“Inversion Illusion” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Jeff Rake & Margaret Easley
Director: Romeo Tirone
Grade: 3.5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published little over two years after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

On the one hand, “Inversion Illusion” is a fine exercise in what mid-season finales (or season finales) should strive for in terms of narrative content: stakes raised, characters in life-threatening limbos, major twists causing paradigm shifts, plenty of “wow” moments, characters from the past showing up unexpectedly, etc. A good example is the return of Grace (great to see Athena Karkanis again, even as a fake Grace) whose appearance shocks and exults the viewer at first, yet makes complete sense soon after. The aim is to create enough interest, or anxiety, depending on your definition, in viewers to make them eagerly anticipate future pay-offs to current story lines, and resolutions to the dilemmas facing their favorite characters. In short, you want to add fuel to their burning desire for the show’s return. In this exercise, “Inversion Illusion” checks the boxes.

On the other hand, the episode is also a lesson on how that content’s impact and value can promptly be diminished if presented in an amorphous structure in the name of elevating the shock barometer. “Inversion Illusion” is one chaotic sprint to the finish line with not much care given to how events tie together, or to the resolution of subplots from recent episodes. There are several instances that make the astute viewer say “wait a minute, when/how did that happen,” which usually means that a substantial amount of hand-waving is required, and that one’s suspension of disbelief is strained to its limits.

Considering the contrasts noted in the above two paragraphs, is “Inversion Illusion” a success or a failure? It depends on your perspective. Most casual viewers who binge shows as pure entertainment, or because they care for a specific actor and thus watch the show as a tangent interest, will probably be satisfied. And they likely comprise the majority of the audience. I’ll admit that I am part of this audience with certain shows (not Manifest) that I consider as light-viewing, and I enjoy them thoroughly.

For others with a more acute approach to what entails an hour of fictional story-telling on TV, priorities differ considerably. They are probably less in numbers compared to the group noted above because their motivation to watch a show goes beyond mere entertainment. They are likely to seek story telling that engages reflection, they pay attention to detail, and they obsess over things like production value, editorial quality, actors’ performances, plausible transitions between scenes, etc. For these people, of which I happen to be one for Manifest, I presume that “Inversion Illusion” didn’t quite pass the test.

For starters, its short running time of under 40 minutes (not counting the “previously on Manifest” part and the end credits) cripples the episode’s ability to flesh out the characters’ agenda behind their acts, and to emphasize the nuances needed to cohesively connect the chain of events. Add to that the exuberant amount of plot lines racing simultaneously, and you end up with one frenzied mid-season finale. I’d argue that the previous episode, “Rendezvous,” was better equipped to be a finale than this one.

Speaking of “Rendezvous,” consider its electrifying closing moments for instance. “Inversion Illusion” seems so preoccupied with running out of the gate at warp speed that it undervalues the thrill of excitement created by the cliffhangers of “Rendezvous” – although the fact that these two episodes, along with the first eight of the season, were released on the same date by Netflix may have lessened this effect, allowing the viewer to move straight to the next outing without having to experience the week-long anticipation.

If you recall, before the end credits started rolling, we had our heroes stuck in a calling that took them inside the 828 plane on fire, with volcanoes erupting down on the ground that could be seen from the plane windows. Eagan was knocked out in his hotel room, either dead or alive, and the Omega sapphire was no longer in his possession. Well, when “Inversion Illusion” begins, the only factor related to those last scenes is a brief glimpse of Angelina holding the sapphire as she walks through the streets of New York. All others in the plane are back home having quite moments, or elsewhere running errands. As for Eagan, we don’t even see him until 10 minutes into the episode, although him being in an emergency room somewhere is briefly mentioned a bit sooner. No talk of volcanoes erupting down below in the calling, no elaboration on why Jared, Zeke, Olive, and Alex were present in the plane, or on when, precisely, the calling ended. Didn’t those involved in the calling have a talk immediately after it ended? Were the viewers supposed to simply assume that the calling ended when credits started rolling? “Inversion Illusion” begins as if they should have, although that is the opposite effect of the intent behind cliffhangers.

Moving on…

Cal is on his death bed, so to speak, and Zeke is staying by his side comforting him in the loveliest way imaginable. He also reminisces about the times Cal helped him when his own death date was nearing (see season 2’s “Call Sign”). Matt Long excels here in portraying the caring adult who is getting crushed under the weight of his helplessness to save the boy. At one point, he asks Cal’s permission to use his powers to take his pain away, but Cal’s response is poignant: “You taking it on and making it go away, are not the same thing.”

It appears that Jared has indeed accepted the position at the Registry. He gets a not-so-friendly welcome from Officer Wicks, but a delightfully sarcastic one from Drea (Ellen Tamaki’s representation of the witty, casual detective-girlfriend of Jared is getting better with each appearance). He and Michaela meet later at the hospital to question Eagan on what happened. Eagan says that the Omega Sapphire was taken from him by the “world’s smallest sociopath,” which is, I guess, enough of a description for Michaela to understand that it was Angelina. This is where I wonder if it would have had more impact to show Angelina approaching Eagan’s hotel room (instead of a mere shadow) in “Rendezvous,” rather than waiting until the start of this episode, showing Angelina walking with the sapphire in the streets, to reveal that it was her. I would say, yes, it would have. This opening scene would be more noteworthy, confirming the viewers’ fears that she succeeded. Then again, I am not in the writing room.

How did Angelina know about the sapphire’s existence, about Eagan being in possession of it, or even his location? Eagan’s explanation is, “hell if I know” (read: hand-waving moment). Inside Eagan’s bag Michaela finds a brochure given to him by Noelle, Angelina’s mom. Some scripture sentence in it leads Jared and Michaela to realize that Angelina believes Eden is her guardian angel.

At the house, Grace (yes, Grace!) appears to Ben. Let me first say that I am not a fan of dead characters reappearing and talking to the ones alive – a cliché nowadays in series and movies – and yet, even for me, seeing Athena Karkanis again was charming, even as a fake Grace. I was relieved even further when we find soon after that it is not indeed Ben’s Grace coming to chat with him from the after life. You see, this Grace insists that Ben brings Eden to her. At first Ben is confused, but he figures for the moment that Grace meant for him to bring Eden to her grave.

At the grave, Grace reappears, and this time she is telling Ben to to turn Eden back over to Angelina. Ben knows this time something is amiss, especially when he notices that the colors of Grace’s eyes are different. This isn’t his wife Grace. It’s a trick played by Angelina using the powers of the sapphire! She is standing on the other side with open arms, and Eden starts running toward her. Ben tries to intervene but Angelina pulls out a gun. Eden is her guardian angel and Ben cannot keep them apart, she claims. Ben says Eden should choose between them, and thus begins the awkward sequence of Ben and Angelina alternately pulling on Eden’s heart strings to convince her in one or the other’s favor (how wise is it to put a small child through that process, I’ll let viewers decide). Ultimately, Eden chooses Ben and they runaway from Angelina who screams in agony holding the sapphire, which causes a massive, pain-inducing calling for all 828 passengers across the country!

This includes a passenger named Joe (Bru Aju) at the Registry who was about to leave with his son before Angelina’s calling caused him to collapse and hold his head in pain. Wicks, the despicable officer, decides to detain him because the handbook says that if “a passenger exhibits particularly onerous or unusual behavior,” they can take him in. As far Wicks is concerned, a “mind-meld scream” counts as one. Joe’s poor kid Charlie (Jahleel Kamara) is in panic mode seeing his dad taken away but Drea calms him down temporarily. Much later in the episode, we will have another frustrating scene where the dickish Wicks apprehends Joe once more, sending his son into panic mode again, as Captain Fahey announces to everyone at the Registry that all 828 passengers in the US must be detained until further notice.

At the Stone household, Ben informs everyone that he left Eden with his dad for now. They need to find Angelina, and Michaela believes the calling she had earlier while visiting Eagan (an angel figure shattering into glass) can be a sign. Upon hearing that, Olive remembers helping Angelina with the same calling – back in season 3’s “Deadhead” – and figures out where they can find Angelina. She is at her old school where there is the stained-color glass with the figure of the archangel. That’s Michaela and Ben’s next destination.

Once there, they find Angelina kneeling down in front of the stained-glass window talking to the archangel on it. For some reason, she has now changed her view from Eden being her angel to herself being the angel (someone please make it make sense). She has also formed some sort of a lava passage in the middle that has a few people stranded on one side of the hallway. Ben and Michaela approach Angelina and make a futile attempt to reason with her on giving the sapphire back and put a stop to this madness. Angelina resists and even pulls the same trick as she did with Grace by making Evie appear, to distract Michaela by playing on her guilt about the night Evie died in the car accident (see season 1’s “Turbulence,” Michaela was the driver). Ben tries to convince Michaela to stay focused, telling her that Evie’s not real. It’s enough distraction however for Michaela to drop the gun she was holding into the lava.

Meanwhile, TJ checked the papyrus out from Astoria and brought it home. Olive is surprised they let him check it out but hey, once “the guy” (who happens to be Levi, the artifact dude with whom Olive had a temporary fling back in season 3) verified that TJ was the one who sent it from Egypt, he gladly let him check it out – funny reaction by an embarrassed Olive upon hearing the name Levi. A cleverly done nod, again, to a past character by the writing room.

After a load of astro-mythologico-babble, the use of infra-red filters, and a bunch of other not-so-clear images, juxtapositions, and dot connections, Olive and TJ discover the shape of the Dragon constellation on the papyrus. And what or who does this have to do with? Remember Cal’s dragon scar that appeared on his arm after Henry “activated his inner dragon”? — If you don’t, see “All Call.”

Sure enough, the next scene tunes into Cal whose scar starts moving on his arm and glowing sapphire. “I am the dragon,” announces Cal, dramatically. At that moment, he finds himself back in Flight 828 with Angelina alone. He pleads with her to stop the madness, to no avail. Angelina attacks him with the sapphire in her hand but hey, Cal is the dragon, right? So, he resists. Angelina then pulls the fake-Grace-appearance card once again with Cal, who momentarily sees his mother in front of him and gets distracted. Grace tells him to let go and join her. Cal realizes that she cannot be his real mother because she would never tell him to give up the fight. Angelina’s ruse is over and we are back to the duel. Cal soon grabs Angelina’s hand that holds the sapphire and they both start screaming and shaking, at which point the sapphire in Angelina’s hand back in the school shatters into pieces and Cal wakes up back in bed, before falling back on his pillow with his eyes closed.

Note that while this sapphire duel was taking place in the calling, Ben and Michaela, who had been trying to reason with Angelina in the school building, saw her suddenly freezing while standing, and Zeke was observing Cal looking catatonic back at home as if the boy were about to die. Ben and Michaela took the opportunity to save the people stranded behind the lava (why not apprehend Angelina first and grab the sapphire while she is distracted? Because… reasons). Zeke, for his part, was panicking as he was watching Cal slip away.

