“Emergency Exit” – Aired on February 17, 2020
Writer: Jeannine Renshaw & Ezra W. Nachman
Director: Jean de Segonzac
Grade: 4.5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
On the one hand, there is nothing particularly compelling about the untangling of the self-contained mystery in “Emergency Exit.” It follows the classic A and B story pattern and one might even argue that some of the early developments are either predictable (did anyone doubt that Isaiah had a role in the mayhem?), or near-rehashes of previously seen structure or material (another episode starting with a flashback, Olive and her parents reprising their shouting match à-la “Coordinated Flight” over the same overarching nodus).
The execution, on the other hand, is phenomenal. Once the set-up framework is established in the first twenty minutes, the emphasis shifts to a single location and a series of high-stake action scenes holds viewers captive until the end of the hour via apt camera work, editing, and score. The ride is engrossing and the events taking place leave the viewers with an immutable impression long after the hour is over. If you wanted to build a case on behalf the slogan “execution is everything,” this episode is part of your exhibit one.
The brief flashback at the beginning shows TJ saying goodbye to his mother before leaving for Jamaica. Back in the present, Michaela is questioning Zeke about the pills in his razor that she found at the end of last week’s “Return Trip.” Zeke is upset with Michaela for believing Courtney and doubting him. The fact that Michaela set a trap for him by replacing the razors only adds salt to the wound (although I do not quite understand how Michaela asking Zeke for a razor fits into this so-called trap. What was that supposed to accomplish?).
The Stone household, for its part, is in dire need of love and harmony. Cal is mad because his parents will not allow him to go to Coney Island for a friend’s birthday party. Olive is grounded because she skipped school without telling her parents. Her explanation is that she was helping out with the soup kitchen at Adrian’s church, probably the last place Ben and Grace wanted her to be at this point. As they are trying to wrap their heads around that, Olive delivers a bigger 1-2 shock-punch when she bluntly states that she quit school and that she intends to help Adrian with the Church’s outreach program. And just so they know, she is old enough to get emancipated. Take that, mom and dad!
The end result? You guessed it. The second edition of Olive vs. parents takes place, and it is as antagonistic as the one in “Coordinated Flight,” containing an equally riveting performance by Luna Blaise. I mean, does she have the wayward-teen rhetoric down or what? Ben storms out, pissed off at Adrian, but not before Olive storms out, pissed off at anyone and everyone.
Ben catches up with Adrian and warns him about the calling he had with the crashed plane and the dead bodies inside. Adrian plays along, acting as if he were not there in that vision (how did they not see him, don’t ask), and almost comes across as if he is trying to provoke Ben. Has Ben been checked for post-traumatic distress? Why is Ben choosing to live in fear instead of choosing to live in the miracle like Adrian and his followers? Hmmm? Anyway, the conversation marks Ben’s second failed attempt at talking sense into someone within a five-minute period.
At the center of the B story is Saanvi’s continuing efforts to solve the retrovirus problem. Her dad is visiting and he advises Saanvi to contact her immunologist friend for help with her serum trials. The said immunologist friend is Saanvi’s ex-married-lover Alex (Sydney Morton) who stood her up on the way to Jamaica (shown in a flashback in “False Horizon“).
Saanvi follows her dad’s advice and the two ex-lovers meet in an uncomfortable face-to-face. Alex tries, and fails badly, to explain away her no-show, which amounts to her getting cold feet at the last second because she feared destroying her family for “a fling in Jamaica.” As if labeling their relationship a fling were not clumsy enough, she next attempts to place some of the blame on Saanvi for being “all about work,” implying that she would have never considered Alex a priority (which, let’s be honest, fits Saanvi’s profile). Having heard enough, Saanvi switches to her professional posture and turns to the topic at hand, which is to solve the retrovirus issue. Alex is willing to help.
TJ’s research Al-Zuras bears fruit. He located the 16th-century scholar’s journal at Yale University’s library, except that it must be requested by a current faculty member from an approved institution, like Ben.
Later, TJ flat out tells Olive that he agrees with her dad about Adrian being “full of it.” Olive dejectedly asks if he does not believe in the miracle, to which he replies, “I’m not an angel or some God. I came back the same person I left, except I did not have a mom anymore. Or friends or a home, for that matter.” It’s now his turn to ask Olive, “Tell me, how is that a miracle?” We cut away from the scene before Olive can provide an answer and she sure looked like she could use the time to look for one.
