“Cleared for Approach” – Aired on January 28, 2019
Written by: Laura Putney & Margaret Easley
Directed by: Constantine Makris
Grade: 3,5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
A rather subdued episode of Manifest with a fitting title. The hour basically ‘clears the air’ for viewers to prepare for the approach that will begin next Monday in the form of a three-episode, season-ending run that promises nothing short of a brutal landing.
“Cleared for Approach” is not perfect by any means. It contains moments of uneven writing and falls short of matching the overall arc’s impetus. Nonetheless, it does a sufficiently good job of fulfilling its purpose noted above and includes authentic instances of character development.
We pick the story up from last time with Ben, Michaela, and Zeke at the cabin in the woods. Ben finds it strange, along with the rest of us, that Zeke has not mentioned anything about his background or family. He warns Michaela about remaining in the cabin alone with Zeke, but Michaela is more interested in understanding her connection with the (then-)mysterious dude.
According to Michaela, he can be trusted. According to Manifest, Michaela is rarely wrong.
After Ben leaves the cabin, Zeke and Michaela have a (poorly done CGI) vision, the first of a few (also poor visually), of the two of them standing under the stars as they hear “go back.” Michaela does a brief “Callings 101” crash-course session with Zeke who, surprisingly, has zero knowledge of the callings. Am I the only one who found it peculiar that a guy who experienced a close variation of what Flight 828’s passengers did, does not suffer from its aftermath in the same way that they do? Or has Manifest transformed me into this paranoia-filled viewer who watches every detail of the show with increased apprehension? Maybe the latter is the precise goal of the showrunners. If so, hats off to Jeff Rake and co.
In any case, the hiking expedition of Michaela and Zeke that takes them to the cave first, and to his sister Chloe’s grave next, occupies most of the episode’s screen time. The mystery surrounding Zeke slowly dissipates as he opens up more and more to Michaela who, for her part, becomes the envy of all psychologists around the globe by expertly guiding Zeke to reveal his utmost inner secrets so that he can begin to heal emotionally.
Zeke was seeking solace in alcohol to the point where he had to join an AA program. He admits to being stuck on step 5 which involves confessing the nature of his guilt to a “higher power” or to “someone else.” Lo and behold, Michaela happens to be both, from Zeke’s perspective. He confesses to Michaela that he “killed” Chloe. The camera focuses on her bewildered expression as he utters those words, the score rises in a crescendo as the screen goes dark. Commercial break! I cannot be certain if those couple of seconds were meant to represent some sort of a shock-twist moment, but they do not. It is fairly evident that Zeke did not literally “kill” his sister, even before the first commercial airs.
The truth is that Zeke feels guilty for what happened on that tragic day when he was fifteen years old because his irresponsible decision-making played a partial role in Chloe’s otherwise-accidental death. Busy flirting with a girl on the phone, he ignored Chloe who went by some ravine and fell in it. Zeke’s anguish is genuinely heartbreaking to watch as he tells the story, – which confirms what a great addition Matt Long has been to the cast.
Zeke and Michaela have other touching moments during their journey, such as the one when he tells the story of Chloe belching and the other when Michaela helps him build a cairn on top of Chloe’s grave, a “fairy tower” as she used to call them. With Michaela’s help, Zeke shows signs of accepting the tragic events of that day. As the two are walking in the hinterlands and contemplating what to do next, another electrical storm appears in the sky at the very end of the episode, because A stories in Manifest are not allowed to have peaceful episode endings.
Saanvi wants to run tests on Zeke to see if he has the same blood marker as the passengers. Much to her delight, our extraordinary investigator-father-citizen Ben already collected a sample of Zeke’s blood from the cabin. Zeke is indeed one of them. Of course, our resident genius-nerd** Saanvi did not stop there. She has more helpful tidbits to reveal!
**I mean that as a compliment because Parveen Kaur sells her genius-nerd role with great dexterity. When Ben tells Saanvi to be careful, she replies, “Ben, the world as we know it, from a scientific standpoint, has changed. I’m neck-deep in it. This is where I want to be. This is my happy place.” Kaur’s delivery of those lines shows why she is the right choice for the role. It’s almost like Saanvi speaks for all science nerds on earth at that moment, and they salute her back a giant #JeSuisSaanvi banner. The scene also serves as a reminder of how much viewers may have missed Saanvi as of late. Watching her “neck-deep” in science and in her “happy place,” may at the same time represent the viewer’s “happy place.”
She analyzed weather maps and figured out that “dark lightning” may have caused the time shift for Zeke. This was the same phenomenon mentioned in “Contrails” when Capt. Daly and Ben were investigating the bizarre electrical storm that led to the plane’s disappearance. Saanvi, the brainiac that she is, has already carved a theory around the flight’s disappearance and what happened to Zeke in the cave. They are part of the “aftershock theory,” meaning that the former represents the earthquake, and the latter, an aftershock.
We get no details on how the theory even crossed her mind. Why would Zeke’s disappearance not be similar to the flight’s disappearance instead of being dependent on it? Knowing that Zeke disappeared for a year, how does Saanvi know that these two events are not part of a much larger phenomenon consisting of many such disappearances? The obvious answer to these types of questions is that Manifest’s story revolves around Flight 828, hence the flight’s disappearance must unequivocally be the event that is the root cause of all the others. Thankfully, Kaur’s terrific delivery of this revelation distracts from the implausibility of her – yes, even Saanvi – putting that much together in a matter of hours.