At the Bird’s Nest, Saanvi informs Vance of Angelina’s shenanigans, which alarms Vance because they will now be unable to tell if a calling is real or false (always nice to see Darryl Edwards back to the screen). Saanvi decides to call Dr. Gupta for help.

Saanvi notices Cal’s scar sample suddenly glowing while working at the Bird’s Nest. She has also seen it before on Ben’s hand. It’s sapphire! Later in the episode, after the Cal-Angelina sapphire duel ends, Saanvi sees the scar sample’s glowing fade away. It’s enough to confirm that the Major was right, Saanvi underlines, Cal is the holy grail! At that moment, there is a raid on the Bird’s Nest and Vance tells Saanvi to destroy everything in a hurry. Saanvi first destroys the scar tissue and they both delete their computer files as the SWAT team raids the lab. It turns out that Gupta helmed the raid, which sends Saanvi in a rage of fury toward her. Gupta blames Saanvi (who dropped the driftwood into the fissure in “Compass Calibration”) for losing the Omega Sapphire and putting the whole world at risk.

Realizing that he’s on his last legs, Cal asks Zeke to get Olive and everyone else by his side. Zeke is torn, and hearing Olive discuss upstairs with TJ how a passenger touched by the sapphire could “tip the scale” and allow everyone to survive makes him further ponder his next decision. “Cal can save all of us,” affirms Olive, not aware that Zeke is eavesdropping on this conversation from the stairs. A couple of timely flashbacks of Zeke thanking Cal for saving him, and Zeke no longer needs to ponder. He must save Cal! — this is a great sequence showing the progress of Zeke from an undecided man to one firmly convinced in his decision. Kudos to Matt Long who conveys that progress well to the viewers, to the writing room for the apposite flashbacks, and to the editing team for the nuts and bolts of putting the cuts together. For me, this was the best two minutes (approx.) of the outing. Even better than the formidable next scene in which he calls Michaela to say goodbye. Bravo, if you can hold your tears through these moments.

Michaela and Ben urgently head home to join Cal and Zeke, leaving Angelina behind in the building. They arrive just in time for Michaela to have a few last words with Zeke before he passes out (or dies, we do not and cannot know. This is the mid-season finale, after all),and Ben to hug Cal. But hang on, Cal wakes up, looking a lot livelier than he ever did throughout his sickness. It looks like Zeke’s pain-transfer method has served its purpose.

As for Angelina, the stained-glass shattered on top of her earlier as the building was collapsing – as seen in her nightmares in the past – and she fell to the ground. As she gets up, she notices a shard of the sapphire on the rubble. As it falls into the lava, she reaches for it with her hand. She screams in pain because the shard is embedded into her burnt palm in a fairly petrifying scene. The last shot of the hour is Angelina walking away from the building with her ‘sapphired,’ coal-colored hand, quoting scripture, and with fissures forming all across the land as the camera zooms out toward the sky.

Last-minute thoughts:

— The shot at the end from high above, showing Michaela in tears holding Zeke on the floor on the side of the bed, while Cal lies awake with Olive and Ben standing next to him, was great camera work. Tragedy and miracle captured in one shot.

— Nice touch by Zeke to play the 2014 Yankees’ title game with Derek Jeter to please Cal who probably got on the 828 flight back then as a budding fan of the player and never got to see it.

— Olive and TJ have another romantic scene that hits it out of the ballpark, or should I say, Wareing and Blaise act the heck out of these scenes. TJ should have been back from Egypt earlier in the series, that’s all I’ll say on that topic.

— Nit-pick time: As Ben comes out of the burning building, he tells Michaela that “Angelina is gone.” Say wut? She was still in the building when he left. She may have died in it for all Ben knows. Why say “she is gone” as if he saw her escape the building and leave?

Until the next episode…

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“Rendezvous” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: MW Cartozian Wilson & Sumerah Srivastav
Director: Cheryl Dunye
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published little over two years after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

Ben and a very ill-looking Cal are visiting Alex’s office and the news are dire: Saanvi’s month-long immuno-therapy treatment has not worked and Cal’s cancer has progressed. According to Alex, he has “days rather than weeks” left. She and Saanvi advise him to spend the rest of his time with his family, so that they can support each other. Cal nonetheless tells his dad to keep it between them because Michaela and Zeke are celebrating their third-year anniversary that evening. Ben, for his part, remains in total denial, insisting that Cal will not die.

This opening scene sets the tone for the most emotional outing of the season, without foraying into schmaltzy territory. “Rendezvous” succeeds on several fronts. Dialogues are lively, game changers occur in a meaningful way, past characters and events are integrated cleverly into the present, and the editing is stellar. It isn’t a perfect episode by any means, there is some hand-waving required at a couple of moments and callings continue to be arbitrary, but none of that significantly hinders the progress of lucid story telling.

The celebration part of the dinner scene is a wonderful, aptly directed by Cheryl Dunye, giving a glimpse into a rare moment of happiness shared by the show’s main characters, in which every attendee is praised by another about what they mean to each other and to the celebrated couple. Jared’s praise of Zeke and Michaela is especially noteworthy.

Nevertheless, this is Manifest, so these moments cannot last long and often portend some type of calamity. Sure enough, a calling invades the room, shaking the tables and glasses. Ben, Michaela, Saanvi, and Cal find themselves back inside the 828 plane, with turbulence causing lights to flicker out of control. Seats are empty, except for Jared, Olive, and Zeke sitting asleep next to each other. When the calling ends, those three are of course surprised to hear from the others that they were in the calling. For some unexplained reason, Ben, Michaela and Saanvi claim that it “felt foreboding,” as if they were “running out of time.” Why not add a line or two in the dialogue to add meaning to their claims instead of relying on the tiresome “simply use a calling to advance the plot” instrument, I don’t know.

They immediately brainstorm to foreground the important details of the calling. Saanvi remembers seeing Thomas trying to open a hatch in the back of the plane. For those who may not recall, Thomas is a recurring character who first appeared as a stowaway passenger on Flight 828 back in season 1’s “Unclaimed Baggage.” In fact, I would recommend a re-watch of that episode before viewing this one. In “Unclaimed Baggage,” we learned that Thomas (Sheldon Best reprises his role) was the fugitive boyfriend of Bethany’s cousin named Leo. Bethany, a flight attendant on the 828, helped Thomas escape from Jamaica where he and Leo had faced death threats as gay activists.

Basically, our heroes need to find Thomas to make sense out of the calling, but Michaela notes that Bethany has lost contact with him a year ago. As they are discussing this, Saanvi notices the needle of Logan Strickland’s compass (see season 2’s “Black Box”) hanging on Ben’s wall of Flight 828 memorabilia spinning out of control before it stops, pointing north. Michaela and Saanvi take the magic compass with them and leave in search of Thomas. Acting like a navigation app on a phone (except the voice), the compass directs them this’n’that way until they reach a building with the boiler room where they hid Thomas back in “Unclaimed Baggage.”

I have a question: is the needle behaving like google maps also a calling? Or is this a mere sci-fi sequence? I have regarded callings as brief moments of epiphany, lasting anywhere from roughly a few seconds to about a minute at the most. But if this magic-navigation compass is a calling, it goes on for a very long time, if not an hour, since Michaela and Saanvi walk with it to the ultimate destination. In that case, add one more check mark to the conveniences of the callings being used as plot devices.

Back at the household, Cal remembers seeing the bright light coming into the plane from a specific window, which helps Ben locate the occupant of that window seat. It’s Marko, the recurring Bulgarian character, last seen in “Romeo,” who had a special connection with Cal and was one of the test subjects for the Major’s experiments back in seasons 1 and 2. Cal is anxious see Marko at the care facility but can barely get up from the couch. Zeke and Jared volunteer to bring Marko to the house.

The B story involves Eagan the scuzzball who, picking up from the previous episode, is now working at the soup kitchen inside the historic Masonic Temple of the Omega Order building. Another worker (Carl Hendrick Louis) in the kitchen notices him venturing into a restricted basement area of the building and follows him. He scolds Eagan after seeing him stash a couple of tiles around some doors leading into passageways. He threatens to report him, but his interest is piqued upon learning that Eagan is a Flight-828 passenger and that a calling told him about a powerful rock on the other side of the door. In what could be deemed as one of the most ingenious convergences of A and B story lines in Manifest, he and Eagan force the door open and fall into the boiler room of the adjacent building where Michaela and Saanvi had just arrived in search of Thomas.

After a few words, the man notices a heart mark on the wall with “Leo” written in it. His voice shakes as he asks who wrote it. Saanvi tells him the story of Thomas, and lo and behold, he is Leo, Thomas’s long-lost boyfriend. With teary eyes, he says that he never got to reunite with Thomas due to the 828’s disappearance, but he never once stopped thinking about him. The magic compass does its trick again and points to the heart on the wall. Eagan hammers that part of the wall and discovers a tile behind with an image on it. He is convinced that the compass is pointing them to the Omega Sapphire because Logan’s grandfather (the original owner of the compass) was a freemason and one of the lodges that he worked on was the Masonic Temple with the soup kitchen. The boiler room, he concludes, must have been a part of that building at some point.

Meanwhile, Zeke and Jared are refused access to Marko because the Registry will not allow anyone to visit an 828 patient at the care facility. Jared pulls the cop-bullying tactics about his right to arrest anyone who tries to obstruct law-enforcement officers and the front-desk person named Zein (Remy Margron), who is merely trying to do her job, has no choice but to agree to letting them take Marko for the day. I am not particularly fond of this brief scene. Scare tactics by cops don’t sit well with me, even when they’re used by the charming Jared Vasquez.

Back at the Stone household, TJ and a frustrated Olive are trying to locate the rare Omega Sapphire. According to Olive’s research, the legend says that it bestowed “untold powers” on the Oracle of Delphi. TJ understands the source of his girlfriend’s anxiety. She is contemplating on how the sapphire could save Cal, if only they could find it quick enough. Luna Blaise is fantastic in this scene, and her synergy with Garrett Wareing pays off dearly in this emotional dialogue (and in a second one, later in the outing).

In the boiler room, Michaela and company have found more tiles with images and Michaela sends them via phone to Olive and TJ at home. Holy crap, they match those from the Al-Zuras tarot cards (read all about them in my review of season 2’s “Return Trip”). I have repeatedly admired Jeff Rake and the writing room’s ability to reference events from previous episodes, but “Rendezvous” exceeds all expectations even by their standards.

Olive sends back the image of the deck to Michaela and they start placing the tiles on the wall matching the numbers on the deck. Olive and TJ head downstairs to meet up with Ben, Cal, Jared and Zeke, the last two having just returned home with the catatonic Marko. At this point, we start oscillating between the scene at home, and the one in the boiler room, for a good reason (hats off again to the editing team). Once Marko is in Cal’s presence, he seems calmer and begins to move his hand. Cal understands that he needs colored crayons to draw something. Marko ends up drawing a volcano, one recognized by Olive as the image on the world card from Al-Zuras’s deck. At the same time, our friends at the boiler room complete their task of putting the corresponding tiles above the images on the wall, except that the Al-Zuras’s deck still has one more: the world card with the image of the volcano.

