From MadCap's Couch - Quantum Leap: "How the Tess Was Won"

Well, we're four episodes in. How about a Western?

...oh, no? Nah, we have awkward battle of the sexes. That works just as well, right?

...yay?

So, when we last left Sam Beckett, he was nothing more than a steel town girl on a Saturday night who just won the fight of her life when he was whisked away through the Great Beyond to another time and place. In this particular case, in a pigpen in the middle of Texas. It seems that Sam has found himself in the life of one Doc Daniel Young, an animal veterinarian working on a ranch. The daughter of the ranch's owner, a woman named Tess McGill, is being pressured by her father - Chance - to settle down so that they can keep the ranch in the family's hands.

Being the stubborn, willful type, Tess refuses to marry unless a man can beat her at everything she holds dear: namely ranching. She decides, after insisting that she pick the man herself, that she'll be go after Doc much to Chance and Sam's surprise. Oh, and there's another cowhand named Wayne who really won't become important until the end of the episode. Ish.

This is the weirdest Brokeback Mountain remake I've ever seen.

"Doc" returns to his home, finding his assistant (who definitely does not look like anyone famous) playing a guitar and singing a jaunty tune. He heads home for the day and Al comes in, moping about a girl named Tina who has a tattoo in a very specific place. Sam gets some sarcastic quips about Al's cavalier attitude toward women, women, and women and Al tells him that Ziggy has said that there's a 72% chance that Sam's here to cure the sick pig and (after some number crunching) only a 47% chance that he's there to marry Tess.

It's also here that we get confirmation of something: namely, animals can see Al even though he is a hologram. This is similar to, back in Genesis, when Sam's true form could be seen by the dog of the man whose life he had leaped into despite him having the same outward appearance.

Sam finds a scrapbook on Tess, a diary written by Doc Young. It seems the Doc has a heart on for Tess, and Ziggy's calculations tell Al that there's a 97% chance that Tess will marry someone who writes her love letters. Sam tries to insist that it's just a diary, but Al thinks otherwise.

Heading back to the ranch, Sam accepts the challenge against Tess. Wayne, the cowboy I mentioned earlier, gives Sam the horse known as the Widowmaker. While Sam waxes nostalgic about how his father trained him to ride unfamiliar horses (remember, back in Genesis, they established that Sam had grown up on a farm). Needless to say, this does little for him besides getting thrown on his ass while Tess chides and Wayne gloats.

After a short ranchin' montage, Sam gets roped (heh, puns!) into using a lasso to bring down a steer. After a brief bit of failure followed by a pep talk from Chance, Sam leads Wayne to think that he lost his thumb to the lasso... only to pull a fast one on him to show that he does, in fact, know how to properly use a lasso. Wayne rides off in irritation, apparently actively trying to sabotage the contest so that Tess will win.

Modernizing Gunsmoke was a difficult task for the writers.

Later at a poker table, Al is still moping about Tina while Sam attempts to win at poker. Al calls Wayne out for cheating, seeing as he can see the cards he holds. Sam calls him out on this, nearly leading to a scuffle that Tess thankfully pulls Wayne away from. Tess makes it clear to Wayne that she intends to win the contest fair and square, apparently away that Wayne was cheating - Al having Sam turn over her hand to show the Aces and Eights.

We have a scene of Sam and Tess out in a field putting up fence posts that seems to exist only to show off Scott Bakula's admittedly impressed physique. Tess falls unconscious after refusing to drink some water, Sam bringing her back to Doc's place and treating her for dehydration and overheating. Doc's assistant is there to strum a few chords and have a 1950s awkward perv moment when Sam has to remove Tess' shirt to help cool her off. When she awakes, Tess reacts well to Sam having removed her shirt... by punching him, because sure.

A thunderstorm keeps Tess from leaving right away, and she learns from Sam that the pig from earlier has some kind of allergies from something on the ranch. Tess gives him the pig for the clothing and for helping patch her up. Sam turns on a radio, offering Tess a dance, which she accepts. They tally things up, and they are even on the contest... which Tess insists that Sam was supposed to win, not tie against her. She challenges him to ride Widowmaker as the final test, thinking he won't do it. Sam laments to the pig that he didn't think he'd like Tess so much.