At the precinct, Michaela gets a call from Isaiah claiming to have some more information about the Xer attack on church, except that he needs her to come to him. As Michaela is leaving to meet him, Jared promises something to sleazy Billy on the phone and tries to login to Michaela’s computer, but to no avail.
In what can probably be referred to as the final scene of the set-up portion, Zeke finds his razor in his bag, with pills still in it. At that moment, he has a vision, along with Grace and Cal at their home, in which all three end up at some dark place with music playing. Someone is throwing gasoline on the floor to start a fire. Cal repeats, “save the passengers.”
Once again, nothing groundbreaking has taken place so far, but the course has been impeccably laid out for an entertaining race to the finish line. The main characters are, or will soon be, on their way to the night club. Set-up complete! Mission accomplished!
Olive and TJ are the first to arrive at the club and join Maxine at some back hall. Michaela shows up next to meet Isaiah who is working as the bartender in the main area. He asks her to wait, offering a glass of champagne, which she refuses only because she is on duty. Little does Michaela know at the time how crucial that “no” was to her survival.
Ben arrives next, expecting to meet Adrian. They texted each other earlier in the day, or so Ben believes, and decided to reconcile their differences over a drink. Except that Adrian, who also just arrived, insists that he never texted Ben. He was not even planning to be there until an hour ago when Isaiah asked for his help to fill the place due to some promotion taking place at the club. They begin to notice other Flight 828 passengers at the establishment such as Finn who was dead in the vision of the crashed plane. He tells Ben that some investor reached out to him for a meeting at the club.
It’s obvious to our heroes by this time that Flight 828 passengers have been tricked into gathering at the club for some sordid reason. Soon enough, it also becomes clear that Isaiah must play a role in this scheme, especially when Adrian, who thought he had misplaced his phone, begins to realize that Isaiah may have taken his phone.
This progression of events at the nightclub is presented through the use of brief shots, moving cameras, and up-close angles, each conveying with meticulous exactitude the sense of confusion invading one character after another. It also helps that sensible dosages of side stories are interjected here and there, allowing the chaotic narrative at the night club time to breathe, thus eliminating the chances of viewers experiencing sensory overload.
One of those side stories involves Jared and Conor (Jonathan Marballi), the tech guy at the precinct. Jared interrupts Conor’s online betting session to ask for some of Michaela’s files. Conor first cites department rules to refuse the detective’s request but quickly changes his mind when Jared threatens to expose his online-betting habits. Jared then texts sleazy Billy, “got what you need,” right before a very agitated Grace phones him, asking where Michaela is. She informs him of her ghastly vision with Zeke and Cal. Jared has heard enough. He is on his way to pick her and Cal up and find Michaela.
Saanvi, for her part, experiments on herself (again) with the tweaked formula of the serum. Her arm turns red and she collapses on the floor. She has a bizarre vision in which she revisits previous callings and events in reverse order, dating all the way back to the plane’s explosion that ended “Pilot.”
Deep breath. Back to the club!
Champagne glasses making the rounds trigger another vision for Michaela. She finds herself back at the crashed plane with Ben and Adrian where she spots a broken bottle of champagne with the same label. At the same time, it dawns on Ben that Adrian knew about the previous crashed-plane vision and did not tell anyone (how he went unnoticed in that vision is still beyond me). He chastises Adrian for having lied about it but its too late. Some passengers, already poisoned from the champagne, begin to faint and collapse around them. To make matters worse, Isaiah is already busy starting a fire in some back corridor as exit doors to the establishment get shut and locked – someone please explain how that happened, I am all ears. What did I miss? Who shut them? How did they get shut exactly as people began to head to the doors? Were secret forces collaborating with Isaiah?
Isaiah locks the door to the back hall where Olive, TJ, and Maxine are dancing the night away. Luckily, TJ had just left for the bathroom and noticed the mayhem in the main area. He rushes back to alert others but finds the door locked. Ben joins him and they force the door open. As everyone is attempting to run to the nearest exit, Isaiah grabs Olive, holding a knife to her throat. The numbskull believes that they will “transcend death” and miraculously survive the fire. “We’ll step into the light together,” he adds. TJ tackles him and frees Olive. He shouts at Ben to take Olive and leave as he tussles with Isaiah, with fire surrounding them. While Ben is carrying Olive and looking for a way out, a bright light shines his way prompting him to follow its path.
