“Reentry” – Aired on Oct 1, 2018
Written by: Jeff Rake & Matthew Lau
Directed by: Dean White
Grade: 5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
Following a premiere that did a fairly solid job of setting the parameters of a complex plot with multiple B and C storylines, the second episode “Reentry” checks all the boxes in terms of pacing, meaty character development, and five-star performances by the actors in recurring roles. In fact, if it were not for the last 20 seconds of the episode, I would go as far as calling it one of the best pilot-follow-up episodes that I have ever seen on TV, not that such a category exists.
However, I am gladly willing to overlook those last 20 seconds – more on that later – because the episode’s co-writers Jeff Rake (also the showrunner) and Matthew Lau manage to avoid the temptation of shock-and-awe frenzy that plagues other series of its genre over the last decade and walk the fine line between too many mysteries and too little characterization with great success throughout the episode.
Director Dean White, who carries more than a decade of experience directing TV shows, begins the episode with a brief montage of news from the media to update us on where things stand after the explosion of the plane that ended “Pilot.” A few quick conversations, featuring some of the Flight 828 passengers that we met in the premiere, take place in what looks like a warehouse at the airport.
These people are understandably having trouble curbing their anxiety for various reasons. The pilot fears that he will be the designated scapegoat, the sarcastic dude who sells sporting goods (Rich Topol is having fun playing that character, I bet) is busy taunting the investigators, Ben wants him and his sister to keep a low profile, Saanvi tells the two of them about her connection to Cal’s treatments, and Radd (Curtiss Cook) is frantically wanting to see his son who has apparently been jailed for three days. This is a tidy and efficient start to the first act because it leaves enough time to explore the story angles during the rest of the episode.
“Reentry” is indeed about people and their stories, and how uncertainty and fear encroach on their personal spaces. Frantic plot advancement accompanied by multiple shockers takes a back seat.
We jump into the Stone household with Grace trying to cover up her cleavage when Ben unexpectedly walks into the bedroom – a confused Ben says, “just me.” Josh Dallas and Athena Karkanis are great in the scenes with the two of them, and in this particular one, the malaise felt by Grace and Ben, for different reasons, are conveyed through subtle stares and smiles sprinkled between what would regularly be considered “sweet talk” between two people in love. They are not the only ones experiencing emotional discomfort in the house. Cal is unhappy about his toys from five years ago having disappeared, and Olive is turning bitter against her mom for not having told dad the not-so-secret secret that she is hiding (more on Olive later).
Then, Ben hears the sound of a violin playing in his head. It eventually leads him to Radd who is playing his violin to the same tune in Times Square. Radd does not understand why the same melody has been “beating against his ear drums,” but he is convinced that it was meant to bring the two of them together so that Ben can help him with his son Adio (played by his son in real life, Curtiss Cook Jr.). Radd rejects the possibility that his son is capable of committing the robbery of which he is accused. He wants to talk to Adio and asks for Ben’s help (and Ben asks for Michaela’s to arrange it). Radd is unable to visit his son in jail because his visa from five years ago expired. Well done by Rake & Lau who seem to have made sure that details are not brushed aside here, because they matter with regard to plausibility.
Cook gives a gripping performance throughout the episode as a father who is torn between the knowledge that the 13-year-old son he left behind for a one-night performance in Jamaica could not possibly be involved in a crime, and the incertitude that the now “18-year-old man,” as he calls him, may have changed for the worse in ways that he could not imagine during his missing five years. When Radd finally talks to his son through the glass at Rikers Island’s visiting room, Adio claims his innocence, saying that when he was closing shop about a month ago at the jewelry store where he used to work, he was attacked and knocked unconscious. When he woke up, the store was cleaned out. But Adio’s face looks beaten up and Radd is tragically aware of the fact that the damage on his son’s face did not occur a month ago. It is easily the most powerful and emotional scene of the episode. Both Cooks nail it as Radd and Adio.
Ben and Radd visit the store to see the owner who is not interested in hearing them, but his son Blake (Jake Horowitz) is willing to talk. He says he does not know what to think, considering that Adio gave them fake job references and ID’s, that he was the only one there that night, and that no alarm was tripped.
In the meantime, Michaela’s life is moving forward, but not so smoothly. She runs into Lourdes, Jared’s current wife, in the precinct. It’s a very uncomfortable moment because we know from last week that they were best friends when Michaela disappeared five years ago aboard Flight 828. Michaela is bitter, without knowing how, or against whom, to channel her anger. Lourdes, for her part, feels guilty, knowing that there is no way to solve the conundrum in which they inadvertently find themselves. Michaela also wants to get back to working as a cop, but the Captain requires her to get a psych evaluation to see if she is fit to return to duty.