The only difference is that Marko’s drawing of the volcano has fire on it. Michaela points to the triangle-shaped grate at the bottom of the wall and uses Leo’s lighter to unintentionally start a fire beyond it. The wall literally gets grilled from behind, or something like that, and crumbles down, uncovering a large engraving of Ma’at the Goddess (discussed in season 3’s “Wingman”). In a small hole on it, Eagan finds the Omega Sapphire and takes it out as parts of the boiler room begin collapsing. Thomas’s leg gets trapped under a large piece of rubble and Eagan the scuzzball strikes again, running out in a hurry with the sapphire and locking the door behind him. Luckily (or should I say, miraculously?), they are saved by Leo who unlocks some other door to discover them inside. The unexpected reunion of the two lovers is beautifully performed by both actors.

But wait! How did Leo know to come there? Well, of course, it’s a calling! Why do I keep forgetting that in Manifest, injecting a calling into a scene at any moment as a plot device erases the need for a plausible explanation?

Eden gives Marko Cal’s snow globe with the volcano in it as a gift before Jared takes him back to the facility. According to Zeke and his Betazoid-ish mind-reading powers, Marko was happy to help them. As the evening progresses, Cal’s health deteriorates further. Ben stays by his side, giving him a shot of morphine, and Olive joins them a bit later. She realizes the gravity of the situation as the three collapse in each other’s arms in a lachrymose scene before Zeke and Michaela join them.

Next, we have a sequence of simultaneous callings with ash falling from above, seen in more than one occasion throughout season 4. Saanvi sees ashes coming down in Alex’s office. At Marko’s care facility, the snow globe on his lap explodes from extreme heat before ashes rain down on him. Next, we see a frantic Eagan in his hotel room terrified by the ashes coming down on him as someone outside approaches his room. Lastly, everyone at the Stone household notice ashes coming down from the ceiling. They are all drawn to the same calling and find themselves back on the plane.

The plane is shaking and we see once again Jared, Olive, and Zeke sitting together, along with Alex a few rows back. They should not be there but Michaela, Cal, Saanvi, and Ben have no time to ponder on that as they notice a fire spreading in the back of the plane. Somehow this means, according to Cal, that the death date is not just for the passengers, but for everyone! Michaela goes a step further: “It’s the whole world. We’re all gonna die.”

I am going to assume that the fire building in the back of the plane, along with the volcano in the snow-globe having erupted in flames, the references to the world card with the volcano from the Al-Zuras deck, and the ashes falling down, somehow cumulatively led the Stones to conclude that a globe-wide apocalypse is upon them, as flimsy and overly dramatic as it may rightfully sound to some viewers. For my part, I can accept increasing the stakes in a TV series, but I admit to not expecting them to skyrocket at this scale in a matter of minutes.

In the closing moments, Michaela sees Eagan holding the Omega Sapphire at the other end of the plane and approaches him. She urgently tells him to give her the sapphire. As he is about to hand it to her, he disappears! As Michaela screams in desperation, Ben sees a volcano erupting down below from the window of the plane. Why did Eagan disappear by the way? Because an intruder got into his hotel room, knocked him out, and stole the sapphire!

Wow! Just simply, wow! Manifest is not short on cliffhangers, some good some bad, but this has to be the most electrifying one in season 4, or maybe even in the series so far.

Last-minute thoughts:

— In one scene with Eden, the camera curiously focuses on her phone on the ground. It appears that someone “unknown” is on the other end, listening to the conversations taking place in the Stone household.

— When Jared wheels Marko back into the care facility, Officer Wicks (played by Charlie Kevin, first seen in “Relative Bearing” before Jared punched him in the face for his rough handling of an 828er) is waiting to arrest him for taking a patient without the Registry’s knowledge. Except that Wicks is not aware of Jared’s upcoming promotion to detective ranks and joining of the Registry. Jared gladly provides him that information with a wry smile on his face. I sense however that this isn’t the last we hear of Wicks.

— Eagan the scuzzball calling Leo “Kenroy” and “Kenster” before even asking for his name is annoying, but fits his personality well.

— For those into Egyptian mythology, here is more on Ma’at the Goddess.

Until the next episode…

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“Full Upright and Locked Position” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Matt K. Turner & Jimmy Blackmon
Director: Erica Watson
Grade: 2.5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published little less than two years after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

If I can comfortably refer to the previous episode, “Romeo,” as the zenith of season 4 so far, I must be fair and refer to “Full Upright and Locked Position” as the season’s nadir. It appears that almost every aspect (reserved pacing, meaningful dialogues, no common-sense-challenging contrivances, etc.) of “Romeo” that made it season 4’s best entry so far, has been chucked in the attic and forgotten in producing this one.

“Full Upright and Locked Position” feels like a 100-meter sprint to move multiple plots from point A to Z, with only an aloof concern for the plausibility of what takes place between B and Y. It doesn’t help either that the poor judgment shown by familiar characters throughout the episode cumulatively ends up requiring too much suspension of disbelief.

The outing begins with the 828 Registry forces arriving at the Stone residence and apprehending Cal before he can “run” like Jared had urgently suggested at the end of “Romeo.” Remember that Cal was the last person seen with Violet before she was murdered. Once at the Registry, Captain Fahey (Perry Strong), newly sent from DC to take command of the Registry, attempts to calm Ben down by saying that ‘Gabriel’ will be questioned and released provided that he he has done nothing wrong. Ben’s central worry is, of course, that Cal will have his fingers printed and blood taken for DNA, resulting in the discovery of his true identity by the authorities.

In his motel room, Eagan has a calling showing the inside of a warehouse, and he hears Adrian calling for help. He rushes over to Adrian’s room where he runs into Michaela and Zeke who had arrived moments before, thanks to Drea having located Adrian earlier from a credit card ping. Adrian is missing however, and the evidence points to an abduction. Eagan tells them about his calling, and pleads with Michaela to let him join them to help find Adrian. Honesty check by Zeke, and off goes Eagan the scuzzball with our duo despite Michaela’s reluctance. Sorry, but I had all kinds of problems with this particular conversation, and Eagan’s otherwise funny use of metaphors and nicknames did nothing to salvage the high degree of idiocy manifested by Michaela and Zeke. Why would, first of all, Michaela tell Eagan about Noelle? How about simply warning him that the murderer is after those who hosted Angelina and Eden? And Zeke’s constant double-checking of Eagan’s honesty with his Betazoid-ish mind reading powers (that popped out of nowhere last season for plot-convenience purposes and makes no sense to this day) comes across trite and artificial. As if that were not enough, Michaela agrees to have Eagan stay over at the house. Can I get a wut? After all the damage the lying scuzzball has inflicted on people Michaela cares about, why would she even consider having Eagan stay with her family under the same roof? Because… the plot must advance?

Back at the Registry, Drea manages to buy Ben a couple of hours by erasing Cal’s fingerprint file. His blood will soon be drawn and taken to a lab though, so Ben find a way to get Cal out of the Registry before his true identity comes out. Drea digs around for information on Noelle in the meantime and learns that her family runs a debris business using multiple construction sites. Jared and Michaela head to its headquarters where they learn that Noelle sold the business a while back. A friendly worker (Mario Polit) lets them check the project files stacked in the back room. They find a warehouse in the files that was intentionally taken off the active-job list after the business was transferred. Noelle must have done that on purpose in order to operate from a location that doesn’t show up in any records. Michaela and Jared are headed there next, with Vance on his way.

We finally catch up with Noelle who pretends taking Angelina to a “safe place,” which is in fact the warehouse where she also has Adrian tied up to a chair. She plans to execute him in front of Angelina so that her daughter can watch him “cleansed from the world like the others.” Angelina wants no part of this, but it’s too late as Noelle neutralizes her with chloroform and ties her to a chair next to Adrian. Everything in this story line seems far-fetched and silly. Writers attempt to portray Noelle in the most despicable manner, but they overcook it so badly that it only serves to turn her into a caricaturized version of a cardboard villain. To start with, why place Angelina and Adrian next to each other in the vast warehouse while she is absent? Why not place them far apart, or even in separate halls, and bring them together only when the execution takes place? And why is she so obsessed with Angelina seeing Adrian die when she showed no hesitation in killing Anna, Violet, and Sam without Angelina present? Because… the plot must advance?

Disclaimer: For the sake of sanity, I am bypassing the warehouse scenes in this review until the climactic encounter there at the end.

The only story line of “Full Upright and Locked Position” that truly works is the reunion of Saanvi and Dr. Gupta. Saanvi updates Gupta on the detainees being stuck in a constant state of calling, and wants her to help her “safely” replicate the Major’s protocols. Gupta is reluctant at first, already feeling guilty about what happened to them, but agrees to share the Major’s files that she had copied on a USB key – she had the key ready in her hand, but the scene would like us to believe that she arrived at Bird Nest with no idea of what Saanvi was planning to talk to her about. Oh-kay…

As expected, the Major used sapphire to generate the callings. What is unusual though, Saanvi notes, is that she needed a special kind of sapphire to accomplish the desired results. She calls Olive to help with the research on the type of sapphire – Olive answers the phone to cut short, thankfully, an annoying scene with her, Eagan, and Zeke having breakfast together at the house. It’s almost as if the episode is mocking itself when Saanvi asks Olive, “Wait. You’re with Eagan?” The scuzzball also gets to see Vance’s operation center. Never mind that he ruined Vance’s family.

Marko was the first subject that produced results and Saanvi realizes that the Major intentionally increased the charges. “The more pain, the clearer the calling,” confirms Gupta. Saanvi believes – wants to believe – that she can replicate the process without causing pain to the passengers. Knowing that Eagan had a recent calling about Adrian, Saanvi chooses to test her theory with the scuzzball as subject.

Back at the Registry, Ben hears a calling — via the microwave in the precinct, I kid you not — in the form of musical notes that are similar to the ones that united him and Radd back in the season 1’s “Reentry.” Believing that the calling meant to help Cal, he rushes to Radd’s place. Through some music-composition talk involving numbers, and Radd playing the piano, they eventually come up with a phone number. Ben dials the number and Alex picks up the phone. The musical-note calling meant for Ben to learn about Cal’s cancer coming back. This also means that Alex can present herself as Cal’s doctor at the Registry and demand that he be turned over to her care. It works! The Registry is forced to release Cal just in the nick of time, before he gets his blood drawn.

Back at the Bird’s Nest, Saanvi connects Eagan to the fMRI machine, thinking that his photographic memory will allow them to get clearer results with less charging power. As he is getting prepped for the machine, Eagan notices drawings on the table that resemble the columns he saw at the entrance a food center for the homeless back when he was following his first calling, “help him,” (seen as a flashback). Things don’t go as Saanvi hoped during the experiment. Eagan begins to wildly shake, and she is forced to abort the charges with no results.