Zeke arrives at the location with Cal, Grace, and Jared, and immediately runs in to help. He finds Michaela helplessly staring at Bethany (remember her?) whose leg is stuck under a burning beam. No sweat for our hero Zeke who lifts the burning beam à-la Dr. Banner in The Incredible Hulk‘s pilot movie (1977). Jared appears and guides them outside to safety.
Having carried Olive outside, Ben is ready to go back in to save TJ but it’s too late. The building explodes, killing everyone still remaining inside (logical conclusion, which may not mean much in a sci-fi show filled with twists and shockers). Adrian looks unequivocally devastated and Jared Grimes offers one of the best (silent-)acting moments of the series. Adrian’s expression of despondency is worth a thousand words as he comes to the realization that his grandiose plans for his Church have just come to screeching halt.
Thus ends one of Manifest’s most ambitious – and audacious – action sequences to date. It acts as a denouement to the episode’s self-contained story of the mass-murder attempt by Isaiah, while creating ripple effects likely to travel well into future.
Saanvi wakes up back at the lab and immediately checks her DNA. No anomalies found, Alex’s modifications worked! This explains not only the reverse order of events in her vision as she collapsed on the floor earlier, but also why she did not get a calling about the nightclub fire (Michaela, unaware of her latest experiment, is surprised to learn that Saanvi did not get a calling when the two briefly talk at the hospital).
Once Michaela is back at the precinct, she runs into Conor the tech guy who was about to leave her files on her desk. She is surprised to find out that Jared asked Conor to print her case files. Her curiosity is further piqued when Conor tells her that Jared gave her promotion as the reason for which he needed access to her files. Conor may have just ruined, albeit unintentionally, Det. Vasquez’s chances to build on the few brownie points he had just earned for helping Michaela at the nightclub.
Saanvi checks Zeke’s hands and discovers frostbite on his fingers, similar to when he was in the cave during the time he was missing. That explains why his hands did not burn when he lifted the beam, but it also means that his death date could be approaching. He appears to be slowly freezing to death, in the same way that Griffin drowned on land when his borrowed time came to an end back in the season 1 finale.
Ben learns from Olive that TJ located Al-Zuras’s journal and had it sent to his office. The journal contains an image of a man carrying a woman with flames surrounding them, reminiscent of him carrying Olive to safety at the night club. The last shot of the episode consists of a bright light, similar to the one that guided Ben at the night club, emanating from the book and brightening up his office.
Last-minute thoughts:
– TJ and Olive share a happy moment in the photo booth at the night club when TJ tells her that meeting her and Ben feels like a miracle for him. He offers her his mom’s bracelet with a dharma wheel on it, signifying a circular life with no beginning or end. I wonder if that symbol will play any kind of a role in solving some ‘xyz’ puzzle along the way, in the same way that the peacock and the tarot card already have. In any case, it is a heartwarming scene between the two youngsters, one that was surely intended to amplify the emotional impact of TJ’s soon-to-come demise.
– The champagne bottles are labeled “Maison du revenir” which literally translates as “House of coming back (or comeback)” and does not make much sense in French. I am not even sure it’s worth mentioning. If you are reading this, it must have somehow made it to my review’s final draft.
– Good move by Jared to give up on the login attempt to Michaela’s computer after two tries. A third one would have probably led to some type of alarm signal or computer lockdown.
– There is a shot of Finn passed out on the floor as Ben leaves the burning club with Olive. Talk about a guy who can’t catch a break for his life (literally).
– Saanvi and Alex conclusively separate after a final hug following their successful collaboration in modifying the retroviral serum. If I were to guess, I’d say that this was Alex’s first and last appearance in this season, if not for the remainder of Manifest.
– I am not 100% certain but I believe this is the second appearance of Saanvi’s dad. If memory serves, he showed up briefly when Saanvi returned after missing for five and a half years (from his perspective) in “Pilot.”
Until the next episode…
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