“Crosswinds” – Aired on January 7, 2019
Written by: Amanda Green & MW Cartozian Wilson
Directed by: Michael Smith
Grade: 4 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
Back in October, NBC ordered three more episodes of Manifest bringing the total number to 16 for the inaugural season of the show. Considering the overall mazelike story arc that the show was building throughout the fall, the news seemed to hit the jackpot. Showrunners now had more room to untangle the intricacies of Flight 828’s mystery.
Well, “Crosswinds” is the kind of outing that makes you wish that NBC ordered yet one more episode from Jeff Rake and company. It carries multiple storylines that, for the most part, race toward compelling cliffhangers by the end of the hour. To that end, it also haplessly convolutes important details that could have been fleshed out so much better had it been a two-parter. Michael Smith’s stellar directing eases the plot-overloading to a point, but there is simply too much being thrown at the viewers’ faculties of perception. It’s an interesting contrast if taken into account the episodes that MW Cartozian Wilson and Amanda Green, co-writers of this one, penned earlier in the season. The former shared the writing credit for “Off Radar” that focused on a single storyline, and the latter was the co-writer for the game-changing “Connecting Flights” which was, in my opinion, the best outing of the show so far and advanced only a few plots while providing excellent sequences of character development.
“Crosswinds,” for its part, comes across like an athletic race – a sprint, more fittingly – in which there are six lanes for a dozen runners, and they are all zooming to the finish line but stumbling over each other in an attempt to fit into the limited number of lanes. As a result, it leads to a frantic crossing of the finish line, followed by confusion over what or who got lost in the shuffle during the race.
At the same time, it is undoubtedly the most ambitious episode of the season so far. For starters, it definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat. It contains some storylines that blossom and others that lead to more questions. It introduces two new consequential characters and welcomes back an older one. It teases the viewers about the identity of a powerful and mysterious individual. Some regular characters behave oddly while others make questionable decisions. Family matters take complicated turns. Finally, a multitude of cliffhangers close the curtain. Did I say how ambitious this episode was?
It all begins with Michaela standing in front of her mother’s grave and monologuing about the crossroads at which she stands in her life. Her monologue is accompanied by a clever collage of scenes that are designed to help us refresh our memory on past events. Next, we shift to a facility with a five-star ocean view where Fiona, Saanvi, and Autumn are observing the passengers that were rescued from the shady warehouse at the end of “Dead Reckoning.” The passengers are in a catatonic state and seem to twitch at the same time, reminding us that in the world of Manifest, “it’s all connected.” Saanvi suggests that all the passengers need to be brought together and share their experiences to get a better understanding of the phenomenon.
The intrigue of this scene is less in its contribution to the narrative than in its impact on viewers by challenging their perceptions of Fiona and Autumn. Fiona was last seen informing Ben and the authorities that she was taking the rescued passengers to a facility in a van. Given her enigmatic character development, many suspected, as I did, that she was scheming to “confiscate” the passengers away. That is apparently not the case, so the quandary over her true intentions will continue to linger on, at least until the identity of the Major – or the “Ma’am” to whom the shady scientist in “Off Radar” was talking on the phone – is revealed.
Autumn, at first glance, seems to have had a change of heart over Manifest‘s Christmas break. She is now ignoring the orders that she receives on the phone (with Laurence dead, I presume someone else took his place) and shows signs of wanting to join the good guys. As I mentioned in my review of “Dead Reckoning,” the possibility of an inner conflict in Autumn as a result of helping Laurence was explored in the flashback that showed her being taken into custody after the arrival of Flight 828. That conflict is further developed here, and Shirley Rumierk is up to the task with her performance. Autumn appears to have been coerced into helping the “bad guys” only because of her past criminal record. Kudos to writers on the attention to detail in maintaining this particular continuity, but again, I am not sure how many viewers were able to put together the two sequences and perceive the complexity of Autumn’s situation. Judging from dozens of social media reactions that I saw, many missed it and wondered why in the world Autumn made a 180-degree turn in this episode (she did not). This is an example of how overtaxing an episode with too many plotlines can lead to an unintended lack of appreciation for quality writing when it comes to details because it may go unnoticed in the brouhaha caused by all the other simultaneous twists and turns.
One of the passengers named Paul Santino (Kerry Malloy) wakes up when Michaela touches him. As she does so, she has a vision of a snowstorm and hears the calling, “Find her.” Just like that, another B storyline begins, with implications that may – but probably won’t – spill over to the rest of the season. Paul cannot remember anything from his past, including the fact that he is married. At first, we are led to believe that the calling refers to finding Paul’s wife, but we know better by now.
