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A Hunting We Will Go was the 18th episode in Season 3 of Quantum Leap", also the 49th episode in the series. Written by Beverly Bridges, the episode, which was directed by Andy Cadiff, premiered on NBC-TV on April 18, 1991.
Synopsis
Sam leaps into a bounty hunter who is handcuffed to a female fugitive who will do anything to escape from him.
Full episode summary
June 18, 1976: Sam leaps into bountyhunter Gordon O'Reilly, a man in a phone booth hand-cuffed to a beautiful woman. She cries out that she needs help and that Sam is her ex-husband who beats her and two good Samaritans come to her aid. She doesn’t want to involve the sheriff Sheriff Michaels (Cliff Bemis), however, and implores them to get the key to the handcuffs. They reach in the wrong pocket, however, and discover that Sam is actually a bounty hunter who's in the process of transporting three-time escape fugitive Diane Frost (Jane Sibbett) to jail. Al announces that, according to Ziggy's information gathered of the original history of events, Diane will kill Sam, as she did Gordon, his leapee, while escaping from his custody, and then be killed trying to escape justice herself.
Sam and Diane get on a bus but the driver saw the altercation and warns Sam that one false move and he’ll throw him off the bus. Diane causes all sorts of trouble and tries to escape repeatedly, ultimately starting a fight between the hapless Sam and the man sitting across the aisle and the pair are stranded in the middle of nowhere at night.
Al is being no help because while Ziggy says there is a 99.9% chance that she is guilty, Diane looks a lot like Al’s fifth wife Maxine whom Al divorced after being 99.9% sure she was cheating on him. He was wrong then, and he thinks Ziggy is wrong now. After Diane attacks him some more and they both fall into some manure, Sam ties her up tightly and they wait out the night and the storm in a barn.
The pair attempt to hitchhike in the morning but do not have much luck. Diane claims the handcuffs are freaking people out and so Sam takes them off. A car stops and Diane gets in, quickly telling the driver to leave Sam behind. Al shows up to diagnose Sam and Diane as having belligerent sexual tension like he and Maxine used to have. He is more helpful when he says that Diane was booted from the car just around the corner for smelling like manure and Sam catches up to her again.
They get a motel room so that the pair can take a shower and they wait for the Sheriff Michaels to show up. Diane explains that she did steal a million dollars worth of checks but it was for a good cause. Her employer, a one Rodney Owens (Ken Marshall), was swindling the elderly out of their life savings (including Diane’s mother) and so she’s trying to return the money. Sam isn’t sure that he believes her. He and Diane make out and then Diane sneaks out the bathroom window. Sam quickly catches her but she forces him to handcuff himself to the railing at gunpoint. The gun turns out to be a fake that Diane shoplifted and just as Diane is secretly paying the owner of the motel back, Sam catches up to her.
The sheriff then arrives, and Sam is glad to see the back of her. Al warns him that Diane is still going to die and, so, Sam chases after the sheriff’s car. Al centers on Diane and discovers that the Sheriff Michaels is corrupt and in the pocket of Diane’s former employer Owens. They make her take them to the train tracks where she hid the money. Diane tries again to escape but when the sheriff threatens to kill her mother, she gives them the money. Sam arrives and jumps on Rodney just as he is about to shoot Diane. A brief fight breaks out and Diane holds her own.
When it’s over, Diane threatens to shoot Sam if he tries to take the money and he promises he’s not after that. She decides to trust him and they mail all the investors their money back before Diane turns herself into state jail where the charges are dropped and the corrupt sheriff is prosecuted. Sam jokes that Diane should become a bounty hunter and she becomes one of the best in the business.