Olive uses her usual mythological-research dexterity to come across a “supercharged” type of sapphire named “Omega Sapphire,” supposedly mined from the same ancient quarry by various historical figures. There are seven of them in the world, but only one remain, located in Mount Ararat (now called “Agri dagi”). Saanvi is devastated to hear this, because it means that the fragment from Noah’s Ark that they had at Eureka — the one that she tossed into the fissure back in “Compass Calibration” — was imbued with Omega sapphire! Side note: Saanvi joins the parade of idiocy by sharing with Eagan the information related to Omega Sapphire. It’s almost as if, for one episode, Eagan cast a spell on every smart character in the show.

Michaela, Vance, and Jared enter the warehouse and prevent Noelle from killing Adrian in a ham-fisted sequence that is meant to keep the viewer on the edge, but had zero impact on me. It was so obvious that Noelle’s absurd religious routine before killing Adrian would give our heroes enough time to reach her. The relevant part here is that Angelina is missing, because she had escaped earlier without untying Adrian because, as far as she is concerned, he deserved whatever her mother had in store for him.

Speaking of turn of events, Drea informs Michaela that she found footage of Noelle driving during the time of Violet’s murder, meaning that there is still a killer out there. Guess what? The killer is outside the Stones residence because, lo and behold, Zeke feels his presence! Olive lets an officer inside the house for help without knowing that it’s Noelle’s husband Kenneth posing as a cop! He intends to kill Eden to prove to Angelina that she is no angel. A couple of brief scuffles result in Zeke getting shot in the leg and Olive pushing Kenneth out the window to his death!

The best scene of the episode comes toward the end when Olive, missing TJ deeply, leaves a voice message on his phone, desperate to hear his voice. Right then, she gets a text from him, telling her to come outside. Yep, he is back from overseas and stepping out of a cab with his luggage! Garrett Wareing and Luna Blaise knock it out of the park in this great scene of reunited lovers. TJ also hints at having some information on the possibility of finding some Omega Sapphire in New York.

The closing scene involves Eagan arriving back at the center where his first ever calling (“help him”) led him. This time he goes in the building and offers to volunteer in the soup kitchen, not because he wants to help someone, but because he believes it may have a connection to Omega Sapphire. You see, not only do the two columns at the entrance look exactly like the drawings he noticed on Saanvi’s charts, but it also says in big letters on the top of the building, “Masonic Temple of The Omega Order.”

Last-minute thoughts:

— Last TJ appearance was in season 2’s “Call Sign.” He has grown a beard since.

— In the closing sequence, we briefly see Zeke confess his relapse to Michaela who responds by hugging him. Sweet!

— I believe this is the first time we had a flashback within a flashback when Eagan recalls his conversation in jail with Logan whom we had seen in season 2’s “Black Box.” We also learn that Eagan had his own wall of 828 Flight clues in the cell, similar to the one Ben had his in his Mulder-like home-office.

— Curtiss Cook reprises his role as Radd. He’s had the quite the upgrade as an actor since his first-season appearance. He is starring on Paramount+ as a regular cast member of The Chi.

— Captain Fahey is sending a request to NYPD for Jared to be transferred to the Registry. “The Registry could use another good detective,” he says. Surely, Jared will not refuse working alongside with his girlfriend, will he?

Until the next episode…

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“Romeo” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Ezra W. Nachman & Darika Fuhrmann
Director: Josh Dallas
Grade: 5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published little less than two years after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

Ah, finally the kind of episode that I wished we had seen more of throughout Manifest! Don’t get me wrong, there have been some top-notch episodes in the show’s 3+-year run and all my previous reviews are there for everyone to see. “Romeo,” however, stands out with its meaningful dialogues, focus on character traits, and reserved pacing.

Let me repeat the last one, reserved pacing!

What a relief to have some slow-burn scenes that, while remaining central to the narrative, allow actors to showcase their characters’ human side! And couple that with camera-work prowess prioritizing precisely that over plot advancement, and we have a winner in “Romeo.” Kudos to writers Nachman and Fuhrmann, as well to the main-cast member Josh Dallas for his maiden directing job.

The episode begins from where “Relative Bearing” ended. Zeke obviously carried Cal home and grabbed the latter’s note to his dad that he left behind, thus making sure it never made it to Ben’s hands. When Cal wakes up, the two ill dudes tell each other how bad they look, but of course, they will not alarm anyone else about their conditions. Cal doesn’t want to add to the burdens of his family, and Zeke prefers to hide his condition from Michaela. Dumb ideas, but consistent with their approach to the matter in the last couple of episodes.

Zeke at least, being the adult in the room, proposes a solution to Cal, and he is also willing to do something for his own condition. He will accompany Cal to see someone who is not family (we learn later that it’s Alex, Saanvi’s ex). For his part, he goes back to the familiar AA group that he had visited back in season 2 (“Coordinated Flight” and “Unaccompanied Minor”) – Allan Walker reprises his role as the AA moderator. Why his character is not given a name after appearances in 3 episodes, I don’t know.

Saanvi is non-stop working at Vance’s operation center to find sapphire. Vance is worried about her working herself to exhaustion, but does Saanvi care? Of course, not. She informs him of her sapphire-related discovery, “Sapphire may be the antenna that tunes us in to divine consciousness,” and suggests that getting hold of sapphire may be the passengers’ “way to make it past 2024.”

At the NYPD precinct, the news of Anna Ross’s murder has hit hard. Due to her previous calling with the blood-dripping “X,” Michaela doesn’t believe that the killer is done.

Alex makes sure that Cal gets registered under his fake name Gabriel at her clinic. Her initial news are not uplifting to say the least. Cal’s condition appears to be consistent with falling out of remission, meaning, his cancer may be back. Alex cannot confirm it until she sees the CBC test reports, but in the meantime, she suggests that he takes a time-out from his problems and ‘lives his life,’ so to speak.

Ben is at home, still trying to reconnect with Eden with the help of his father. He hears the news from Michaela that Anna is murdered, and that is when he remembers about Cal, which made me think, Cal was not wrong about considering himself as a distraction to Ben and leaving the house. He tells Cal to go up to his room and not leave, because someone is busy murdering the 828ers. Cal, who was just advised by Alex to live his life, is naturally unhappy about being cooped up in his room.

Ben observes Eden write letters “ALNI” on her dollhouse. She just had a calling, he and his father conclude, since Eden is too young to be spelling. Google tells Ben that ALNI stands for Assisted Living Neuroscience Institute located somewhere in Queens. He is headed for the facility.

The above are the main story lines of “Romeo,” and the rest of the episode waves back and forth between them with purpose, carrying each with earnest effort, without any far-fetched coincidences, to worthwhile pay-offs. It does so, I repeat, with a reserved pace, allowing viewers to digest the consequences of the revelations to follow. Just like in “Relative Bearing,” flashbacks are efficiently used to reinforce the characters’ backstories or explain their present decisions. Season 4 is solid up to this point, with this outing being its best entry so far.

Michaela and Jared revisit Sam’s house to see of they missed anything, but on the way in, they learn from a chatty neighbor girl (Carolina Manning) that “some lady and her daughter” stayed with Sam for a while last year. That is the connection between Sam and Anna that Michaela was looking for. They both housed Angelina and Eden at some point and that is enough for Michaela to consider Angelina as the main suspect for the murders. Michaela and Jared decide to pay a visit Noelle in West Chester for further “poking around.”

Noelle still blames Michaela for taking her daughter away from her in Costa Rica (see season-3 opener “Tailfin”) so she is ultra angry to see her again in her house. She goes on a diatribe about how Michaela abducted Angelina and stopped her from saving her daughter. Jared and Michaela leave empty-handed, though neither believes anything Noelle said. Their next stop will be the corpses of the two victims.

The medical examiner Reynaldo, (Marc Webster) whose only previous appearance was in season-2’s “Grounded,” tells them that both victims had the “X” marking on their hand and the force of the stabbing indicates that the killer must be at least 130-35 pounds. That takes Angelina out of the equation.

Back at Vance’s office, much to his dismay, Saanvi is taking apart his $10K-worth laser to extract the sapphire used in its lens. Once holding it in her hand, she calls it her “all-access pass to unlimited Callings” with a smile on her face. Sorry Vance, deal with it!

Ben arrives at ALNI and tells the receptionist (played by Ronelle L.Thomas who was part of the main cast in the Canadian comedy series Pillow Talk) that he would like to look around the facility because he is considering putting his father there. He opens every door he sees on each floor, until he discovers one with patients sitting inside on wheelchairs in a catatonic state. He immediately recognizes them as the 828 passengers who were experimented on back in season 2 by the Major, including Marko who had a special connection to Cal. Saanvi soon arrives at ALNI to assist Ben.

Speaking of Cal, we knew he was not going to stay inactive at home, right? Well, he got in touch with Violet (Sarah Marie Rodriguez), one of the 828ers at the compound earlier in the season, who thanked Cal profoundly with a touch of personal affection for saving them in “Squawk.” The ensuing scenes with Cal and Violet are one of the better romantic sequences squeezed into a single hour of a show, and Rodriguez and Doran bring their A-game to convey the exuberance of two youngsters who get on well at all levels on their first date. They even open up to each other about their deepest secrets: Cal confesses to being Eden’s brother who is supposed to be dead, and Violet confesses to having helped Angelina a year ago not knowing her true nature, including letting her spend time in her place.

As great as it was to watch Cal and Violet’s giddiness on their first date, those scenes also raised red flags for the experienced viewer (it did for me at least). Especially when Violet told Cal about letting Angelina and Eden crash at her place last year, the alarm bells began ringing loud in my head. And finally, when Cal, upon returning home, texted Violet for another date the next day and we saw on his phone screen that she started typing before it stopped, I knew what was coming. When something seems too good to be true in a TV series, things somehow have a tendency to come down it like a ton of bricks. And boy, did it ever in this one!

Saanvi and Ben get caught by Eddie (Jay Klaitz) the resident nurse in charge of those patients. At first, he wants them to leave immediately, but Saanvi and Ben convince him that they came to help. A powerful moment occurs when Ben holds Marko’s hands and asks for his forgiveness. Tears begin flowing from Marko’s eyes, which indicates that the patients’ brain functions are not dead. Eddie takes Saanvi to the records’ room so that she can see their charts. The brain-scan images of the patients start beaming lights upward toward the ceiling.

Saanvi believes those to be like antennas, the patients’ direct channel to the divine consciousness. And remembering the last words of the Major (shown in a flashback) before she died, Saanvi concludes that the Major, in an effort to weaponize the patients, somehow found a way to “tune the detainees into the God frequency.” If Saanvi could only figure out how the Major accomplished this, she could find a solution to helping the 828 passengers make it past their death date!