By the time this storyline gets solved, we find out that, according to his wife Helen (Frances Eve), Paul was an abusive husband. Michaela and Jared had trouble locating her because she went into hiding when Flight 828 reappeared. She feared for her life upon Paul’s return. It made me wonder for a while if the disappearance of the flight was initiated by someone or some entity who wanted one or more of the passengers to sink, or fly in this case, into oblivion (yes, it’s far-fetched, I know). In any case, the amount of time spent in Paul’s narrative would have been fine, in my opinion, if this were a two-parter. But with everything squeezed into less than 43 minutes, it appeared to distract from other significant developments that could have used more foregrounding.
One such example of a shortchanged sequence is when Fiona speaks to the passengers at the ocean-view facility, followed by Ben’s conversations with Captain Daly (Frank Deal) and Autumn.
Daly pulls Ben to the side and warns him about Fiona. He suspects that she is part of a conspiracy and that “this whole thing is her twisted science experiment.” It’s hard to blame Daly. After all, he just listened to Fiona inform everyone that she studies shared consciousness, that she believes to have been in the plane not by accident but because she was meant to be an “interpreter,” and that a “friend” of hers “lent” her the facility until the spring. Daly is indeed “aggro” as Autumn says after she approaches Ben following the captain’s agitated departure.
Autumn makes major revelations to Ben, confirming first that she did indeed hear “The Major” speak to Laurence over the speakerphone. Then, she says that the Major is a woman and that she made reference to a “Holy Grail.” Ben attempts to connect the dots, one of them being that the calling “Find her” may have to do with the Major. After he leaves, Autumn gets another text message, but throws her phone into the ocean in disgust.
Holy smokes! In that crucial sequence, apart from a major conspiracy theory advanced by Daly, the questioning of Fiona’s identity, three major revelations in relation to the forces behind the mystery of Flight 828 popping up during the Autumn-Ben dialogue, and the definite change of camp by Autumn, there is also the introduction of Adrian (Jared Grimes), another passenger who, by all accounts, will go much further than making a token appearance. Yet, these essential developments are compressed into less than three minutes. Again, I would have preferred to have seen this sequence, and the narratives in it, fleshed out a bit more, rather than having so much time sacrificed on Paul’s narrative that largely had no long-term consequences for one example, and on the Stone-family drama that had the same problem rehashed for another.
Or is it that I am a fan of Frank Deal the actor (especially since his appearances on Law & Order: SVU and The Americans), as I have noted in my earlier previews, and believe irrationally that Captain Daly deserves more time? Maybe. But if you want to judge for yourself the range of Deal’s prowess as an actor, consider the way he portrayed Capt. Daly in the initial two episodes of the show vs. in this one. In “Pilot” and “Reentry,” we saw a dexterous, composed pilot with a witty sense of humor, whereas Daly now appears to have metamorphosed into a perturbed man who appears to doubt everything and everyone related to that last plane he piloted. And Deal nails it each time, with flying colors. I cannot help but feel like Deal’s acting skills, and the scope of his character Daly, remain underused up to this point in the show. On the other hand, I know from the next episode’s teaser that he plays a central role in it, so I remain optimistic. We shall see.
Speaking of the Stone family crisis, I have officially quit my membership to ‘team Olive.’ It is hard to reconcile her behavior in this episode with that of the earlier ones. She literally guilt-manipulates Danny into coming to her house with the emblematic “If you still love us…” line. In doing so, she disregards her mother’s (and father’s) wishes, and seems to have forgotten that her brother exists. — Side thought: Not sure where Olive would be in the show, the cool Olive of the first few episodes or the idiotic one of late, without Blaise’s outstanding performance throughout the season. — Plus, it is not as if Danny has not already shown an inclination to drop by the Stone household – remember his ‘unannounced’ visit in “Connecting Flights”? He goes even further in this episode by accusing Ben of being “the whole reason this family is messed up” – whaaat? – after Ben arrives to what happens to be his own family’s home and finds Danny there! Cal is the one who asked his dad to come to the house because, well, his feelings are ridiculously being ignored by Olive and Danny. As a matter fact, Cal, who is possibly the biggest outcast of the show, is the only one who does not behave oddly in this bizarre scene.
