“Animal Frat – October 19, 1967” is episode twelve of season two of Quantum Leap.
Sam leaps in to find people pouring beer from a keg into his mouth. He’s in a frat house at a party and finds a pledge with two lobsters that are to be put in the dean’s mailbox and then someone throws up over his shoes.
Sam heads to his, Knut ‘Wild Thing’ Wileton’s, room, and is taking his clothes off, not noticing that there’s someone in his bed, until she speaks. Turns out there are two someones.
The next day, Sam’s frat brothers are firing water balloons when Al says he used to do the same thing when he was at college. Knut is in no danger of graduating this year, or next. Al winds Sam up saying Knut is a physicist with a chance at the Nobel Prize before saying he’s an art major. Ziggy says Sam is here to help Elisabeth Spokane, an anti-war protester they can see; Sam going to the window just as she’s splashed by a water balloon. Al says that she plants a bomb in the chemistry building tomorrow, and it kills someone who shouldn’t have been there. She spends the rest of her life on the run.
Sam goes to speak to Elisabeth, which doesn’t go that well. She says Duck can explain much better. This doesn’t go any better, with Duck deciding that Sam is deceptively smart and will be watching him to make sure he doesn’t go near Elisabeth.
Sam next has a chemistry class with Elisabeth and his frat brothers amongst others. Elisabeth asks the professor how he can justify the department’s participation in the war. Sam suggests that what the South Vietnamese want is more important; whether the US is helping a friend or imposing their will. If the South Vietnamese lose their will to fight, he doesn’t think there’s any way they can win.
Sam says to Elisabeth he wants to go to a meeting with her. They’re interrupted by the pledge, which Knut is having do ridiculous things. Afterwards, Sam suggests to Elisabeth that it’s a leftover from more primitive times. He’s actually getting her to listen.
Duck is conducting the meeting and Sam thinks he has a touch of the fanatic, especially as he’s talking about violence being the only thing understood. Al says that most of the kids are from comfortable backgrounds and can afford to go to college and don’t have to go to Vietnam. Which sometimes breeds guilt. For Elisabeth, Al says it’s part this, part normal rebellion and part sincere desire to do what she believes is right. And if Sam can invite Elisabeth to the luah, she won’t be able to set the bomb.
Of course, it isn’t as easy as that, and being around bombs is dangerous.