Remember that it was Eden’s calling that ultimately led to Saanvi’s discovery via Ben’s follow-up at ALNI. Well, when Ben returns home, Eden holds him by the hand and calls him “daddy” with the cutest smile ever, which brings tears of joy to Ben’s eyes. By pursuing Eden’s calling successfully, Ben also managed to finally connect with his daughter.

When Saanvi and Vance go through the Major’s records, they find no evidence of sapphire being used. Vance discovers that Dr. Gupta conducted the patients’ intake exams. Needless to say, Saanvi would like a word with Gupta.

The episode goes into high-gear mode in its last two minutes with Michaela realizing during a conversation with Ben at the house that the blood-dripping “X” she has seen in her calling was actually a cross. She matches how Ben is rotating the paper on which he drew an X to help Michaela contemplate, with how Noelle rotated the cross on her wall during her and Jared’s visit. She now believes the calling did indeed lead her to the killer (Noelle). She was just looking for the wrong person (Angelina).

Right at that moment, Jared rushes into the house with shocking news. The Registry thinks they found the killer because the third 828er murdered was Violet, and they have camera photos of Cal being the last person to see her alive. Jared urges Cal to leave, because if he is apprehended, he will be charged with murder as Gabriel, and most likely, his true identity will be uncovered as well. Talk about the rug being pulled out from under someone in multiple ways. Poor Cal!

Jared says to Ben, “Call needs to run, now!” as the episode ends.

Last-minute thoughts:

— Olive does not appear in this episode. Luna Blaise is an asset to Manifest, nonetheless her absence in this outing does not diminish the its merit.

— There is a subplot squeezed into the outing, making Michaela and Jared investigate an Xer named Greg Turner (Brian Kali) on a lead before they realize that the killer cannot be him since another 828er was murdered while they were stalking him. Not sure if this was a necessary subplot and I almost gave the episode a 4.5 grade instead of 5 because of it, but at the end, I had to admit that there had been enough of a build-up toward an Xer being the killer to make it legitimate.

— In a flashback, we see Saanvi at a bar as she spots Alex enter with a man as her date. Saanvi is crestfallen, and the bartender who has been flirting with her suddenly appears more attractive to her than ever. No idea where this is going, or if it is even followed up in future episodes, but Saanvi did ask her what time she gets off work after the bartender offered Saanvi to share her bed for the night!

— There is a well-nuanced theme of “missed chances” present for Saanvi and Alex in Romeo. There is the scene at the bar, and the flashback in which Saanvi is about to send a text to Alex and gets interrupted by Vance’s message, and Alex’s intent to add Saanvi as a friend on facebook when she gets distracted by an incoming email on Cal’s test results, and finally, Alex’s confession to Zeke that she actually came to the airport on the day Flight 828 was supposed to arrive, except it did not, until five and a half years later.

— Another episode with great nods to past events and characters, a Manifest staple.

Until the next episode…

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“Relative Bearing” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Laura Putney & Ryan Martinez
Director: Harvey Waldman
Grade: 4.5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published little less than two years after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

We are in the aftermath of the bombing and fire that marked the climax of “Squawk.” Remember the ‘X’ers from season 2, the group of people who hated the 828ers and believed them to be freaks of nature? They were featured in a season-long story arc that had Jared infiltrate them as a spy to help law enforcement ultimately take them down. Well, it turns out that Vance arranged to make it look like Xers were behind the chaos at the compound. Captain Colvin wants the shell cases found at the scene taken to ballistics to match it to a gun. Later, Jared meets with Vance and Emmett in a car. He thinks this situation is “not fixable,” and he will turn the shell casings to ballistics. His gun has never been test-fired so it should not appear in the records. Vance advises strongly against it and tells him to “lose the casings” in order to not leave things to luck. Jared questions Vance’s moral compass before getting out of the vehicle.

Well, Vance was right. Jared should not have left things up to luck! Later in the hour, at the precinct, Captain Colvin orders Jared to turn his weapon in for analysis, because the evidence found on Erika’s bullet wounds point toward a standard NYPD issue gun, and Jared was present at the compound when she was shot. Colvin advises Jared to contact his union representative!

Angelina takes shelter in her mother Noelle’s house (Heidi Armbruster, first seen in season 3 opener “Tailfin,” reprises her role as Angelina’s nervy, religious mother).

Cal, whose chronic coughing should worry anyone and everyone by now, is convinced that they are not doing enough to save the lifeboat. Olive tries to encourage him not to give up. Ben, for his part, is agonizing over not only Eden’s refusal to see him as her dad, but also over her belief that he is the “bad man.” To make matters worse, he finds out later in the episode that Angelina is still alive because she directly calls him for instructions on how to feed Eden, as if to add salt to his wound on purpose!

Zeke is feeling guilty about taking a life and worried about his inability to control his rage. He runs into the coughing Cal. Weirdest conversation takes place during which each expresses his concern for the other – “you know you can talk to me right?” they tell each other. Yet, they both respond that they are doing just fine and dandy, although they are clearly and getting worse by the minute.

Most of the above events take place within the first 9 minutes and build the background of the plot lines, pointing toward some reckoning moments to come for the main characters. Once again, these are too many plotlines to run simultaneously, a recurring issue with Manifest, but in this case, a few extra minutes of running time (48 minutes) help a bit and dialogues don’t feel as rushed as they did in many other such episodes with running times between 40 and 45 minutes. Another success of “Relative Bearing” is its insistence on adding nuances to previous storylines and fleshing them out further, instead of adding new ones or creating new mega question marks, which comes a pleasant surprise considering that the multiple-episode, space and time-consuming search-for-Eden story line had concluded in the previous episode. Nothing feels rushed in this outing and there are hardly any contrivances.

Michaela gets a calling where she sees water beneath her feet under a glass with colorful fishes, plants, and blood flowing in from either side – for some unknown reason, when Michaela describes the calling later to Ben, she leaves out the incoming blood and simply says the water was “filled with colorful fish, plant, bubbles.” Strange!

The description reminds Ben of a passenger named Sam Wile (Josh Sauerman) who owns an aquarium supply company with his wife. Michaela pays him a visit, only to find him murdered in blood and the house trashed. She calls Jared who drops the funniest line of the hour when he arrives, “828 crime scenes seem to be my thing.” Hahaha, yes indeed, Jared. It has been four seasons of just that, brother!

When Jared sees Sam’s body, he recognizes him from a protest in the street from a while back pitting 828ers against the Xers. We see Sam in a flashback being unnecessarily roughed up by a police officer (Charlie Kevin) who also saw 828ers as “freaks,” before Jared comes to Sam’s help and ends up knocking the officer down with a punch – only then did I realize that it was the same officer who had an attitude toward Jared earlier in the episode (I had wondered why) during the compound-area-investigation scene in the aftermath of the explosions.

Jared also remembered that Sam had a strange looking wedding ring, which is missing from his dead corpse. They decide to “waylay” (Micheala says, I learned a new verb) Sam’s wife for some answers.

Back at the Stone household, Olive, once again proving that she is the smartest of the bunch, tells Cal that there must be another way to get information from the divine consciousness because Eden was never in the glow (the supposed location of the divine consciousness), and yet she still possesses the ability to get callings, thus also putting into question Saanvi’s theory that callings are memories from the passengers’ time in the glow.

Oh, how I fantasize about Olive showing everyone with irrefutable evidence that this divine consciousness theory is codswallop, so that it can be dropped in the trash bin, never to be picked up again! But alas, it appears that it is here to stay.

Ben, after another failed attempt at bonding with Eden (she runs out of the room yelling for ‘Mommy’), realizes that it’s time for him to lose the beard since Eden associates his bearded face with the “bad man.” This leads to an emotional father-daughter bonding scene (tears allowed for fans of these two) during which Olive shaves her dad’s beard the way Grace used to when she was alive.

Meanwhile, Eagan the scuzzball is out of prison and running his own agenda once again. Adrian catches up with him and roughs him up in a bathroom (“I was midstream!!” Eagan yells), blaming him for ratting out the location of the compound. Eagan blames Angelina for torching Adrian’s “private Idaho.” This is when we learn that Adrian dropped her off in West Chester after picking her up on the road in the closing scene of “Squawk.” He also informs Eagan that she is on the FBI’s wanted list and there is a $20K reward for information on her whereabouts. Wheels are already turning in Eagan’s head. His next stop is the house of Angelina’s mom and his plan is to blackmail her into buying his silence about Angelina staying with her. He settles for her valuable golden watch, for now.

Jared and Micheala ‘waylay’ Sam’s wife Lana (Lauren Hooper) as planned. She tells them that they divorced six months ago because he became obsessed with helping everyone, taking people in off the streets and cashing out funds out of their family business account. He never got over their divorce, according to her, and kept wearing his wedding ring (which was missing from his dead corpse, as noted above). Jared contacts Drea to pull up the Wiles’ bank records to see where the family-business money was being channeled.

It turns out that, for the last six months, he was withdrawing $2K every month before going to his required check-in at the Registry. Furthermore, Drea learns that after each visit to the Registry, he was personally pulled in for questioning by Captain Colvin himself! She pokes around in his office and finds Sam’s wedding band in the Captain’s coat pocket. She takes the ring, calls Michaela and Jared, and informs them that she is heading straight to Internal Affairs.

Except that Colvin spots Drea coming out of his office from a distance. After realizing that the ring is missing from his coat pocket in the office, he chases Drea to the rooftop. Jared and Michaela soon arrive to assist Drea. Colvin admits to “skimming the collection plate” by taking Sam’s money but not to killing him: “Why would I do that? You don’t kill the golden goose,” he says. He then suggests that they act as if nothing happened, so that he can retire in peace and Jared can get his gun back, and he and Drea can avoid jail time. Jared, who has been reevaluating his moral compass throughout the episode wants none of it, and they apprehend Colvin.

Later, Jared gets another piece of good news. Vance has once again pulled some strings and had the ballistics report altered on the casings and the bullet. They now match some gun that hasn’t even been manufactured, meaning that Erika’s case will file under cold cases, probably never to be solved. Another chapter of ‘Vance to the rescue’ reaches its end.

Ben has invited Anna Ross to the house in hopes of surrounding Eden with a familiar face so that she can feel safer in the house. Anna was the woman with whom Angelina and Eden stayed for a while as we saw back in the season opener “Touch-and-Go.” She had also initially hidden from Ben the fact that they were staying with her, explaining later to him in “All-Call” that she had only meant to protect Eden because she had been misled by Angelina who described him as a terrible person. In any case, Ben hopes that Anna can help Eden understand who is part of her family and who is not.

Angelina, for her part, gets in touch with Cal and manages to persuade him to let her talk to Eden. In return, Cal wants her to tell Eden that Ben is her father and that she is not her mother. Really, Cal? You really believed she would do that? After all that she dragged you through back in season 3, even though your parents welcomed her into their house back in season 3, and topped it all by killing your mother? Oh dear Cal…

Needless to say, Cal’s plan goes awry. Ben happens to walk in on Angelina singing a song to Eden over the phone’s speaker. He turns it off and goes berserk on Cal who had already spent two years trying to win the affection of his dad back after the events that led to his mother’s death at the hands of Angelina. Cal does not have the emotional wherewithal to handle another such period. He leaves the house later with his backpack, leaving a note behind that says, “Dad, you were right. It’s best if I am not here right now.”

