Ben Song to the defense has Jen, not Ben, shine in the entire episode 15 of Quantum Leap while Ben and Addison take a backseat.
Episode 15 has Ben Song leap into the body of a young woman once again. This time it’s a public defender. Her name is Aleyda Ramirez and she is defending a young boy who was sentenced before he even went to trial.
But it is up to Ben and Team Quantum Leap in the shape of Jen to help and keep this innocent young man from jail. The police apprehended the boy after he threatened a gang member who was trying to goad his little brother into thug life.
However since there were no witnesses, he’s already been convicted before a fair trial happened. Not officially, but when Assistant District Attorney Barnes threatens Ben that if he doesn’t take the plea deal, he will put his client away for life.
Aleyda’s personal life is one filled with secrets
In the meantime, Ben finds out that Aleyda has a girlfriend named Vicky, who works for the District Attorney’s office. Which is an ethics violation and if people ever find out then 100s of cases will have to be reviewed due to conflict of interest. But the 2 love each other so they are willing to take that risk. What’s love without a little risk huh?
Then there is the corrupt A.D.A. Barnes who goes after people with ferocity and doesn’t care whether or not the person is innocent or not. Which makes me wonder how he even got the job. Did nobody ask for an ethics test or something? To check if this person is suited for what he is doing. And Vicky is willing to turn a blind eye because she looks up to him.
This poses a problem when Ben notices a page with notes of witnesses who can exonerate Ben’s client. When Ben confronts Vicky, Vicky storms off and as a gut punch, she says happy anniversary. Because it was the day the 2 got together.
Ben Song to the defense
When Ben is in a rut and can’t figure out how to keep the kid out of jail. Jen comes up with a story about rabbits drowning in a river. The boy keeps saving the rabbits but quickly figures out that if he goes upstream then he may find the source of the rabbit issues.
On top of that, Vicky and Ben are still not on speaking terms. This saddens Ben because he feels he is messing up his host body’s life. But Vicky has a change of heart and wants to correct her mistake and with the help of Vicky and knowledge of the future, Vicky and Ben took down the ADA for corruption.
The boy who was released eventually became the first college graduate of the family and turned out to be a good lawyer.
This week’s Ben was funny. He was once again a woman and this time a lesbian woman as well. To make the distinction in Ben Song to the Defense, Ben wore classy earrings during the entire episode. And pants suits because no classy lawyer can leave the house without that.
But this whole episode was not about Ben. Ben once again takes a backseat to make Jen shine. This whole week’s episode was about Jen helping Ben and finally shows her wonderful true colors.
Nice to meet you, Jen!
Have I mentioned that there is barely any Addison in this week’s episode Ben Song to the defense? This week Jen is the hologram to assist Ben. It’s interesting to see a different dynamic other than Addison and Ben. We have seen a plethora of that over the course of the season.
Jen wanted to assist Ben this week and having both Jen and Addison proved too much for Quantum Computer Ziggy. So Addison took the backseat while investigating what happened to Aleyda and Vicky.
And the thing is, the dynamic between the two was quite amazing. I mean, I know Addison and Ben are lovers. And Ben at least has some awareness of his love for Addison, I don’t think he knows the full story since he barely remembers Magic. Oh, there we go. Yes, he does. But more about that later.
Jen is the morally gray member of Team Quantum Leap
Jen as a character has been very underused. All we see her do is run intel ops for Team Quantum Leap and we only see the action but not much of the character. In Ben Song to the defense, my view on Jen has changed, and here is why.
In this episode, we get to see Jen’s amazing character on full display. She is not as much of a goodie two shoe but she’s morally gray. I’ll give you an example of that.
There was a couple on the show and the husband was jailed. And the bail was quite high too, $50.000. And Jen urges Ben to have the woman go to the race track and bet on a horse. The money won was exactly $50.000 and thus the woman could post bail to free her husband.
This to me shows that Jen is willing to do something dark, gambling, in order to get something good done. This makes Jen the morally gray member of Team Quantum Leap. This is promising for the future. So far we have seen all of them being quite attuned to the light side and Jen is the first character who isn’t.
The question will be if Leaper X shows up and puts her in the same situation, what her next action is going to be? Will she screw over Team Quantum Leap in order to get something good done or side with Team Quantum Leap to get Leaper X down?
Also, Leaper X is, of course, Ramirez. As per this episode, the Quantum Reapers are officially named Leaper X by the show. So I guess we will adapt to that name and say farewell to the Quantum Reaper name.
After the story of the rabbits that needed to be saved from the river, Ben quickly figures out who Jen means and it is Magic. And I guess that after Ian, Addison, and Jen, the next episode will feature Magic heavily in order to get the gang ready for the first season finale of the show. With 3 episodes left to go, the show continues to build up momentum for the first finale.
But what happened to Janis Calavicci
Who knows, the writers may even use a few bits of the episodes to develop Janis Calavicci a bit more. I would regard her as the darkest member of Team Quantum Leap. Even if she’s the reserve member and technically jailed, her contributions shaped Team Quantum Leap a lot and she at least deserves a bit more credit by developing her character a little more in the final episodes of the season up until the finale.
Janis’ character, I would regard that as the darkest one. Her dealings are very shady compared to the rest of them. Blowing up houses, using cyber warfare in order to get things done, and putting odd drugs in her mother’s drinks to get her father’s old holo communicator.
The episode Ben Song to the defense was a good episode but once again, Ben takes a backseat and it is Jen that truly shines. And she deserved it after a season of her not even being in the backseat but waiting for the car rather as a figure of speech.