Saanvi’s storyline ends when she walks out of her office and notices a scary “X” painted in red on her door. She is terrified as she suspiciously glances at individuals in the corridors of the hospital in an aptly edited scene that conveys her fear. Saanvi knows what that “X” means because she listened earlier to Ben telling the story of how the door at his family’s house also ended up with one, which brings us to the clumsy storyline involving the conspiracy theorist Cody Webber (Patrick Murnay).
Apparently, there are some nutcases among people, like Cody, who believe that the passengers are either terrorists or aliens. They want them out of their neighborhoods. While I wonder why it took so long for this type of narrative to pop up in Manifest (they are found ubiquitously in other paranormal shows of this type), I can’t help but wish that it never did. I would have been perfectly happy if this “protagonists-perceived-as-dangers” angle, which usually rests on xenophobia when people with paranormal experiences under their belt are released into the general population, never got tackled. The showrunners have done a remarkable job of giving the Stones all that they can handle through compelling narratives, which is why this particular one comes across as overkill. Hopefully, it will not hinder the development of more substantial storylines being explored in the future.
Another problem with this storyline is that it gets dumped into the show without any build-up, and then increases in severity at a lightning pace. We get a first glimpse of this issue when Ben, Grace, and Cal are in the car and notice a banner on a bridge that says, “Are the 828 passengers human? Demand an investigation.” Later at home, a canister of paint shatters their window and lands by the dinner table where they are sitting, courtesy of Cody the nutcase as we find out later. He also painted a red “X” on their door. Jared, who happens to be visiting the Stones, chases the perpetrator to no avail, but Cody the nutcase is caught by the authorities later.
I can’t help but ask, does Jared’s job description consist of solely assisting the members of the Stone family? It sure seems that way, unless NYPD is grossly overpopulated and has the luxury to assign a reputable detective to the task of babysitting one family full-time.
Cody the nutcase, who also turns out to be a jerkwad, runs an anti-828 website, one of many such websites according to Jared. Our good detective is eventually forced to release Cody the nutcase-jerkwad who provided an alibi. His fingerprints on the canister are not conclusive either because he sells them as part of his business. Ben is furious and later threatens Cody the jerkwad at his workplace. The confrontation is recorded by someone and uploaded to the anti-828 website, which means that Ben played right into Cody’s hands. Jared helps Ben avoid arrest but scolds him for acting on his own. But it’s too late, the website’s traffic doubled after the clip.
In a matter of three scenes, we went from a non-existing issue to a dire predicament that is at best tangential to Manifest’s central mystery. This storyline is the epitome of the expression “that escalated quickly,” uttered in the most sarcastic tone possible. The fact that it was ramrodded through in this episode without any adequate build-up in previous ones also shows that there is little room to begin with for this all-too-familiar narrative.
One storyline that works like a charm is the one involving Ben and Grace and their realization – yet again – that not only do they love each other, but they also need to work together to make the best out of their hectic lives. I’ll repeat what I have previously said more than once; the synergy between Ben and Grace in their intimate moments is one of Manifest’s strongest assets, largely due to wonderful performances by Josh Dallas and Athena Karkanis. Their last scene together as they try to remove the paint on the door is delightful.
Having said that, the golden-scene honor goes to the mother-son dialogue between Grace and Cal by the steps in front of their house.
And no Cal, you are not a freak!
Last-minute thoughts:
– Speaking of disappearing from the screen, Lourdes must be living through the loneliest pregnancy ever in the land of married women on TV shows, considering that she has not been seen since “Crosswinds” and that her husband is preoccupied with his full-time job as the Stones’ caretaker. Even the grandfather Steve Stone (Malachy Cleary) may have eclipsed her in screen time. But fret not, Lourdes fans. She will be back (finally) next week, according to the teaser for the next episode.
– By the way, about Steve the grandfather, could he be behind any of this? What about the supposedly dead grandmother? Could they… wait! Am I being paranoid again? Damn you Manifest!
– No Major sighting, surprisingly. No Fiona sighting, unsurprisingly.
– In “Dead Reckoning,” Ben had a vision of a peacock after the explosion. Here, he spots a peacock in Olive’s book. Olive explains that peacocks represented immortality for the Greeks and Romans. They were also messengers for the goddess Juno. Their conversation gets interrupted, but a nice touch by writers to remind us to keep track of the “peacock” anecdotes.
– The store clerk (Joe Lisi) has his own theory about the flight: “The Russians took it. Plucked it right out of the sky.” Good one dude, good one. Even better is Zeke’s face as he listens to him!
– Ben is accosting Cody the jerkwad when the police car arrives. Ben says, “Officers, look at what they are posting! These are innocent people they’re threatening,” as he waves Cal’s picture in his hand. Ben, would it not help your case to tell the officers specifically that the boy in the picture is your son instead of talking in general terms?
– Whatever type of liquid solution Ben was using to remove the paint, it sure wasn’t working.
– The whaaat moment of the episode: Olive casually revealing that she knew about the callings all along. Let us not ponder why on earth she would wait until now to say so.
– Pointless observation number one: The teaser for the next episode confirms that there are three episodes left in the season. IMDb still shows 5 more to go.
– Pointless observation number two: Cody the jerkwad’s website address is a blank page in our universe, thankfully!
Until the next episode…