Olive, the high-IQ representative of the show, realizes that sapphire has been at the center of every unexplainable phenomena they faced so far (Ben’s glowing hand, the ark piece, the tailfin). It has also been referenced multiple times in history through mythical, religious, and legendary stories. She concludes that sapphire played a role throughout history whenever humans have been in communication with the divine. Her theory is that passengers can use sapphire to get unlimited callings.

Four short scenes in succession show Noelle asking Angelina about Eagan, Michaela getting an evaluation under the supervision of the officer in charge of the compound incident, Eagan walking into a precinct with Angelina’s “wanted by the FBI” post (so much for his promise to Noelle to keep his lips sealed after collecting her watch), and Eden watching the volcano erupt in the snow globe in her bedroom (like Cal did back in “Destination Unknown”).

Remember Colvin denying killing Sam on the rooftop? That meant that the killer is still on the loose. This is confirmed when we see Anna opening the front door of her house after hearing footsteps and getting assaulted with a knife, filmed from the point-of-view of the killer. Why would someone kill Sam Wile and Anna Ross? Is it an Xer or someone we know? To be pursued in later episodes…

Back to Zeke, who is on the cusp of a mental and emotional breakdown, or something like that. He stops by a liquor store and starts drinking a bottle. After he dumps the half empty bottle in the garbage bin on the way home, he trips over Cal’s body lying down on the sidewalk. He is holding Cal and desperately trying to get him to wake up as the episode ends, and credits begin rolling.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Earlier in the episode, when another patient session goes terribly wrong for Zeke, he is dismissed by the social worker in charge.

– The scene with Olive shaving Ben’s beard was sentimental, as noted above, but the shaving itself did not have any impact on Ben gaining Eden’s sympathy.

– Olive tells her sapphire theory over a phone message to TJ. Remember her boyfriend TJ who left for Egypt on a scholarship (“Call Sign”) back in season 2?

– To reinforce the “Jared’s moral compass” narrative, writers included a back story with flashbacks of his conversations with his dad (Carlos Gomez), and a birthday-party dialogue scene between the two in the present, showing how proud his father has been of Jared being an honorable police officer.

Until the next episode…

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“Squawk” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Simran Baidwan & Sumerah Srivastav
Director: Mike Smith
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published little less than two years after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

“Squawk” serves its primordial purpose, bringing the long arc of search for Eden to a close. It makes use of the series’ usual tools, convenient callings and timely flashbacks, to pack in a series of events taking place in a matter of around 48 hours in a presentable and entertaining way. Solid performances by Holly Taylor, Ty Doran, Jared Grimes, and Matt Long, help matters since they play the four characters (Angelina, Cal, Adrian, and Zeke) in this episode who struggle to manage the heavy burden of their emotional baggage. It’s also nice to see, albeit a luxury for Manifest, an episode focused on neatly divided A and B stories instead of several plots advancing simultaneously in a rush.

Let’s dive in.

We pick up right where the previous episode “Go-Around” ended, with a flabbergasted Vance arriving to the Stone household, ranting about Ben going after Eden two hours earlier without letting him know the location. He is not surprised to learn that his family is not even aware of this. “There’s no way this ends well,” he states.

Next, we see Ben tied up and gagged at the basement floor of a building at the compound where Adrian hosts 828’ers. Jared stops by to follow up on the fertilizer-purchase lead from “Go-Around.” Erika and Adrian explain that large quantities of fertilizer were needed to grow the ingredients necessary to produce honey with a better flavor. Jared wishes them good luck and leaves, but Erika is uneasy about Ben’s presence in the compound, and Jared is uneasy about what Erika “is up to” with all that fertilizer.

In the B story of the hour, Saanvi goes under a functional MRI machine under Troy’s supervision to see if her brain somehow is receptive to ultra-low frequency (ULF) discovered in the black box, exploring the possibility of “someone or something” communicating with the passengers through ULF. The machine, however, shows no sign of such evidence in her brain scans.

Back at the compound, Eden follows a bee down to the basement and notices Ben tied up. It’s a potent moment, because Ben finally sees his daughter standing right there in front of him, but is helpless to do or say anything as Angelina arrives just in time to pick Eden back up in her arms. She refers to Ben as a “very bad man” and says to Eden, “Mommy is here to protect you,” as she gives an evil look toward Ben to induce him into further rage. We see him screaming from behind the gag as Angelina walks away with Eden, and the generic begins.

A short scene at the compound confirms that Erika is definitely cooking up a bomb with all the fertilizer, some liquids, and whatnot. This is followed by Zeke’s counseling session at work that ends disastrously. He fails to use his powers – apparently for the first time – to heal his patient and notices his hands are shaking. This whole “absorb other people’s pain” healing routine is starting to have a negative impact on his health, as expected by anyone and everyone at this point.

Erika introduces herself to Angelina at the compound, because she has the brilliant idea (!!) of informing Angelina that she has placed a bomb in every room of the building, so that if the law enforcement were to come, they can sneak out the back with the remote detonator and blast it with everyone inside. She says all this as if it’s supposed to make Angelia feel safer. Seriously, is there any logical thought process behind Erika to do this? What is there to gain for her by letting an unstable young girl with a baby know about the planted bombs? I would like to beam back in time to the writers’ room and be a fly on the wall as they discuss this scene.

Ben tries to gain the sympathy of one of the 828 residents named Donovan (Germar Terrell Gardner), trying to convince him that Adrian is hiding Angelina and his daughter at the compound (nobody but Adrian is supposed to know that they are hiding there), and that Donovan should free him.

In the meantime, Cal and Olive are at Vance’s operating center, so to speak, and joining them are Saanvi and Troy. Saanvi decides to sample Cal’s scar on his arm as he and Olive update Saanvi on the mythological objects glowing the night before. It points to divine consciousness and they concluded that this is where the 828 flight was all the missing years – I’ve maxed out on this far-out-there turn of story in my last review, won’t repeat again here. Needless to say, Saanvi wants Cal under the FMRI machine.

From this point forward, several things happen so that the essential characters ultimately converge on the compound in order to get to the real purpose of this outing, which is the resolution of the search for Eden:
– A calling with a bee leads Michaela to search for Erika, which then brings her, Zeke, Jared, and Drea to stake out the compound.
– Cal has a calling inside the FMRI machine which points to Ben and Eden’s location.
– Ben manages to untie himself.
– Donovan and the other 828’ers begin to turn against Adrian.
– Angelina and Erika also turn against Adrian and, using the threat of the detonator, take control of everyone in the compound.

The last 20 minutes are an intense race against time (read: the prospect of Angelina or Erika activating the detonator at any time) as Michaela, Jared, and Zeke enter the compound through a back door to find Ben. Cal, for his part, enters through the front to have a “private talk” with Angelina, reminding her of their connection from back when he was younger in the third season.

With Cal and Angelina away in another room, Erika gets distracted looking for them, leaving the other passengers temporarily unsupervised. Michaela arrives and instructs them to leave the building. Ben finds Eden in bed, grabs her and heads for the exit, but Angelina stands in their way downstairs with the detonator in her hand, setting up a stand-off in the corridor between her and Ben, Cal, and Eden. Angelina pushes the button thinking her “little angel” will protect the two of them from the explosion somehow, in the same way she imagines Eden finding a way to stop her from jumping off the bridge a while back (shown in a flashback). The bombs don’t go off immediately, and Cal grabs Angelina’s arms, allowing enough time for Ben to run out with Eden.

The bombs begin to go off before Ben can get back inside to save Cal, but somehow, Cal walks out moments after the explosions, hardly injured. Later, Zeke senses danger thanks to his powers and notices Erika coming out of the building (has no one died in the explosions?) pointing her rifle toward Michaela. He quickly grabs Jared’s gun and shoots Erika several times, unleashing all the rage inside him most likely accumulated from constantly absorbing other people’s negative emotions during his counseling sessions. Kudos to Matt Long for conveying Zeke’s pent-up anger through his stride and facial expression as he shoots Erika time after time, creating a quite a terrifying 15-second sequence.

The episode goes to great lengths to increase the health concerns for Cal and Zeke. Cal gets coughing fits throughout the outing, finally coughing up blood at the house in the hour’s closing moments. Zeke, for his part, is more and more unsettled with the use of his powers and his ability to control his emotions. They both tell everyone around them that they are fine, but why? Why not tell your close ones that something deeply concerning is brewing up and impacting your health in a negative way? It seems that their loved ones would be best equipped to help them get through those issues. They have relied on each other for over 3 seasons, why stop now?

The episode ends with Adrian driving and finding Angelina lying down injured on the highway, He helps her into his car and drives away.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Will someone please ask Cal what happened to Angelina? After all, he was in a physical struggle with her when Ben left the building carrying Eden, before the explosions went off. It only makes sense that someone would be curious enough to ask him about her. She obviously survived that ordeal, so did she escape from the struggle? Did Cal just leave her alive when he walked out?

– For that matter, Adrian also somehow escaped the explosions. I wish the episode put a bit more effort into fleshing out how these characters survived the explosions.

– Ashes keep coming down in various callings throughout the episode. I thought it related to the explosions in the climactic moments of the episode, but then why did Adrian see them again at the end while helping Angelina into his car?

– During Saanvi’s FMRI scan scene, Troy ponders the possibility of a higher power – he calls it “God frequency” – communicating with the passengers, in line with the divine consciousness narrative introduced in “Go-Around.”

– During Cal and Angelina’s struggle in the climactic stand-off scene inside the house, Cal tells Ben to run out with Eden and that he’ll be fine because he “remembered it.” He says later that he knew that the detonator was not going to go off in time. Did he remember seeing that happening while he was inside the glow, as in, inside the divine consciousness during the missing years? Meaning that he can predict things in the future? Apparently so.

Until the next episode…

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“Go-Around” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Matt K. Turner & Ezra W. Nachman
Director: SJ Main Muñoz
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published more than a year after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

The cold open shows Michaela from a distance jogging outside, but I honestly thought it was a woman in her 50s judging by the running style (small strides) and posture, until it showed Michaela up close taking off her hoodie. She is at the cemetery to visit the grave of her once best friend Evie. It’s the fourth-year anniversary of her tragic death in the car accident.

Michaela then gets a calling during which a layer of heavy fog appears just above the ground and a bird with lightning blasting out of its eyes appears to fly in the sky above Michaela. When she returns home, she finds Ben rushing to leave. He reluctantly admits that Eagan is his new lead on Eden, recalling the closing moments of “High Flight.” He is leaving to meet with him at the prison. Michaela naturally reminds Ben to remember what a scumbag Eagan is before adding that he needs “proof, not hope.”

