‘Manifest’ (NBC) — Season 3, Episode 1 Review

“Tailfin” – Aired on April 1, 2021
Writer: Jeff Rake & Bobak Esfarjani
Director: Romeo Tirone
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Three months have passed since “Icing Conditions,” the Season 2 finale, and much to Jeff Rake and the writing room’s credit, the opener begins with the very mystery that ended the previous season, thus helping viewers avoid an excessive amount of catching up due to the timeline having moved forward and sparing them the annoying monologue that functions as info dump. As for the question of why so many other TV shows do not engage in this simple formula, I have no idea. It is engaging, efficient, and it rewards the viewers for being patient by putting them right back at the spot where they were left wondering a season ago.

The above is not the only thing that Rake & Co get right**. The showrunners have proven over two seasons that they have a knack for world-building and high-concept storytelling. Lo and behold, the potential for riveting storytelling is impressive for third season as “Tailfin” lays the substrates out without overloading the senses with an inordinate number of shockers and twisters – unlike the second-season opener “Fasten Your Seatbelts” – and does so with adequate ambition.

** Speaking of getting things right, and I know I have mentioned this before so I will keep it brief, other showrunners could (and should) take tips from Jeff Rake on how to use social media to interact with fans.

A half-shaved Ben, speaking Spanish with an accent, dressed in a bright-cream-colored shirt and beige khakis (read: out-of-place, white American male) is strolling along the marina in Havana, Cuba. He is searching for Tesoro de San Antonio, the boat that found the Flight 828 tailfin in the closing moments of Season 2 finale. We learn that Cal drew the image of the boat when he got a calling and firmly believes that the boat found something that belongs to Flight 828.

Once Ben locates the boat parked at the marina and hops on it, he gets another calling with a blurred vision of him, Michaela, Cal, and a mystery woman, all holding their heads and screaming in pain — I must admit, I had to rewind and watch the vision three times to even clearly see that there was a fourth person in it, let alone notice that it was a woman. Cal in New York and Michaela in Costa Rica, on a honeymoon with Zeke, join Ben on FaceTime and confirm having the same calling themselves and wondering about the mysterious woman.

This perfectly cromulent prelude sets up the storylines, the locations where they take place, and the characters involved in them, including the introduction of a new one, all in a concise manner. The A storyline consists of the three of them identifying and helping the woman. We get a first glimpse at her, scared and shivering in some small, dark room. Her name is Angelina Meyer (played by Holly Taylor whose performance in The Americans as Paige Jennings was extraordinary), as noted a bit later by Olive and Cal who locate her on Ben’s XFiles-Moulder-basement wall with pictures of all the 828 passengers.

Speaking of the Stone household in New York, Grace is proudly watching Olive feed her baby-sister Eden, the newest member of the family. Cal walks in and tells them about the calling. This is the first time they apparently hear about it, which means that it never crossed their minds to ask Cal if Ben’s day-long disappearance — “radio silent,”Grace terms it — is related to a calling. Accuse me of being nitpicky if you will, but I call b.s. on that. Knowing Grace, not being able to contact Ben the whole day would have put her on the edge and led her straight to Cal with questions. She expresses genuine alarm only when Cal tells them that in the calling, he, Michaela, Ben, and the unknown woman were about to die.

Saanvi is apparently running a clinic for patients now and no longer at the hospital. I say this because when Grace visits later with Cal, Saanvi advises Grace to switch doctors, to someone closer to Queens and “with hospital privileges.” She can’t still be working at the hospital without hospital privileges, right? Plus, a few doors down from her office is the unmarked secret operation center, so to speak, for Vance and his team, which would be a lot harder to pull off in a hospital. Until I hear otherwise, I am going with Saanvi working out of a clinic.

Meet Alonzo (Alexis Suarez) who appears to be the poor man’s equivalent of Leverage’s Alec Hardison. He runs the Vance-led operation center, surrounded by screens on his desk that probably gives him the ability to access on a whim, million-dollar passwords, off-shore bank accounts, identities of Interpol’s secret operatives, and views from surveillance cameras around the globe, including your bedroom and bathroom. Vance’s resources seem to be endless, and this episode goes to great lengths to get that point across.

Saanvi stops by to ask Alonzo if he heard from Cuba, meaning that unlike Grace and Olive, Saanvi is well aware of the Havana operation led by agent-professor-citizen Ben Stone – oh wait, Vance reminds Ben, and everyone in the audience, that the operation belongs to his fiefdom, and that it was his “datamining and signal intelligence capabilities” that verified the “suspicious extraction from the ocean.” I won’t ask “how,” but I will say “I told you so.” The man’s resources are endless, literally!

Anyhoo, Vance and his loyal right-hand man Emmett (Brendan Burke reprises his recurring role) are indeed following Ben at the marina from a distance and communicating with him through earpieces. Ben had obviously convinced the otherwise-skeptic Vance that a trip to Havana was a worthy cause.

