This episode opens with the Sliders in the middle of a fight with an evil alt-Logan and her sliding partner, Mike Mallory, Jr. (Robert Floyd). As the time to slide draws closer and closer, Logan is finally able to wrest the timer out from her evil double�s hands with just seconds to spare. The final few seconds count down and the vortex is activated. The evil duo swears revenge as our trio of Sliders makes a hasty getaway.
The Sliders emerge from the vortex into a peaceful park, and take a moment to sit down on a bench to catch their breath and otherwise recover from the fight they�ve just been in. The group receives a lot of strange looks, but the Sliders are accustomed to that by now and think little of it; besides, at this moment, they�re too tired to explain anyway. Suddenly, Rembrandt is assaulted, arrested, and dragged off by three LAPD officers. Logan and the Professor do their best to help him, but fail, and numerous other onlookers do nothing to help. The question that the Professor and Logan have is why, and it is promptly answered when the arresting officers make several racist remarks and talk about the �damn Negroes� not knowing �their place.�
It turns out that in this world, Lincoln was never assassinated, and rather than being a good thing, it turns out to have had horrible results, for he became a major backer of the proposed Jim Crow laws. Apparently this Lincoln didn�t like slavery but also didn�t like the idea of racial integration. So with the support of President Lincoln, the Jim Crow laws became strictly-enforced federal laws that have only become more harsh and extreme in the decades since the Lincoln administration, up to present-day.
So anyway, Rembrandt gets forcibly thrown into the black neighborhood, a dirty, disease-ridden, down-trodden, poor area on the outskirts of town in which buildings seem to be barely standing and hundreds of people are living on the street. The conditions are worse here than practically any other place Rembrandt has seen in all his years, and good people such as Harold (from �California Reich�), Dianna Davis, Malcolm, and thousands of others are being forced to live here. Can he make a difference in this hellish neighborhood? Can the Professor and Logan help the white residents of this backwards Los Angeles realize the error of their ways? And can they reunite in time for the slide? They can, and they do.
THE END |