The next morning, however, Sam is out and ready to ride the Widowmaker to the surprise of Chance and Tess. With what he assumes will be help from Al, Sam hopes to ride the horse. Al, meanwhile, is still moping about Tina and - just as Sam is about to ride - he goes away to take a phone call from her and leaves Sam high and dry. Despite a rocky start, Sam does manage to ride Widowmaker to the joy and surprise of all the cowhands. 

Chance welcomes Sam to the family upon dismounting, but he turns him down saying that he wanted to ride the horse, not Tess. Chance gives a pep talk to Tess, telling her to go after him. When she finally does, she corners Sam at Doc's house and he ends up giving her Doc's diary for her to read. In inner monologue, Sam regrets that he's getting involved and just asks God (or whoever) to just leap him out if this works. Tess asks Sam to dance, they resolve to run the ranch together, and they kiss... and nothing happens.

Wayne comes to Doc's house... and has brought with him some love letters he wrote to Tess, which gets Sam's attention as Ziggy apparently made a correct prediction.

"He keeps saying he's Jonathan Archer."
"Who the hell is Jonathan Archer?"
"I know, right?"

After reading through them, Tess asks Sam if it's alright if she dances with Wayne, which he agrees to. Sam does a bit more inner monologue about how he had fallen in love with his kindergarten teacher, which he didn't get over until he met his first grade teacher, and he hoped that getting over Tess wouldn't take quite so long.

Al shows up and gets a bit of a reaming from Sam, but Al apparently has Tina back which is apparently all that matters. Ish. Whatever. Sam is getting dressed up to leave, heading to the mirror to have the look at the person whose face he's been wearing the whole time before heading out. Al believes, from Ziggy's calculations, that Tess saying 'I do' is his best chance of getting out of here. 50-50 shot, at least. Sam looks around for the pig, which his assistant (still playing his guitar) says was around here somewhere. When Sam calls out for it, looking around, the assistant begins rifting on his words to make a new song - "Piggy Soo-ey".

Sam and Al realize what's going on... and Sam tells "Buddy" that he ought to try "Peggy Sue", saying that it'll sound a little better. As Buddy Holly begins to play "Peggy Sue", Sam and Al have a chuckle... and a bright light envelopes Sam, him suddenly appearing in a room with his pants missing and a woman thanking "Freddy" for a great time. What has he gotten himself into this time? Tune in next week to find out!

How the Tess Was Won is a little bit of a bait and switch on what some might have thought even a few episodes in was becoming a predictable formula. Sure, it is a little cheap to have the entire plot of the episode be rendered entirely meaningless by the last minute and a half, but it is a reminder that not everything in leaping is going to be as straightforward as Sam, Al, or even the audience might think. 

That said, I do have to ding this episode a few points. The Right Hand of God had not one, but two very well-developed female characters who were very believable and relatable. This episode, being right after that, reduces Tess to the tough girl stereotypes. She doesn't want to get married and lose her independence, doesn't want to or see why she has to be tied down to a man, yet falls right into it through the episode. After the previous episode having had such nuance, falling back on the clichés is a little disappointing.

Tess isn't a bad character, she's just a character that we've seen before over and over and over again. Even with that, Sam falling in love with her - even knowing Sam's nature as a romantic - just really doesn't work despite the inner monologue trying to justify it. She's an ass to him through a good bit of the episode.

I'd be tempted to say that it's part of the job given the twist ending of the episode, but we spend quite a bit of time with Tess and she really did not rub off on me like previous supporting characters did. The "battle of the sexes" I mentioned in the introductory paragraph... doesn't really go anywhere, either. Nothing really is said about it that's profound or anything gets resolved about it.

The Buddy Holly reveal at the end had me laughing, though I really should have seen it in the beginning given how he's singing not yet complete versions of some of his songs. Again, though, the fact that this is what Sam had to do is just a reminder that not every Leap will have something grandiose and life changing, sometimes it can be just the little things. Expect the unexpected, always.

Everybody has a hard time on the first draft.

How the Tess Was Won is not a bad episode, but (at the time of writing) it's my least favorite that I've watched thus far. It's certainly not diminishing the series as a whole, but it feels like a bit of a misstep in a few places. Then again, maybe I should just change my tune.