“Go-Around” is a transitionary episode hinting at the finish line approaching with regard to Ben’s relentless search for Eden. In general, the hour is entertaining and includes some great sequences of acting performances by the members of the main cast, notably Luna Blaise, Josh Dallas, and Daryl Edwards. The simultaneous running of too many story lines squeezed into less than 45 minutes prevent the smooth progress of the more meaningful plots and negatively impact the pacing, but overall it’s a respectable entry that extends the show’s solid start to its fourth season.

Drea arrives at Shinnecock Indian Nation Territory with an arrest warrant for a man named Kyle Boyd (first credited TV role for Makela Yepez, according to Imdb) who is on the list of the 828 Registry and skipped all his mandatory check-ins. She is greeted by an Indian resident named Tela (Taylor Red Fox) who deliberately makes her feel unwelcome, reminding her that this is Indian Nation territory where arrest warrants issued outside carry no clout. She advises Drea to leave.

Back to Michaela who types “bird lightning thunder mythology” in the search bar on her computer to dig deeper into her calling. She notices the image of a bird with lightning coming out if its eyes with the subtitle “Native American Thunderbird Mythology.” Drea calls her to rant about the arrest she could not make due the rules and regulations within Indian sovereign lands. During the call, the search page begins scrolling down rapidly on its own in front of Michaela before it abruptly stops at the sign of Shinnecock Nation land – one thing I have not been able to dismiss off-hand throughout Manifest is how blatantly callings have been used as convenient plot devices in the name of advancing the narrative. They also come in any shape or form, including this latest “google-search” calling. Hey, you wanna move the plot from A to B but can’t figure out how? Just cook up a calling and, voilà!

Michaela arrives at Shinnecock. Tela thinks Drea sent her, but Michaela quickly assures her that she is not even a cop, and that she simply needs to talk Kyle as soon as possible. She then gets another calling with the same bird from earlier hovering above a house at a distance. She figures out that it must be Kyle’s house and asks Tela for permission to visit him. Is Tela the official president of the welcoming committee at this place? Did I miss something? Anyhow, she accompanies Michaela to Kyle’s house. As they approach, Michaela notices the heavy fog on the grounds surrounding the house, also noticed by Kyle when he opens the door to let her in. Obviously, the calling meant for them to meet, but why?

Michaela’s use of the phrase “it’s all connected” piques Kyle’s curiosity because it’s a phrase used often by his mom. He tells the sad story of how she got sick, and how she currently lays in a hospital bed in New York alone, waiting to die. He cannot leave the Indian sovereign land to visit her due to the arrest warrant issued by the Registry. Michaela will help him out on that, and she believes that this is the reason for which the calling brought them together. This is confirmed when another calling with the heavy fog causes her to stop driving away from the Indian land and forces her to relive in a vision the nightmare of the evening leading to the car accident that killed Evie. She turns the car around to take Kyle immediately to his mother.

In the meantime, Ben arrives at his dreaded visit to the prison to talk with Eagan. As expected, Eagan wants something in return before revealing the whereabouts of Eden. Oh, it’s not much, just his release from prison! When Ben brings this to Captain Colvin’s attention – first appearance of the Registry’s chief, played by the veteran TV actor Philip Casnoff – he gets swiftly rejected. He next turns to Vance for help – who’d a thunk it?

Vance is pissed off with Ben to say the least, because even though he did everything he could to find Eden, Ben stopped talking to him about a year ago. Heck, Ben didn’t even know that Saanvi is working with Vance! But he promises Vance that “this time, it’s going to be different.” I chuckled! Vance huffed! Ben basically needs Vance to use his contacts to arrange some type of a deal for Eagan, the very scuzzball who broke into Vance’s house and held his son hostage. Yet, every viewer probably guessed by then that, in one way or another, Ben would convince Vance to help him, once again. “Let me see what I can do,” the latter finally replies.

There is also a C story related to the background of the sibling dynamics between Cal and Olive. Couple of flashbacks show a bitter Olive who seems to blame Cal for the loss of their mother because he secretly allowed Angelina to remain in the house after Grace kicked her out in season 3’s “Compass Calibration.” But, much to Cal’s relief, Olive no longer seems to resent him. Another flashback later shows (see more below) that Zeke’s acquired supernatural powers — sigh!! — had something to do with that. Olive genuinely tries to help her brother figure out what Fiona meant when she said, “you already have the answer” in “High Flight.” She recaps to Cal (and to viewers who may not remember) how they figured out the death date, and more – the peacock, the Roman Goddess Juno, the year of the dragon, the compass, the Al-Zuras journal, etc.

Yet, none of it shines a light on what Fiona meant. Olive quickly realizes that she is in possession of one more piece of the puzzle, the tarot card she received from a reader at an amusement park when she was much younger (see season 2’s “Coordinated Flight”). It’s called “The Star Card” and has the image of the same unique star also found on the compass, in the journal, etc.

Jared, for his part, offers to help Drea with her workload at the Registry by following-up on a call about a passenger making a “suspicious purchase of fertilizer.” It leads him to a garden center to meet with a salesman named Lewis, played by the underrated actor Brian Anthony Wilson who smashed it with his recurring role as Detective Holland in all five seasons of the The Wire. Lewis saw red flags when a woman bought an exuberant amount of fertilizer considering the upcoming season of the ground freezing up for months. Jared requests that he sent the footage from surveillance cameras to the precinct.

Next, we see Ben and Vance visiting Eagan at the prison to offer him a chance at his release, provided that he coughs up Eden’s location. The most powerful moment of the episode occurs here, partly thanks to Darryl Edwards’s gut-wrenching performance. Vance loses his temper with Eagan and accuses him of causing his son to have nightmares for months and his wife to blame him for that, eventually leading to their divorce. In other words, Eagan ruined Vance’s family life. What is striking in this potent scene is how, during Vance’s diatribe, Ben comes to the realization that Vance coming to his rescue time after time has led to the demise of the ex-Director’s family. Josh Dallas also shines here, aptly depicting Ben’s sense of compunction upon seeing Vance’s suffering, and realizing that the world does not revolve around him and his search for Eden after all. He tries to mumble, “Vance… I.. I didn’t know,” but Vance has zero interest in Ben’s feelings of remorse. He turns to him and unloads: “How would you? You only care about one thing! I’m glad one of us gets to put our family back together.” Amazing scene!

After Vance leaves the room, Eagan finally signs the release conditions and provides Ben with an address on a piece of paper that burns away as Ben reads it. He informs Vance waiting outside that he will text him the address before offering his genuine apology once again about being selfish.

Michaela and Zeke sneak Kyle into the hospital to see his mother. She is not able to talk but thanks to Zeke’s superpowers — sigh! again — allowing him to act as a medium between Kyle and his mom, the young man understands that his mother deeply loves him. He decides to take her to their homeland to spend her last moments together.

This is when Zeke has a flashback to a moment where he found Olive in a state of emotional turmoil (still blaming Cal for Grace’s death) and offered to hold her hand. Once they did, somehow Olive was invaded with feelings of serenity and her sorrows were transferred to Zeke, or something like that… Is that what Zeke did here with Kyle’s mother as he was holding her hand? It’s unclear but the timing of the flashback suggests so. If Zeke indeed possesses the power to absorb other people’s dolor, it makes one wonder what damage that could cause to his own mental state over a period of time.

Of course, Kyle cannot simply check his mother out of the hospital without providing his name and when he does, it doesn’t take too long before Drea shows up with officers to arrest him. It turns out that Zeke has already sneaked Kyle and his mom away in a cab, largely thanks to Drea secretly cooperating with them. Kyle apparently left an Indian nation blanket for Michaela in the hospital room to express his gratitude for her help.

Micheala and Zeke arrive home and find Cal and Olive busting their brains, still trying to solve the puzzle of Cal’s purpose. Olive notices the star on the blanket given to Michaela. It has the same features as the one on the tarot card and the compass. On top of the star on the blanket, Olive notices the image of a button, which prompts Cal to tap on a button on the compass. A small part of the compass comes undone, and the words “Divina Conscientia” – Divine Consciousness – are etched inside the cap.

Olive’s brain goes into high gear as she states that The Star Card represents enlightenment, which means that Cal is directly connected to divine consciousness. This is when all the gadgets that the two spread out on the table with the star on them start to emanate a bright light. Cal recognizes it, because it is the same glow from the outside of the plane when he was temporarily stuck with Captain Daly and Fiona. Cal claims that “it’s all connected” and that they were all stuck inside the glow for 5.5 years. “We were in the divine consciousness,” he exclaims!

Er, can I get a wut?

Where is this story line going exactly? As John McEnroe would famously say: “You cannot be serious!”

Maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear that the expression on Luna Blaise’s face as Olive hinted at the actor herself trying to suppress a hard laugh as Cal said that sentence. I would not blame her, I barely suppressed one myself. I hope this is not going the way of Cal representing God in some form or fashion. Please, no!

Vance and his right-hand man Emmett leave in their car to meet Ben, except that Ben texted them the wrong address. He does not want Vance to be involved in his pursuit any longer. He calls him using a prepaid phone to thank him for everything he has done and informs him that he (Ben) must do the rest alone.

Jared checks out the surveillance-footage photos sent to him by Lewis, and Drea recognizes the woman buying the fertilizers. It’s Erika Burness who was one of Eagan’s disciples and whose boyfriend Randall almost killed Vance’s son in “Mayday: Part 2.” Jared sees Adrian’s name marked as her landlord! He and Drea decide to head to the location.

That location is also where Ben has arrived to retrieve Eden. As he goes around the house searching for an entry point, he gets knocked in the head from behind. That is the last scene of the outing, leaving it in some sort of a cliffhanger. It also makes it feel like this was the penultimate episode of a season — it’s not, obviously — because Ben should once and for all reach Eden in the next hour, which would bring closure to one of the longer arc plots of the season so far.

Last-minute thoughts:

– During his visit at the prison, Ben gets ultra-frustrated with Eagan and runs toward him as if to punch him. He later bangs the table with his fist from sheer anger. The guards could have at least taken a step or two toward Ben in either of those instances just to make the scene seem a tad more realistic. But, alas…

– There is a run-of-the-mill xyz story line concerning Jared’s new partner Officer Diaz – recurring officer since season 1 played by Omar Torres II – for which I did not care. It’s about Diaz eventually asking Jared to be frank and honest with him about conducting business unrelated to cop work during their working hours.

– Eagan signs the release document and writes the address on the corner of one of the pages of the document. He then tears that piece away to give it to Ben. Is that document still valid when a page has a corner torn? Yeah, I know, who cares, right?

Until the next episode…

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“High Flight” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Margaret Easley & MW Cartozian Wilson
Director: Marisol Adler
Grade: 4.5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published more than a year after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

Unless you have a stellar memory and can vividly remember every past episode, I would recommend a re-watch of Season 1’s “Contrails,” one of Manifest’s best episodes to date, prior to watching “High Flight.” This outing heavily relies on the backdrop of events that took place in “Contrails,” both episodes coincidentally — or perhaps not — directed by Marisol Adler and featuring guest stars Frank Deal as Captain Daly and Leajato Robinson as the co-pilot Amuta.

