“S.N.A.F.U.” – Aired on November 12, 2018
Written by: Jeff Rake & Bobak Esfarjani
Directed by: Michael Schultz
Grade: 4 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
After last week’s single-story oriented “Off Radar,” the latest episode of Manifest gets back to managing a few storylines, and does so without any major hiccups. A new character named Fiona Clarke (Francesca Faridany) whose appearance was signaled in the last outing makes her entrance. The 11-passenger conspiracy is tackled in more depth. Olive, Danny, and Lourdes are back in the picture.
In the episode’s A story, Director Vance realizes that Ben is more efficient than not only his own team, but also all known detectives in the land of TV shows, and probably, real life. I already touched on Ben’s warp-speed investigative skills in my last review and he continues to plow full-steam ahead in this hour. So much so that Vance lets Ben find what appears to be a crucial piece of evidence while he snoops on him through NSA’s surveillance gadgetry, only to snatch it away from him at the end after Sherlock – I mean Ben – has done all the work.
Remember Unified Dynamic Systems (UDS)? Ben and Michaela learned in “Off Radar” that the buses carrying the passengers were contracted to the government by UDS. Our agent-investigator-citizen-father Ben concocts a plan. He reckons that he can find information in their books, thus he applies for an entry-level accounting job at JP Williamson, the lucrative firm that handles UDS’s accounts. Then, he plans on following the money trail to unearth the location where they are holding the passengers. He is confident that he can “blend in.” Stone… Ben Stone!
His intentions are revealed to the viewers through an excellent montage of short scenes, accompanied by a low-yet-effective score, during which we see cuts of Ben informing Saanvi and Michaela of his plan, mixed in with those of his job interview with a woman at the firm who struggles to believe that an over-qualified individual like Ben would apply for a “junior revenue accountant” position. The sequence is well-directed by the legendary Michael Schultz (Krush Groove, The Last Dragon), ending with Ben getting the job thanks to his charming smile and convincing pitch.
There is another similar sequence later with Ben updating Saanvi on the phone of his progress in the company which led him to temporarily steal his boss’s access card so that he could get into the computer files and identify Clarke as the woman who is “working for whoever took the missing passengers.” It helps of course that Ben’s boss, a gung-ho happy chum named Ronnie Wilcox (Michael Drayer), is a buzzy loose mouth who comes across as a malleable Flight 828 fanboy. Ronnie acts like he just met his long-lost drinking buddy as soon he shakes Ben’s hand for the first time. He expresses his disbelief in being in a position to supervise “the Ben Stone,” frequently pats him on the back, often chuckles, and uses phrases like “slow your roll B-Stone” when Ben appears enthusiastic to help him with Tier 1 companies like UDS (because Ben’s lowly position does not give him access to their books). Ronnie also happens to run a regular poker game with some IT guys in the company and wants Ben to join them. How convenient for Ben, right? Once again, Schultz’s directing and the score shine in this sequence, along with Drayer’s performance as Ronnie.
And honestly, that level of excellence in directing, acting, and scoring, is imperative to the flow of the first 15 minutes because it makes up for some of the outrageously fast plot advancement that zooms us to the point where Ben and Saanvi meet Fiona Clarke face to face at around 20 minutes into the episode!
Clarke is a well-known professor who, after being blackballed in the field of her original studies, neural psychology, shifted her attention to spirituality where she gained her fame and money. She was also a passenger in the plane and she happened to say the peculiar line “Now, we’re all in this together,” to the now-dead Kelly. Is that an echo of her possible knowledge of the events before they occurred? I hope the writers plan on fleshing out the potential represented by that possibility rather than dropping it due to the abundance of mysteries that are already piling up at a concerning rate.
Speaking of mysteries piling up, “S.N.A.F.U.” does not provide a resolution to any of them but does make an effort to take substantial steps in the right direction through minor reveals. Let’s take for example, the introduction of Clarke into the story.
“S.N.A.F.U.” pays a great deal of attention to revealing Clarke’s connection to UDS, including a suspenseful line – “Finally. I’ve been waiting for you” – delivered by her to Ben and Saanvi when she first comes face to face with them, before the show goes into a commercial break. Yet, the next scene is a dialogue between the three of them in which Clarke claims no knowledge of experiencing any callings or of the 11 detained passengers. She simply appears to be excited to meet other people who suffered in the wake of the traumatic events of Flight 828. Ben and Saanvi decide on the spot to go full disclosure (not sure about the wisdom of doing so, didn’t they just meet her?) and tell her about all their discoveries.
Clarke responds innocently that she was approached by a non-profit interested in her mind-body research under the umbrella of her Mirror Factor study. The reveal (or the added mystery, I shall say) is that the non-profit is called The Singularity Project. Ben quickly puts the dots together and ties the project’s name to the mysterious “SP” that he saw next to her name in some computer file, during his earlier investigation. There is no big mystery-solving here, but we are moving forward.
