Dreams - February 28, 1979 - S4-E8
Character mistake: When Sam is trying to explain to Al how he feels the person he's leapt into, Jack, is still in his head, Sam asks Al if he remembers how their personalities got mixed up when they simul-leaped. Al says he does not. Three episodes previously, in Permanent Wave, Al asks Sam if there's still some of him, Al, left in Sam because of the way Sam is behaving toward the twins. So Al remembers in one episode, but in another, later episode his brain is somehow still swiss-cheesed from the leap on this particular detail. (02:33:40)
Chosen answer: Per the Quantum leap page at http://www.scifi.com/quantum/episodes/season5.html. 8 August 1953: An enigmatic leap lands Sam in a Pennsylvania tavern, as his own grown self on the day of his birth. As Al and Gushie work frantically to locate him, Sam befriends a wise bartender (popular character actor McGill, who'd appeared in a different role in the very first "leap") and a group of coal miners. As a host of familiar-looking faces pass through the bar - with different identities than Sam remembers - Sam ponders his life of leaping with Al the bartender, who tells Sam he controls his own destiny. Pressed for more, Al the bartender simply shrugs and says, "Sometimes, 'that's the way it is' is the best explanation." Sam realizes he must right at least one more wrong before he can go home, and leaps back to tell Al Calvavicci's wife Beth (from "M.I.A.") to wait for Al, who will survive Vietnam and come home to her. The closing title cards state that Beth and Al have four daughters and will shortly celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary ... and that Sam Beckett never returned home.
Boobra