“Contrails” ended with an obsessed Captain Daly kidnapping Fiona and flying an airplane into dark lightning in hopes of recreating what happened on that night when Flight 828 disappeared. The last words out of his mouth to Fiona were, “See you in 2024!” Side note in retrospect: The “previously on” bit at the beginning of the episode omits this last sentence for good reasons, I reckon. The episode aired in 2022. I do wonder, however, if that was part of showrunner Jeff Rake’s initial plan, to have Captain Daly reappear during an episode in a possible 5th or 6th season in 2024. Had that been the case, it would have been neat to replay that sentence in the “previously on” bit.

The opening scene of the hour shows Eden drawing something after seeing ash falling from the ceiling. We switch immediately to the Stone household where Ben is frustrated with the NYPD because they don’t seem enthusiastic about reopening Eden’s case, even with the new evidence uncovered in the last outing “All-Call.” While Ben’s ranting Michaela hears a thunder, meaning a calling, also heard by Cal downstairs. Ben not only did not get the calling, but he is more interested in carrying on with his rant than accompanying Michaela to pursue the calling.

Downstairs, Olive and Cal are having a conversation in which Olive says that throughout Cal’s disappearance, she never felt that he was gone, that he was “still out there.” She solemnly adds that she doesn’t get that feeling with Eden. Am I the only one in thinking that Luna Blaise’s portrayal of Olive has slowly turned into one of the bright spots of the show? I have not seen Blaise in any other show or movie, and I plan to correct that sooner than later.

Jared shows up at the door. It’s his day off but hey, that’s how Jared rolls, right? It has been his integral role in the Manifest lore since time immemorial to be the Stones’ reliable, all-purpose helper who drops everything when they call. Ben and Michaela lay out the information obtained from Anna in the season-opening “Touch-and-Go” with regard to Eden and Angelina. Jared’s solution is to go to the 828 Registry because Drea now works there, which gives her “the juice” (Jared’s words) to make Eden’s case a priority.

Cal meets Saanvi at the “bird’s nest” (this is apparently the name they deemed fit for Vance and Saanvi’s secret base) to show her his newly acquired dragon scar on his forearm. When Saanvi plays the 6.2-second-long black-box recording of the callings, Cal’s scar reacts in an agitated way. The two are connected, which leads to Cal to conclude that they need to figure out what happened on the flight during those six seconds. Nothing new here, we knew at some point the mystery of the plane flying into the dark lightning was going to be a central part of the equation, and here we are…

Michaela, Jared, and Ben meet Drea at the Registry. Once inside, Michaela hears the thunder again and notices the 828 co-pilot Amuta who also seems to be experiencing the same calling. It has to be a sign, right? She leaves the three others to talk with him, but Amuta brushes her off, saying that he has a plane to fly. He now flies private airplanes in hopes of putting his life back together.

Back at the Registry, Drea finds the record of the librarian in Anna’s neighborhood, reporting a stolen phone and noting a distressed woman with a toddler (scene from “All-Call”). They head over to the library where they find the computer that Angelina used, except that the browser memory has been erased. But no worries, the extremely friendly librarian (Nafeesa Monroe) will let them take the computer to NYPD for a deeper search – it is revealed toward the end of the episode that, unfortunately for Ben, the computer has been thoroughly wiped clean.

In the meantime, there are B, C, and D story-lines brewing.

For instance, as they enter the library, Ben notices ashes falling from the ceiling and the calling takes him to some hell-like place with fire burning everywhere, with a male figure standing with his back turned. Ben yells, “Do you know where my daughter is?” before the calling ends. A nice job of editing takes the viewers to the prison yard where Eagan apparently had the same calling. Oh, he gets beaten up by the way by other prisoners for being an “828 freak.” This scene is a question mark at that moment, but it will pay off later in the episode when it’s confirmed that Eagan was indeed the male figure in Ben’s calling.

In another story line – I would call this one the B story – Angelina and Eden are still hiding upstairs in Adrian’s “safe haven” for 828 passengers. Adrian is not comfortable with hiding a kidnapper-murderer in the attic, rightfully believing that their presence will scare the others. He tells Angelina to move out in the morning.

Michaela arrives to the bird’s nest to talk to Amuta. Cal and Saanvi bring her up to date about the 6.2 seconds in the black box. Amuta is the only one who can describe what he and Daly saw (remember, Daly is missing since flying off into dark lightning in “Contrails”), so Michaela must find a way to make Amuta cooperate. Michaela’s somewhat mean solution is to temporarily get him suspended by hacking and altering his record via Saanvi’s computer. He is thus required to report to the address indicated on the record to restore his status, and lo and behold, it’s the address of the bird’s nest. Clever Michaela, very clever!

Needless to say, an exasperated Amuta soon arrives and Michaela and Saanvi quickly inform him of the black box, the callings, and their connection to the 6.2 seconds during which the plane flew into the storm. After listening to their cockpit recording heading into the storm, Amuta eases up and describes those seconds. “That was the moment we died,” he states. He says that all the lightnings came together to form one large “ball of pure light” and Daly decided to fly right into it. “It was beautiful,” Amuta continues, “I felt overwhelmed by a sense of peace.”

Apparently, Daly became obsessed with the pursuit of returning there, which justifies his actions in “Contrails.” Amuta confesses his guilt for not having stopped his then-best friend from flying into the lightning, and again from kidnapping Fiona and flying off into another storm in hops of returning to that big ball of pure light. This is the strongest sequence of the episode, largely due to Leajato Robinson’s well-grounded performance as Amuta. The co-pilot mourns the loss of his long-time friend, yet reserves hope that he may return back, but cannot shake off his remorse for not having stopped him. Robinson excels in conveying all these emotions without dabbing into any type of excessive, tear-jerking mode.

“High Flight” goes into hyper-paranormal mode when Ben notices a flower being drawn on the ceiling. It is the same flower as the one on Eden’s drawing that he collected from the library. Eden is indeed connecting with Ben from the attic of Adrian’s safe house. Angelina sees Eden drawing the flower, and perhaps to dissipate her insecurity about struggling to form her own special connection with Eden, she suggests playing a game where Eden has to mind-read what Angelina draws on her paper and draw the same herself. Angelina begins fuming as Eden keeps drawing different things and the scene keeps switching – nice editing here, again – between them and an overly excited Ben in his house who sees Eden’s drawings appear on the ceiling and draws on top of them on the ceiling to send a signal back to Eden. Quality camera work, astute editing, and the background music make this a great scene to confirm that Eden is indeed connected with her dad, and not with the quasi-looney Angelina.

Olive gathers her courage to join Ben in his rooftop office, so to speak, and recognizes the drawings on the ceiling from the “X marks the spot” game that she and Cal used to play. Suddenly, she can feel Eden again, in the same way that she felt Cal during his disappearance – nice nod again to an earlier dialogue in the episode. She suggests that Ben draws something on the ceiling to send Eden a message. The next thing we see, is Eden giggling as she draws “dad.” This blows Angelina’s gasket who realizes that Eden and her dad are communicating. She yells and throws the plate against the wall. It’s just a matter of time before people in the house get spooked by the noises coming from the attic, which is precisely what Adrian would like to avoid.

Except that Adrian is not in the house for now, because he is visiting Eagan in prison. When Eagan learns of Angelina and Eden hiding in the attic of the compound, he cleverly manipulates Adrian into keeping those two there for a while longer. He reminds Adrian that if he kicked those two out of the safe-haven compound, that would put Eden in danger. If Adrian were to turn Angelina in for her crimes, everyone in the compound would be in danger, considering that Angelina may implicate Adrian in her kidnapping of Eden. She is, after all, the “manic pixie murderer girl” (the LOL quote of the episode, courtesy of Eagan).

Back to the bird’s nest where Cal tells Amuta that the two pilots were not the only ones to see the light – remember the closing scene of Season 1’s “Connecting Flights,” when Cal looked out the plane’s window into bright light and said “it’s all connected”? Somehow Cal, Michaela, and Amuta connect the dots and conclude that the storm chased the plane, which is impossible under natural circumstances. “It chose us,” Michaela confirms. Hey, I was not kidding when I noted above that the episode went into hyper-paranormal mode.

Amuta mentions again the feeling of peace when Flight 828 rode into that light (“it all made sense,” later confirm both Amuta and Cal). Cal suddenly remembers going back to that moment when he touched the tailfin in “Mayday: Part 1” and disappeared. Daly, Fiona, and he were alone inside the super-bright plane, and Daly was questioning Cal on why the kid wanted to leave that peaceful place and go back. Cal said that his mom is hurt, and Fiona asked Daly to let him go. As Cal ran to the back of the plane – as if there were some sort of an exit door there out of this realm – Daly ran after him but could not catch up. That must be, I presume, the moment preceding Cal’s first appearance as an older teenager, overlooking his injured mom, in Season 3’s finale “Mayday: Part 2.”

A few quick scenes and dialogues show that Amuta’s flight status has been restored, that Ben’s faith in callings has been restored, and that Adrian informs Angelina of his change of mind. She and Eden can stay in the attic. A happy Angelina replies to Adrian in her own creepy-pixie-girl way that Eden is their guardian angel and tells Eden, “this is our new home now baby girl, our forever home.” Adrian’s “oh-dear” expression is priceless, especially after he notices the broken plate on the floor by the wall.

The episode ends with Eagan donning a wry smile and calling Ben from the prison to inform him that he knows where Eden is located. Music amps up, curtains closed!

Last-minute thoughts:

— As they enter the library, Jared and Drea ask Ben to “hang back in there” so they can do their job. I found myself going, ”yeah right.” Except that, by his standards, Ben remained restrained in this instance.

— Co-pilot’s full name is Daniel Amuta Clark, as seen on the computer when Michaela alters his record. This clarifies the name confusion I mentioned back in “Contrails.”

— If you are not familiar with Star Trek, skip this one: When Amuta describes his feelings of peace when the plane flew into the big “ball of pure light” and spoke about Daly’s later obsession with returning there, it made me think of Soran and his obsession with returning to the realm of the Nexus in Star Trek: Generations. Live long and prosper!

— I will never get tired of saying this: I applaud Jeff Rake and his writing team for caring about continuity and using numerous nods to events or dialogues in earlier episodes. This outing had plenty of good ones.

— Fiona tells Daly to let Cal go because “there is more to do.” It seems that one knows everything across all times when one is in that realm of the big “ball of pure light.”

— So what’s the relation of ashes with the callings exactly? Is it related to the hell-like place in Ben’s calling? Did I miss something?

— What is with the endless peacock references? Its symbolism was significant in figuring out the death date in “Estimated Time of Departure” back in Season 1, but why do these references still show up? The peacock better have more to contribute to the story lines, or else, it’s a nuisance.

Until the next episode…

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