No matter how good or bad “Salvation or Bust” is, most of the conversation about it will probably cover the last thirty seconds of the show when another Leaper shows up who knows Ben and feels that Ben is following him through time.
The implications of this to the overall arc of why Ben leaped and what his destination is are fascinating. And given the pace at which revelations are coming in the show, I don’t think it’s something that will exactly be swept aside for an episode or two.
Part of me says that this new leaper is somehow connected to Janice and that the imaging chamber she’s building isn’t to try and contact Ben but to contact whoever this other leaper is. A big question it brings up is just how many accelerators there are and just where are they located? Given that leaping seemingly takes a huge investment of power, how exactly are the other leaping group keeping their tracks hidden?
Or is this all part of the time travel thing where the new leaper is from our future but ending up in the past.
Give the show credit – it’s got me intrigued to see where this all goes.
As for the rest of “Salvation or Bust,” it was another example of the show finding its footing. The senator investigating things in the present felt a bit like a page taken from “Honeymoon Express” in the original – so much so that I expected to see the senator replaced by another person in the end of the episode – as if she and her family might be connected to the town Ben is trying to save.
I did find Magic’s solution to keeping the project going and under the radar to work well. I wouldn’t have loved it had he been forced to blackmail the Senator, though I think he’s created a whole new issue down the road. Time will tell if this thread is picked up on and run with.
Meanwhile, Ben leaps farther back into the past than Sam ever did and gets to play A-Team or Three Amigos! for a bit. Seeing Ben struggle with his desire to not resort to guns to solve the problem but possibly being forced to do so felt right for the character. And his stubborn resolve to not go into a gun fight may explain why Addison was selected to leap over Ben.
I do find that giving the series cart blanch to any moment in history is one that can help or hurt things. I found it a bit convenient that Ben and Addison are able to find out about a copper mine nearby to save the town one last time. Part of this is that the episode spends a good bit of time saying how slow Ziggy’s running and using that to increase the tension, only to magically work around it in the final few minutes.
Also, while we’ve had Ben doing some big things, we have yet to find a leap where he thinks he’s there for a grand purpose but is there to correct a smaller detail – Buddy, Stevie, etc. When Ben didn’t leap after the town takes down the gang and Ben stays behind for the celebration, I couldn’t help but think that we were about to get that small moment. Instead, it turns out that Ben is still there to meet the other Leaper and to introduce that plot thread.
And that brings up the question of just when did the Leaper arrive and what his agenda might be. Is he there to help Ben or to undo whatever it is Ben put right?
I can only hope we get details sooner rather than later.
Given that the show got an additional episode pick-up, I think this may lengthen the wait for answers.
Nashville Book Worm 
I’m kind of hoping the other leaper is Sam — clearly, if Janice Calavicci has Ben chasing after another leaper, who else could it be?
The ending was cool. The rest of the episode was pretty ludicrous (“What if we did HIGH NOON but *everybody* helped Gary Cooper at the end?!”). I’m definitely watching this revival more for the story arc than for the acting or characters or settings.
Since the show is about time travel, I wouldn’t be shocked if this new traveler is somehow “wibbly wobbly timey wimey” plotted at some point — possibly from the future and looking for Ben or from the past and trying to do something to history (at this point we’re building toward) that Ben feels he has to stop. Or possibly they want to undo something Sam did (for example, if you undo Sam’s helping Magic survive, what implication does that have?) Or maybe I’m putting more thought into this than they are….