“Compass Calibration” – Aired on May 20, 2021
Writer: Laura Putney & Margaret Easley
Director: Ramaa Mosley
Grade: 2.5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

The hour begins with Cal watching with concern the agitated volcano inside his snow globe à-la the ending of last outing “Bogey,” followed by Michaela pondering whether or not to arrest Saanvi before informing Zeke that she killed the Major. Zeke encourages her to proceed with the arrest, claiming that it will play a positive role in Saanvi’s path to redemption in the same way that it did for him when he confessed to pulling the trigger and accidentally injuring Michaela back in the season-1 finale, “Estimated Time of Departure.”

There is a lot taking place in “Compass Calibration,” without offering anything of substance. It suffers more or less from the same plague that invades several other episodes of Manifest, which is the unrestrained multiplicity of storylines running simultaneously. It is also bogged down by one particular extended storyline that has frankly become too stuffy to watch (more to come below), to the point where I find myself fast-forwarding through the related scenes in my re-watches. It doesn’t help either that the episode features a humdrum bottle story that is generated by a previously employed trope (burning photo on Ben’s wall) and brings back one of the most unpleasant and dull characters from season 1. Luckily, there is the mythologico-scifi plotline that somewhat saves the outing with its inquisitive revelations, not that it doesn’t rely on some handwaving itself.

But first, let me get this dreadful Angelina plotline out of the way…

In what I would label the most forcibly fabricated story in the first three seasons of Manifest – and I have belabored on this plenty in my last two reviews –, Angelina’s obsessive behavior reaches new heights, to the point of remaining in the room upstairs with her and baby Eden inside where a fire is spreading, instead of running out, because… she believes that Eden is her guardian angel and will hocus-pocus away the fire!

As if this were not outré enough, we have to watch Grace brush aside the fact that Olive has now been staying with Levi in order to avoid the house and Angelina, offer a flimsy “Maybe we just keep it status quo until Olive’s ready to talk” justification for her staying away while expressing concern about Angelina having “been through so much.” And of course, Ben agrees with Grace! Helloooooo Mr. and Mrs. Stone! We are talking about your daughter Olive here. Are you not concerned that she may actually be right about Angelina? – Also note that as my head is screaming all this, Grace tells Ben that she is on her way to try out recipes for her new restaurant with Zeke, and that Angelina is coming along to help with Eden… Oh dear…

Even after observing Angelina’s red-flag behavior and comments throughout the episode, Grace is still not alarmed enough to put her foot down. It is only after she rushes upstairs (at Zeke’s prompt) and finds Eden in the burning room with Angelina doing nothing but standing in front of her with her hands opened toward the air and hoping for Eden to intervene, that Grace decides it’s time to kick Angelina out of the house. And then, there is Cal’s pissed-off mood toward her mom, even after Angelina put his baby sister’s life in danger and caught an attitude toward his mother Grace, stating that Grace cannot separate her from Cal, Eden! I watch the way Grace responds to both Angelina and Cal, and then the way she softly knocks on Cal’s door for permission to enter later, and I begin wondering, when on earth did the strong-willed mother named Grace Stone of the last two and a half seasons turn into such a push-over?

The bottom line is, I reiterate, this plotline is awful. It should have never existed. It forces characters to behave oddly, outside of their existing traits, and it’s progressively getting worse by the episode. Please end it!

The story of the week centers on panic-attack-ridden Astrid (Arianna Esquerre), noticed first by Cal who spots her photo in flames on Ben’s Agent-Moulder-basement wall. Ben pays a visit to Astrid who gets terrifying visions of a skull and a checkerboard. When she draws a painting of her calling, Ben associates it with the logo on the auto-repair shop once owned by Flight-828-hating, conspiracy theorist Cody the jerkwad (Patrick Murnay) who first appeared in “Cleared for Approach” as a menace to Ben and his family. He is also the father of Robin (Derrick Delgado) whom he kidnapped from school without the consent of the mother and his ex-wife Val (Denise Pillott), who also happens to be Astrid’s friend and co-worker.