Flashing a wad of cash in his hand, he also manages to convince (Ben’s good at that) the two reluctant guys who own the boat to show him what they found in the ocean. They lead him inside a building and the tailfin of Flight 828 is revealed – though not much a revelation since it was one of the main highlights of the season-3 trailer. A curious kid with a smartphone sneaks into the building and films them as Ben touches the tailfin with his hand, only to get thrown back against the opposite side of the storage area. Scared, the kid runs outside and shows the clip to his friends. The problem is, he is not the only curious cat around, as a policeman (Frank Rodriguez) notices them and demands to see the phone. Upon seeing the clip, his curiosity is piqued further, causing him to venture inside the building with two of his colleagues.

Still recovering from the shock of getting launched across the storage area, Ben notices that his hand has taken a bizarre white glow. The policeman, in a not-so-friendly way, asks Ben to touch the tailfin again. Ben reluctantly complies and, although no secret energy throws him across this time, his body emits a buzzing sound. Alarmed, the policemen draw their guns, but Vance and Emmett appear in the nick of time to neutralize them. Vance is… everything! – though he does make one faux-pas, see last-minute thoughts below.

Back to New York…

At the precinct, a woman (Lauren Norvelle) insists on seeing Detective Stone because her mother is missing. Drea is brushing her off, believing that she is one of those who think Michaela, being an 828’er, can tell them where they can find their lost ones. Jared, the good Samaritan that he is, witnesses the exchange from afar and appears concerned.

At the Stone household, Ben and Olive pull up Angelina’s information – Ben also keeps detailed files on everyone in a cabinet in case you forgot that he was trying to find all of them in season 2. Angelina is from Long Island, NY, born in 1990 (Holly Taylor does NOT look 31 years old, but rather 25 or 26, which fits the timeline), and her parents own a home in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Zeke and Michaela are two hours away from there, which means that their until-then peaceful honeymoon is over. Zeke, who made a joke earlier about how he misses the callings, will naturally accompany Michaela to Tamarindo.

Once at the Meyers’ residence, it doesn’t take too long to notice that Angelina’s parents (Ben Livingston and Heidi Armbruster) are super-duper religious. They also turn dubiously uncomfortable once Michaela voices her opinion about their missing daughter possibly being in danger. Their version is that Angelina became distant after her reappearance five and a half years later. They could not reconnect with her and drifted apart. They concluded that she was losing her mind, because when they tried to pray with her, she pulled away even further. Kenneth, the dad, says that she packed up and left months ago and they never heard back.

Michaela and Zeke contact the always-resourceful Drea — though she still trails Vance in terms of grandiose problem-solving — for more information on Angelina’s whereabouts. There are no records of her having entered the US so she must still be in Costa Rica. Michaela and Zeke visit a friend of Angelina named Elena (Vanessa Morales) who tells them… nothing new. I wondered what contribution, if any, this scene made to the outing. I cannot come up with one.

Grace and Cal are back at the house after a visit to Saanvi for a check-up on Cal that went smoothly. Cal casually informs Grace and Olive that Dad’s bringing someone home to stay with them. Olive and Grace are not even shocked. Side note: This is one use of the callings that sits wrong with me in Manifest. They are used too often as plot devices to advance the narrative when there is a need for it, or for a ‘wow’ effect, and Cal conveniently zigzagging between predicting the future with ease at times and not knowing anything at others, is a prime example. I hope there is some larger purpose to Cal knowing ahead of time that Ben’s bringing Angelina to stay with them, other than providing a prelude to Cal telling her “I’ve been waiting for you” when she arrives.

Back in Cuba, we jumped from Vance and Emmett neutralizing the three Cuban policemen in the building to Emmett driving a truck with the tailfin in the back with Ben and Vance standing next to it (was there no room next to Emmett?). Don’t ask how or where they found the truck or how they loaded the “1800-pound tailfin” (Ben’s quote) on it, in the same way you shouldn’t ask how, with one phone call, the plane taking Emmett and Ben back to the US stops by Costa Rica later in the hour, to pick up Michaela, Zeke, and the passport-less Angelina, as if they were waiting to be ubered at a neighborhood ten minutes away.

As Emmett’s driving the truck to the site where there is a plane waiting for them – thanks to Vance’s resources, you know it – three other trucks appear in their pursuit. According to Vance, it’s a team from the DGI (Dirección General De Inteligencia), Cuba’s secret intelligence agency, and he affirms that they will do anything to get the tailfin. His solution is for Ben and Emmett to get on the plane while he uses the truck to block their vehicles, resulting in his capture, along with the tailfin. Prior to that, he gives his wedding ring to Ben and asks him to pass it to his wife. While that is worrisome for Vance fans (I am one), let’s remember who he is. The dude will survive, and even joke about it afterward. He is awesome, and so is the performance of Daryl Edwards playing him.

Michaela and Zeke are back at the Meyer’s house for more questions and the parents are fidgety about it to say the least. Michaela suddenly gets another calling with a vision of Angelina about to cut her wrist. Convinced by this time that Angelina is kept somewhere in the house, Michaela asks to go to the bathroom, only to sneak out a bit later to snoop around (thanks to Zeke distracting the parents, feigning to faint). She eventually finds Angelina in a small, dark cellar at the basement level, as we hear sirens in the background. I am going to assume that the sirens belong to an ambulance called by the parents for Zeke.

