found himself running into Hannah (Eliza Taylor) on multiple leaps. The two have formed a connection, Hannah fascinated and thrilled by Ben’s time travel, and Ben glad to have some kind of anchor in his random trips through time. Is this the universe just being nice to Ben after Addison left him? Are Ben and Hannah cosmically fated to be together and it’s all just pure romance?

I doubt it. There’s something deeper going on with these two. Yes, it was adorable after Ben was forced to reveal to Hannah who he really was and her reaction was not one of disbelief but thinking it was romantic. Yet with the mid-season finale of season 2, “Nomad.” there’s so many little details that make us question what the hell’s going on.

To head off the most obvious theory, no, Hannah is not a leaper. Ian (Mason Alexander Park) confirms this and Jenn (Nanrisa Lee) confirmed in an earlier episode she wasn’t detecting any “quantum anomalies” around Hannah. So what’s the deal? There have been some references in the show itself where the characters question why the Quantum accelerator keeps having them meet but there’s a much bigger element no one has picked up on yet.

Ben and Hannah have met up every six years. 1949, 1955, and 1961. Why six years specifically? Is this just a coincidence? Nothing like this has ever happened in Quantum Leap, new and old series, with specific lengths of time between meeting the same person across leaps. We’ll have to see if this keeps happening because if it does, even if Hannah isn’t a leaper, something is controlling the two running into each other.

More suspect is how oddly chill Hannah is around Ben. In “Nomad” she casually walks up to the person Ben leaped into and asks, “Ben, is that you?” She mentions she’s asked people that same question a lot over the past six years, yet she asks it perfectly calmly. Wouldn’t after six years she start to lose hope? Or become more desperate? And why does she clock Ben after just glancing at him and not suspect every single person around her? Sure this could be magical sci-fi romance “intuition” but it’s still odd. 

It is good that we learn she hasn’t simply spent the last six years looking for Ben. Since “Secret History” she got her PhD, works in a lab, and consults with the US government. Yet she seems extremely dead-set on being with Ben, even if, as she puts it, “I’ll be lucky if I get to spend one week with you over the course of my life. One magical week.”

Okay, yes, it is a miracle to her that she’s getting to be with a time traveler. Hannah’s first appearance in “Closure Encounters” established she’d always wanted to be a scientist but also… You see this guy three times and you’re ready to devote your LIFE to him? She even speculates that there has to be a reason this is all happening.

“Maybe I’m your home.”

She’s even totally understanding that he’s got a mission with the whole leaping through time and putting right what once went wrong and can’t stay with her. Which is awesome, great. I don’t have a totally cold heart that Ben needs to leap into and help me understand a romance plot in a TV show. It’s magical and sappy and it doesn’t have to be 100% realistic about why a person would wait six years to see someone for a single day or say “I love you” after only meeting them three times. And of course Ben would fall for her that fast, he’s just been broken up with and he can actually touch her unlike anyone from the future.

But still, Hannah being THIS chill with Ben and supporting him no matter what feels like it’s set up for something bigger than a simple star crossed romance plot. It’s easy to guess that it’s all something nefarious and maybe Hannah will end up starting the Evil Leaper Project but perhaps she’s being manipulated by something else in time. Whether that be the loose concept of “sacrifice” or maybe another time traveler, something is going on with Hannah that we can’t see the full picture of yet.

We’ll just have to wait for Quantum Leap season 2’s return and see.