When Grace firmly tells Danny to leave, Olive yells at her mother and storms to her room. Grace goes after her while Danny ‘I-lack-common-sense’ continues to remain in the house. Never mind all the lying and deception by Olive, because nobody seems to want to scold her in any way. In fact, Grace consoles her at one point. Even Ben joins the bizarre parade of behaviors when he calmly tells Danny to stay in the house and decides to leave himself, not before hugging Cal, and Olive! Excuse me, Ben? No attempt to even take Cal with you? O-kay. Danny leaves much later in the evening, not without promising Grace that he will be there for her if she ever wants him back. It’s the weakest storyline of the episode, one that panders to mushy-melodrama lovers who are not concerned with whether the scene has any significant contribution to the show or not (this one, certainly not).
Hold on, there is more, a lot more. I will not go into the details of every plot line in “Crosswinds” or else my review will end up being too convoluted itself (it may already be so). I cannot, however, skip Jared and Michaela who finally had their major ‘moment.’ Yes, they finally caved in to their desires and hopped in the sack. It’s been a long time coming anyway, and quite frankly, what did everyone expect when Jared showed up at Michaela’s place after the emotional talk that they had at work earlier? Their storyline is handled much more adroitly in this episode than the one involving the Stone family. It also helps that both Melissa Roxburgh and JR Ramirez put forth some of their finest performances in all the related scenes.
At last, there is Aaron Glover (Marquis Rodriguez), a podcaster who has the looks of a someone who just had his high-school prom last week. He is particularly interested in the mystery of Flight 828 and runs a podcast named “828-Gate.” Aaron is well-connected. Very well-connected. We do not need to ask how or why, we just need to know that he is. Our young podcaster has “sources,” you see, and those sources feed him so much information that he knows about secret meetings held by the Senate Intelligence Committee and House Appropriations, as well as the nature of clandestine funds earmarked by them. Heck, he even knows about code terms mentioned by the higher-ups like “Holy Grail” because he named the next episode of his podcast after it, “Chapter 6: Closing In on the Holy Grail.” Of course, his “confidential” sources can rest assured because Aaron “won’t name names.”
Naturally, Ben is intrigued by what Aaron knows and decides to collaborate with him. Aaron shares his information with Ben who, in return, agrees to be the guest on one of his podcasts. Except that Ben only wants the podcast released “if this ends badly.” If not, Aaron does not get to “blow the lid” and enjoy the ratings, but still gets to have access to a “Deep Throat” for an indeterminate amount of time into the future. Smart proposition Mr. Stone, very smart. I have a hunch that Aaron did not make his final appearance on the show. It feels like Manifest would benefit from keeping this side story alive.
Add NSA Deputy Jim Powell to the slew of characters in this episode behaving in ways that are irreconcilable with their disposition in earlier episodes. He secretly collaborates with Ben although as Vance’s assistant for several episodes, he showed more interest in questioning his boss who was expressing his own doubts about the mystery surrounding Flight 828, than in helping him. This shift in behavior is explained away by a vapid line earlier in the episode by Ben who says that although he does not trust Powell, he trusts his loyalty Vance. And I ask myself, what loyalty? Vance himself did not trust Powell enough to let him in on his collaboration with Ben.
“Crosswinds” ends with another collage of beautiful cuts – credit to Smith, again – accompanied by the wonderful sound of Mansionair’s “Easier” playing in the background. Some of these scenes depict the dire situations in which characters find themselves, such as Jared contemplating his marriage to Lourdes while she is asleep, and Grace doing the same while watching her children sleep. Others target the viewers’ already (and excessively) stimulated senses by throwing their way a series of cliffhangers.
In a coffee shop, Autumn gets confronted by a man in a black suit who instructs her to join “the Major” waiting for her in the car outside. Powell is manhandled by four agents in front of his home and pushed into an SUV with tinted windows. Out of nowhere, Saanvi makes a gigantesque discovery about what, or who, the term “Holy Grail” refers to (let’s not dwell on how on earth she did that). As if that were not enough, the last shocker comes when Cal, who is revealed to be the “Holy Grail” according to Saanvi’s epiphany seconds earlier, experiences the same snowstorm vision that Michaela had, except that he can see a picture of Michaela being held by someone in the snowstorm while hearing “Find her.”
It’s simply too many 11th-hour shockers and cliffhangers to throw at viewers on top of everything else that took place earlier in the episode. If the idea is to produce the “WHAT?!?!” effect by bombarding the senses, “Crosswinds” succeeds. I am just not sure how much justice it does to the characters involved, as well as to the essential plotlines contained in it.
Now imagine if this episode had a two-hour allotment to match its ambitions…
Until the next episode…