Ben also does just that. He moves forward, he digs deeper.
He joins the poker game noted above to get cozy with the IT guys. His target is another malleable guy named David James (Charlie Hudson III) – the chirpy Ronnie introduces him as the “insignificantly small cog in the IT machinery.” It takes Ben a short visit to David’s office and an ‘accidental’ dump of coffee in his lap to get him to temporarily leave his office for a change of clothes. That is all the time Ben needs as he gets into David’s computer and downloads all the SP-related data into his flash drive. That is also when Vance makes his appearance, confiscating the flash drive from Ben as he was attempting to leave the building.
We have indeed moved closer to solving some mysteries. There is now concrete evidence in Vance’s possession. The Director is also suspicious of the people working in his team (he lies to his deputy by saying that Ben was clean). Ben, for his part, may have lost his key piece of evidence but at least he is now certain about the names involved in the conspiracy of the 11 passengers, although that does not help him much at this point with regard to protecting Cal.
Clarke’s role appears to be diminished at this point. Or is it? See my earlier mention about her line to Kelly in the plane and also remember the shady looking scientist phoning a certain “ma’am” in the last episode.
Up to this point, I have delved into the best of what “S.N.A.F.U.” had to offer. The Ben-Saanvi-Clarke-Vance storyline carries the episode. Unfortunately, there is also, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story.”
Michaela, with Jared’s help as usual, is trying to help a boy named Carlos (Mateo Ferro) whose uncle is killed. Michaela is motivated by the fact that she is hearing a heartbeat that seems to lead her to Carlos. It turns out at the end (I am bypassing the bland intricacies of this storyline) that Evie, Michaela’s best friend who had died in their car accident, was Carlos’s heart donor and that Michaela was hearing Evie’s heartbeat – thus, the inclusion of the minor scene showing Michaela’s visit to Evie’s still-grieving parents. The story lacks the pizazz of the previous ones centering on her callings and it ultimately results in more of the same, which is that “it’s all connected.” We have already reached this conclusion many times, in a much more consequential manner in “Connecting Flights” for example. Michaela even rehashes it herself in the closing scene: “I had to know that the callings were right, that it is all connected […] to us, to each other. That’s what all of this is for. It has to be.”
The only meaningful addition in this storyline is Jared’s confession to Michaela that Vance had asked him to snoop on her, followed by his confirmation that he will be doing nothing of the sort. He is 100% on Michaela’s side, and I reckon that many more viewers just jumped on the good detective’s bandwagon.
Lourdes, Olive, and Danny appear in scenes that border from weird to extraneous. Danny and Olive are practicing rock-climbing together and this leads to some malaise on Olive’s part who goes back and forth between continuing the activity and dropping it. In the meantime, Ben comes face to face with Danny outside of his home as the latter is dropping Olive after their practice. Danny says, “I’m not gonna get in your way, Ben. Olive’s not my kid. But I stepped in when you were gone, and I care about her. When she comes to me, I can’t turn her away.” This is the same guy who showed up at the door step of the family unannounced and applied some emotional pressure to Grace in “Connecting Flights” even though Grace firmly told him to stay away because she was trying to rebuild her family. Ben responds, “Nice to see you, Danny,” and walks away. I would have had a few more words to say had I been in his shoes, but then again, I am not Ben, the consummate diplomat.
There is also an uncomfortable (and noncore) dinner scene with Lourdes, Michaela, and Jared, that gets interrupted, thankfully, when Michaela hears a calling and leaves. We are already aware of the fact that seeing Lourdes and Jared together still hurts Michaela no matter how much she tries to appear accepting of Lourdes’s friendship, and we know equally well that Lourdes feels guilty toward her friend. The dinner scene simply re-re-re-confirms this dynamic that may get old quickly if it is repeatedly harped on with scenes such as this one without any change in status.
Then, there is the closing shot, Cal’s drawing of Carlos with Evie’s heart on the refrigerator. “What does it mean?”**
**imitating some of the show’s actors who try to balloon the shock-effect of the cliffhangers by posting messages on social media right when each episode ends.
Last-minute thoughts:
– Deputy Powell (Tim Moriarty) is giving bad vibes and it seems that Vance is feeling them too.
– The connection between Cal and Marko is still on. It’s one of the more promising arcs in Manifest so far.
– Carlos enters the precinct and walks back to the detectives’ area carrying a gun in his hand (in a paper bag). Is that even possible without anyone checking him?
– Officer Diaz (Omar Torres) takes the recurring token-character award thus far. Three appearances and hardly anyone knows his name.
– Carlos donned the same facial expression throughout the episode.
– Again, stellar directing by Michael Schultz.
Until the next episode…