QUANTUM LEAP Post-Mortem: Martin Gero and Dean Georgaris on the Addison and Gideon Twists

February 20, 2024 by Marisa Roffman

QUANTUM LEAP — “Against Time” Episode 213 — Pictured: (l-r) — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC)

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of QUANTUM LEAP.]

The two-hour season finale of QUANTUM LEAP delivered many, many potentially show-changing twists, as the team was battered in the past and present-day by Gideon (James Frain)—AKA a grown-up Jeffrey, the son of Hannah (Eliza Taylor), who blamed Ben (Raymond Lee) for his father’s death.

With Gideon determined to destroy Ben and the project, Ben had one final chance to change everything: Find a young Jeffrey and destroy his work. But when Ben got to his home and noticed the machine was named after the kid’s dead father, he had second thoughts…and opted to show Jeffrey the extent of what he could do on these leaps instead.

Ben made his point and showed how he was able to save someone else’s dad from certain doom…warming Jeffrey’s heart. It did enough to change the future, activating a butterfly effect which made it so the new Gideon/Jeffrey in the present day is a good guy/large donor to the Quantum Leap project. (It also resurrected Jenn, who sacrificed her life for the team earlier in the hour.)

The team implemented Hannah’s coding in an attempt to bring Ben home…though someone would need to go in his place. Addison (Caitlin Bassett) volunteered and leaped. But, of course, things didn’t go as planned: She discovered Ben was also in the past…and she could physically touch him, a feat she had been unable to do when she was his hologram and he was leaping.

Here, executive producers Martin Gero and Dean Georgaris break down some of the biggest finale moments with Give Me My Remote.

QUANTUM LEAP — “Against Time” Episode 213 — Pictured: (l-r) — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC)

Looking to the final moments, can you share a bit about how you landed on that ending? Were there any alternate endings planned if the show had gotten an early season 3 renewal?
Dean Georgaris: This was the ending basically from [the start]…we got the early renewal for season 2, and made the decision that we were going to do the time jump and split Ben and Addison apart. It made sense for the story, it made sense for our cast. It just made for a much more dynamic, emotional season. And I think our goal was always to put them through these difficult emotional journeys and then reunite them.

Not necessarily [romantic]—they haven’t fallen back in love. But they’ve gotten what they wanted at the start of the first season, which is they’re together. And so I think, we knew this was the ending I think, from day one. It’s one of the pieces; this and Hannah and Tom, as characters never changed. They were the foundation of season 2.

What does Ben and Addison being together like this mean for potential season 3 and what those leaps might look like from what you’ve planned so far?
Martin Gero: It’s very hard to talk about, obviously, for all the reasons you can imagine. [He smiles.] Cool stuff happens. [Laughs.] That’s really all I can say is we have an exciting shape for it. And it’s still very early days, so we can’t really talk about it.

Completely fair. We know there was a butterfly effect to fix things and it wiped out the team that was in HQ’s memories of the other timeline. Are there other changes outside of HQ that we will discover in season 3?
Georgaris: It’s a great question, and it’s something we talked about. But I think if you start telling a story that way, now you’re constantly looking at all these tells, and it really just becomes this almost hunt for how did things change, as opposed to telling the character stories, moving forward. [Our focus is] how they’re going to change, what they care about, where they’re going, and what the show is really about, which is the impact of kindness. So I think it’s safe to say you won’t be looking at a radically different world. It’s the same characters. They’re the same people. It’s just that Gideon is Jeffrey and he’s a great guy.

QUANTUM LEAP — “Against Time” Episode 213 — Pictured: (l-r) — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC)

Looking at the Gideon-is-Jeffrey reveal, what can you share about the process of crafting that arc?
Gero: I think what’s great about it is it’s like it was our season-long version of what we do every episode: How these seemingly small, and sometimes not so small, acts of kindness, or empathy, ripple out into really beautiful big things. That’s, for us, the really incredible [thing]—that’s what the show is about; it’s an empathy machine. It’s about how these, again, little moments that feel small can be really big.

And so for us, it was the biggest way to dramatize a little moment. Now, a little moment isn’t that little; they save someone’s life. But in the grand scheme of things for Jeffrey, to turn around and realize how good that feels, and how what Ben is doing isn’t wrong and that he really is trying to make things better—and that it’s not always gonna go right. And that’s just life. I think it was just a really powerful moment. It was a powerful way for us to wrap up in a single moment with what we are trying to do every episode.

Structure-wise, was there ever any conversation about bringing Gideon into the present-day storyline sooner? Or was there concern about it tipping your hand about who he really was?
Gero: We weren’t worried about tipping it, we literally had arguments [as writers] about, “Does he exist yet?” Because we were changing Hannah’s life from episode 2×03 on. So we couldn’t introduce Gideon until we actually saw Jeffery. So we had this presence that was referred to kind of in an amorphous way, all the way from episode 2, but felt just time-math-wise, we couldn’t see him until episode 9.

QUANTUM LEAP — “Against Time” Episode 213 — Pictured: (l-r) — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC)

That makes sense. Do you feel like the Jeffrey and Hannah storyline is concluded with this season? Or might that play into the larger series plans?
Georgaris: I mean, you never want to close the door, but I think Hannah’s story, to me, feels so complete and so beautiful and emotional. Ben changed her life. She changed Ben’s life, obviously. And then in the final episode, he saved her son in a philosophical way, and she reunited him with Addison.

I think when you watch that final scene between Hannah and Ben, I think both of them sort of feel, “Ah, this feels like the end of our story.” Episode 2×03, she’s like, “Don’t say goodbye,’ say, ‘See you later.’” In 2×06, she was like, “I bet we’re not done.” In 2×08, they kept feeling like there was going to be more. And this is the first time, I think, both they as characters and we as an audience were like, yeah, if this story ends here, that would be awesome.

Hannah’s coding was a big part in potentially bringing Ben home. How much will that play into next season?
Gero: It’s really hard to talk about season 3. I’m so sorry.

Right now, the series is still awaiting word about a potential season 3. How are you guys feeling about the potential for more?
Gero: Our thoughts are we would love to do more.
Georgaris: I feel like the show just gets stronger and stronger. And TV needs a show about kindness, and we’re excited to do more. We’re ready. As soon as they say “go,” we’re gonna go.

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