Sam walks into a bar, and the first thing he notices is that the reflection of himself. Since he hasn't seen himself in three years, the man appears almost a stranger to him. The bartender acts as if he knows everything about Sam and his leaping, dispensing nuggets of wisdom. Miners populate the bar; they are people Sam has seen in his travel, but they're not the same people, and they don't recognize Sam.

There's an accident at the mine, and when one of the miners goes in and rescues some people, he leaps out. The other miners may be in the same predicament he is - they might be other leapers.

Sam talks to the bartender again. Eventually, he speaks frankly to Sam, asking him if he would want to keep leaping. (The batender must be God or Time, or one of the powers that be...) Sam has to grapple with his decision - does he really want to keep doing this, changing other people's lives for the better, while never having one of his own?

Eventually he comes to a decision. He leaps to another time, meeting with one of Al's first wives. She thought Al was dead (because he was a POW in Vietnam, I think), and eventually remarried. However, Sam tells her the truth, and eventually Al and her are reunited.

Dr. Samuel Beckett never returned home.

The descriptions above are great, just want to add a little bit. In an earlier episode, Al tried to get Sam to tell his first wife, Gina, that he was still alive so that she wouldn't remarry. Al basically tried to manipulate the leap to help himself, when it was truly about someone else Sam needed to help. Because Sam figured it out, he didn't alter something that wasn't "meant" to be altered that time around, and Gina got remarried to a lawyer. She was the love of Al's life, and so he remarried 4 more times I believe, after returning home. (he had been a POW). Most of the banter between Sam and Al in the entire series revolved around Al's sex life and women troubles, especially in regard to his ex-wives and Tina, his current girlfriend. Al always had a funny story to tell, but you could always see that bit of wistfulness toward his true love, Gina.

So in the final episode, when Sam was told he could go home at any time, that the leaping was actually up to him and no one else, Sam says something about needing to fix something for a good friend, that it was time for it to happen. Basically Sam leads the audience to believe that he's going to fix one last thing that needed to be fixed for Al, then would go home. So he leaped into that same time as he had seasons before when Gina was home alone wondering if her husband Al would ever come back from the war. This time the leap WAS for Al, so Sam could change things. He convinced Gina that he was telling the truth, and told her that Al was indeed coming home. She cried, I believe Sam leaped, then we're told in a text message that Gina never remarried, that she waited for Al and they lived a long and wonderful life together. They had several children and were still happily married. YAY!!!!!!! Elation for Al!!!

And then the bomb drops...

Because then the text said that Sam never went home.

WHAT?!?!? But, but, but, he HAS to go home!!! :( I was furious for about a minute, then I bawled for at least an hour. I don't think I've ever cared quite so much that a character in a tv show didn't have the future that I wanted for them. My boyfriend thinks I take such things WAY too seriously, but I actually care about the characters that touch me like Sam did - well-written, well-acted, genuinely heroic.

We're told in one of the early episodes that Sam is VERY happily married in the present time, and that his wife has forbidden Al from telling Sam (with his swiss-cheese memory) that she exists, because if Sam knew, he couldn't do what he needs to do to help people. She is lovely and noble and they are truly meant to be together. So when I'm told that basically his altruism and need to help humanity end up making him leap forever, and that he and his wonderful wife never end up together, it breaks my heart. I would give SOOOO much for them to have made him go home instead of leaping forever.

Sigh. That said, the last episode was thought-provoking and amazingly moving. Sam got to see a crossroads of sorts, where everything is completely familiar and yet very different from things he knows and remembers. People's faces are familiar, but they won't know him and they have different identies. People's names will be familiar but he won't recognize them. It's all a mixed-up amalgamation of his reality, and helps him come to terms with the true nature of the universe, and the power he holds within it. Definitely see it if you can.