Welcome back to our journey through the lifetime of one Sam Beckett, as we follow him through lifetime after lifetime of righting the mistakes of the past. This week: Sam leaps into a rabbi in a troubled family and a young man with Down Syndrome. Let’s fire up the accelerator and hope that this leap is the leap that brings us home.
1. Why doesn’t Sam ever pull this move?
I had this thought a few weeks ago, but it really applies for almost every instance: once he leaps, unless he has time to figure his situation out, why not just pretend to pass out? It will get him out of every scenario he’s stuck in, more or less, and will have a slew of people shouting your name and giving you other vital pieces of information. It would be a really easy way to both buy yourself some time and also get some intel in a non-awkward way. Plus, people pass out all the time, so it wouldn’t be as suspicious as audibly saying “Oy vey, I’m the rabbi” out loud.
This episode places Sam as a Rabbi during a bat mitzvah where his niece is the one getting mitzvah’d. There is some clear tension between the Rabbi and his brother, but Sam does a decent job navigating the party afterwards, due in no small part to Al.
2. A well-handled cultural leap
Sure, this Jewish story takes place at one of the most Jewish occasions the writers can drum up, but aside from the setting, the show doesn’t go as all-in on the Jewish stereotypes as I had feared from the tease last week. I mean, Al extols the virtues of gefilte fish, and the word knish is said at last twice, but for the most part, the episode doesn’t ‘other’-ize Jewish culture too much.
One of the benefits of having Al have been married five times is that you can allow Al a plethora of life experiences and it doesn’t feel false. So, Al being married to a Jewish woman would allow him to know how to do the Hora dance, the basics of Jewish prayer, etc. I should say, not just know how to do the Hora, but how to do the hora. We aren’t always reminded that Dean Stockwell was a child actor and came up in the Hollywood system, and so had to be trained to sing, dance, and act. And boy can he dance!
As much as the spectacle of the episode is Sam being thrust into a position of a clergyman, the main thrust of the episode has very little to do with the family being Jewish, but rather being in crisis. Joe and Irene’s marriage is in trouble after not properly grieving and communication after the death of their son Danny. They have a number of things to overcome, but mainly just a lack of understanding of how the other is feeling which almost drives both into the arms of others. Joe confesses his desires to his brother, and Irene tries to kiss her brother-in-law in a moment of tender understanding.
This episode is a truly sad one, with all but one character (more on him in the next point) acting out of desperation, just trying to put back the pieces of their lives. Sam, more as brother than as rabbi, is able to help his brother, sister-in-law, and niece come to grips with the tragedy of their Danny’s loss. This is the type of globally low-stakes solution that likely doesn’t change the world forever, but instead changes a family’s life forever. These tend to be the best episodes.
That said, there was one ‘brush with history’ segment, where Sam performs the Heimlich Maneuver on…Dr. Heimlich. Classic QL.
3. Great guest stars
This pair of episodes had a great pair of ‘bad guy’ guest stars. “Thou Shalt Not” had another Twin Peaks cast member, Russ Tamblyn (Dr. Jacoby on Twin Peaks) as a sleazeball author who claims to be a widower. He uses that piece of false information to seduce grieving women, showing them how much he understands their plight. Tamblyn can so easily turn on the slime, that you know as soon as you meet him that he’s bad news.
Continued belowIn “Jimmy,” we get Mr. Blonde himself, Michael Madsen, playing another color character, “Blue.” Madsen doesn’t exactly get to stretch his acting chops too much in this episode, but he’s one of the most effortless heavies this show has seen, and adds menace and cruelty to the episode in spades.
4. Bless their hearts, they were really trying here
“Jimmy” is a tough episode to watch, for reasons both intentional and accidental. Sam leaps into the body of a young man with Down Syndrome, and the show does its level best to present Jimmy as someone who deserves love and compassion, but is surrounded by people who don’t necessarily see him that way. The use of the word ‘retarded’ is prevalent here, and while I understand why it would be hard to elicit anger from the audience without using that word or a variation on it, by the early 90s, there were already different words used. Specifically, as Jimmy (in his reflection) is played by someone with Down Syndrome, there’s no reason that Sam and Al wouldn’t use that clinical term.
This is a trick episode to talk about as well, as it is absolutely important to have inclusion in media, and it’s not exactly inclusive when Scott Bakula is playing someone with a disability. I can absolutely see why the writers/producers felt that they were doing good work here, but I can also understand why someone watches this and just shakes their head. If we are judging on the intention, I think the show was well-intentioned. But in execution, there sure are a lot of characters who treat Jimmy like shit with almost no consequences.
I’m looking at you, neighbor lady who hits him with a broom like he’s a stray dog and calls him a monster.
5. A familial triumph
To the show’s credit, they present Jimmy as clumsy, but he’s never played for a joke. Part of this is due to Al having an intellectually disabled sister who died while institutionalized. The show treats Jimmy with a lot of love and care, especially coming from Jimmy’s brother Frank and nephew Corey. They both treat Jimmy as compassionately as you could imagine someone in the 1960s acting. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t frustrations with Jimmy, and I think the show actually does a pretty remarkable job in showing the difficulties that families who take in family members deal with, regardless of the family member brought in. Very rarely is an entire household on the same page about how to handle any situation, let alone one stressful ones.
I try not to make these recaps much about me, but there are a few important people in my life with Down Syndrome, and this was a tough episode to watch because, despite this episode taking place almost 20 years before I was born, I know that people I love went, and continue to go, through verbal abuse, name calling, and discrimination. I couldn’t help but see Steve and Julie in this episode, and it broke my heart.
The Oh Boy Teaser
Sam leaps into an attorney in a blistering hot Southern courthouse, dressed like Atticus Finch.