As if these complications were not enough for Michaela, she becomes aware of the secret that Grace is hiding from Ben, when she hears her sister-in-law talk on the phone. She confronts Grace and advises her – strongly – to tell Ben before he finds out for himself. Karkanis shines again as Grace in this scene, as she confesses with tears in her eyes that she did not even realize how much she still loved her husband until he showed up five years later. Now, with both Olive and Michaela aware of her secret, the pressure mounts on Grace to make up her mind quickly.
All the above takes place within the first half hour of the episode and what is impressive is that the driving force of the narrative is a series of emotionally charged – yet, rich in substance – conversations, leading to character growth. The dialogues between Michaela and her shrink, Ben and Grace, Radd and Adio, and Grace and Michaela carry the narrative, giving them layers in ways that make the audience care. “Reentry” almost feels like a slow burn, and I mean that in the most positive way possible.
Even the most pedestrian scene of the episode, the one taking place in a high-tech government office with national security agents gathered around a table to determine the fate of the 20 passengers who happened to be present when the plane exploded, has a purpose. It shows that the NSA Director Vance, despite coming across as your typical dickish agent filled with suspicion when he deals with the survivors, does not hesitate to stick up for their rights when everyone else around the table seems to label them as dangers to national security.
And no, I did not forget Olive. Luna Blaise’s performance is absolutely stellar here, as the grown-up teenage daughter who has a firmer head on her shoulders than her mom, it seems, yet torn by the question of how to act toward a dad that she missed dearly, because she has no desire to face that probable moment in the future when dad finds out about mom’s “other” and realizes that Olive also knew about it and didn’t tell him anything. During an evening ride with her dad, she decides to come clean as she takes him to a storage facility in Long Island.
Olive never believed that Cal was dead even though the therapists, the counselors at school, and her mom had suggested that she let go. “Some kind of twin thing,” she explains to Ben as she leads him to a unit within the storage facility. Unlike her mom who was a wreck and took the shrink’s advice, leaving of all of Ben’s and Cal’s belongings in boxes for the Salvation Army to pick up, Olive showed the dexterity to cancel the pick up and move the boxes to the unit. A wonderful little twist, which puts me officially, and firmly, on Team Olive. She also says just enough – the storage belongs to a “friend of mom’s” – for Ben to figure out Grace’s secret.
The intensity of the reveal as Ben and Olive hug each other does such a good job of sidetracking us that we feel as startled as Ben does, when he hears the violin tune in his head again. He searches for the source of the music in an awkwardly edited sequence through the hallways of the storage facility and walks into Blake who is standing by another unit filled with all the stolen inventory from his father’s jewelry store. Blake is busted figuratively, and then literally with a smack on the face, when he offers Ben half of the money if he stays quiet. The tune that Ben kept hearing apparently had a bigger purpose than just helping Radd visit his son in jail. It helped to save Adio.
Michaela, thanks to her talks with the psychologist that she had opposed at first, and to some heartfelt messages left by Lourdes on social media following her disappearance, comes to terms with her situation. She visits Lourdes at her home and the two begin the road to reconciliation. Another reconciliation (of sort) takes place after Grace realizes what Olive had done with the boxes and witnesses Cal’s delight at getting his toys back. She decides to no longer “hide her cleavage” to Ben in a quiet but meaningful scene with the two of them in the bedroom. The scene does not clarify if she comes clean about her “other” or not, but there is no doubt at this point that she has rediscovered her love for Ben. These scenes could have easily come across as cheesy and overly dramatic, but they do not, thanks to the slow build-up noted above. Kudos to the writers.
Not too many kudos, though, for the final twenty seconds. With the end of both “Pilot” and this one, it appears that Manifest‘s writing room has joined multitude of others in the business in feeling the necessity to have 11th-hour shock-endings to episodes. One of the passengers named Kelly (Julienne Hanzelka Kim) is shot dead at the very end (we see blood splatter all over the TV screen). She was also seen a few times earlier during the episode, giving an interview on TV or followed by a shadow figure in the garage. The idea is to push forward the mystery on the hidden identity of those (people or forces) behind the incident.
Honestly, this episode would not have missed a beat if this last-second shocker were left out – or even the whole Kelly storyline, for that matter. Yet, this is the à-la-mode obsession across the land of TV shows nowadays. Even the show’s cast joined in the effort to amp up the viewers on social media when the episode ended. Yet, everything that happened before those last twenty seconds is what makes “Reentry” the outstanding episode that it is.
Overall, the first two episodes exceeded my expectations in that, while the show has elements seen in other mystery shows – see my review for “Pilot” – Rake and his crew are building genuinely human storylines that grapple with relevant day-to-day issues.
Bring on the next episode already…