The next scene shows Zeke, Angelina, and Michaela safely back at their honeymoon shack. They assure Angelina that she is not a curse and that all Flight 828 passengers, including them, are hearing the callings. It’s probably the first friendly words Angelina heard for months so she is more than ready to depart with them, leaving her parents behind. I must assume that the parents had zero problems with Michaela and Zeke whisking away their daughter, thinking it’s good riddance, and that they somehow predicted Angelina would stop Zeke and Michaela from reporting them to the authorities. Yeah, I know, that’s a lot of hand waving, but I better, because to do otherwise would place me deep into the “don’t ask how” territory, a recurring issue in this season opener — Did the ambulance not take Zeke and Michaela’s names? Did the police arrive? How did they sneak Angelina out of the house? Did the parents not check on Angelina and attempt to report them to the authorities during their two-hour drive back? Or pursue them themselves?

Michaela calls the “Alonzo operation center” to arrange their exit with Angelina. Alonzo is skeptical at first, until Saanvi reminds him of the plane that just left Cuba with Ben and Emmett. The next time we see the plane, Michaela, Zeke, and Angelina are also on board. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

The scenes oscillate in acceptable intervals for around four minutes between the truck chase in Cuba and the discovery of Angelina in Costa Rica, with short bursts of callings mixed in, allowing the viewers to genuinely feel the crescendo of suspense while remaining able to absorb the progression of events. I cannot remember from the top of my head every action sequence over the last two seasons, but I feel certain that this was one of the most exciting Manifest had to offer in terms of edgy entertainment.

Everyone is finally reunited at the Stone household in a well-filmed, heart-warming scene that begins in slow motion. Cal welcomes Angelina into her new home with, “I’ve been waiting for you,” which probably sounded awkward to her (and her face shows it), but certainly not awkward enough to spoil the welcomed sight of the loving family in front of her, especially considering her parents and the hellhole in which they locked her up back in Tamarindo for months.

The woman looking for her mother is back at the precinct, this time wanting to chat with Jared. She had noticed his concerned look from afar earlier and she is desperate to talk to anyone who will take her seriously. “You’re my last hope,” she tells Jared who is very familiar with that role if you remember how many times he saved the day for the Stone family. He is, needless to say, ready and willing to help.

Her name is Sarah Fitz (ring a bell?), her mother who was working for some secret force (get it?) disappeared three months ago (got it!). The mother’s name is Kathryn Fitz, otherwise known as the Major, killed by Saanvi in the second-season finale. Jared, for his part, recognizes neither the name nor the face. Sarah believes that her mom’s disappearance is connected to Flight 828, thus her desire to see Michaela. This C story is the most intriguing development of “Tailfin,” and the writers make sure you know it, because the scene cuts to Saanvi who is collapsed on the ground and bawling her eyes out while listening to the recordings of her sessions with the Major. It appears that guilt is eating away at our good scientist-doctor.

Back at the most familiar grounds of Manifest, which is Ben’s Agent-Moulder-basement office featuring the Stone siblings contemplating the callings. Ben mentions the fact that he saw more on the callings than Michaela and Cal did, because he saw the plane explode. He reasons that it may have actually blown away with them in it, except that, they are resurrected in the same way that the plane is now being resurrected piece by piece. I love how Michaela, the voice of logic in the show, affirms that they are right there, standing, thus not dead. Because, yes, what Ben is concocting in his mind requires an enormous stretch of the imagination, but one that is forcibly needed to be mentioned since we know that the 828 plane (or a replica?), will sooner or later make an appearance in a hangar, thanks to preview trailers.

The closing scene consists of Cal telling his mom and Zeke that although he is no longer having the nightmares with the shadows, he is getting the same dreadful feeling that he did back then. Scene shifts to an overhead shot of the frozen lake from the second-season finale, now thawed, and the camera first zooms down on three bodies that resurface, then zooms in on the face of one of them, Jace, the skeevy trio’s leader. His eyes pop open and he lets out a loud gasp!

The ubiquitous eleventh-hour shocker-cliffhanger inserted, mission accomplished, credits can now roll.

Last-minute thoughts:

— When Saanvi, Cal, and Grace talk to Vance from the “Alonzo operation center” at the clinic, Vance drops the bomb on them about Ben claiming to be in the presence of the tailfin inside the building. Emmett snarks (rightfully so) at his boss for doing so. Vance retorts, “What’d you expect me to tell them? ‘Ben’s facing down three Cuban cops at the moment, please hold’?” Dear Vance, there is a third option, you know? Not saying anything at all. Or lying, something along the lines of, “we’re working on it.”

— Light moment between the siblings when Ben asks Michaela in the plane, “What year do you think it’ll be when we land?”

— On her phone call with Ben at the beginning of the hour, Michaela tells him to be careful because he is in a “dangerous place.” I can do without the trope of the American TV show inserting a line about a foreign spot being a “dangerous place,” especially when I do not see Havana listed among the top 50 cities in the world with the highest homicide rate while five American cities are on the list.

Until next episode…

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