The connection is first made by Astrid when she spots a tattoo on Cody’s wrist that matches one on Val’s body. The scenes at the repair shop with Ben, Astrid, and Cody are neatly interjected with the ones from the precinct where Jared, Michaela, and Val are also looking into Cody’s connection to Robin’s kidnapping.

Jared and Michaela arrive at the shop after Ben had badly injured Cody while interrogating him on Robin’s whereabouts. Since Cody has had a restraining order in place against Ben since the debacle in “Cleared for Approach,” Ben is legally in trouble. At least Robin is saved, after a contrived sequence that helps Michaela and Jared to bully Cody into revealing his kid’s location (inside a bunker built by the jerkwad in case all hell breaks loose on earth because, according to him, there is a “war coming”). Ben is handcuffed and scolded yet again by Michaela – a.k.a. Manifest’s voice of reason – on how he cannot be everyone’s savior. Naturally, Ben does not (and will not) listen. This dialogue between the Stone siblings comes across pat, as if we have been here before many times (yes, we have).

Speaking of arrests, poor Michaela’s task list for the day also includes bringing Saanvi in for killing the Major, something to which Saanvi willfully consented as part of her penance. At the last second, she asks Michaela for an extension until the end of the day, so that she can finish her research on the significant discovery that they just made at Eureka (the driftwood disappearing for 37 milliseconds). Michaela, distracted by a page sent by the precinct, reluctantly agrees.

Saanvi and Troy, as revealed later, have been scheming for a way to sneak the driftwood out of the facility. This is easily the best plot to follow in “Compass Calibration.” It includes a well-written dialogue between Vance and Saanvi that ends in a surprising way, though it makes sense later when Saanvi’s real intention is revealed.

Dr. Cooper uses the metaphoric ‘Mt. Ararat seeking revenge on Eureka because we took something from Ararat’ explanation to Saanvi to justify the earthquake that shakes New York with supposedly no existing volcano at its epicenter. This triggers Saanvi to conclude that the two successive earthquakes in two days, because of their locations, somehow portend some apocalyptic event to come – or something like that – unless they stop the testing on the driftwood. Saanvi’s explanation to Vance doesn’t entirely clarify how she came to that conclusion (I nodded my head in approval when Vance said, “this is grasping at straws”), but hey, let’s not nit-pick, right?

In any case, Vance refuses to stop testing. That puts into motion Saanvi and Troy’s scheme to sneak the driftwood out of the facility and drop it into the fissure caused by the second earthquake. A middling amount of suspension of disbelief is required while watching Saanvi and Troy accomplish all this because, it involves the most stunning discovery in centuries being sneaked out of a top-secret facility by two science nerds and Saanvi reaching the border of the fissure without anyone interrupting her. When she finally drops it, the hot lava inside solidifies and the fissure closes on itself. The outing ends with a shot of the volcano slowly ceasing to erupt inside Cal’s snow globe.

With three episodes left in the season, I can only hope that the show brings any and all of trivial storylines to a conclusion prior to the finale and offers considerable payoffs to the various plots surrounding its central mystery.

Last-minute thoughts:

— If this were Twitter and not a blog page for episodic reviews, here is what I would write: “‘Compass Calibration’ is the 10th entry into Manifest’s third-season. That’s it. That’s the tweet.” There would not be much else to say, maybe one follow-up tweet about the advancement of the mythologico-scifi plot.

— Ben’s rush to save Robin is paired at an emotional level with his desire to save Cal eight years ago on that same day. I guess the flashback scenes of Cal on the verge of dying are supposed to somehow make the viewers sympathize with how unhinged Ben became in his disposition in order to save Robin. I am wondering how people felt about that. They had no impact on me because I thought his behavior was justified in this episode, and this is coming from someone who had no trouble criticizing Ben’s hasty actions in the past.

— I have no idea how arresting Saanvi has become a part of Michaela’s “path to redemption.” As loyal to logical reasoning as Michaela is, she would have to possess clear evidence of her future being bleak in the case of not arresting Saanvi. I don’t remember any such past moments, do you?

— Nit-pick time:
So, Zeke can sense the love of person for another, just not to which degree, even if it’s at dangerously obsessive levels. That slightly negates his stamp of approval on the relationship between Jared and Sarah in “Bogey.” All we know in this case, technically, is that Sarah’s feelings for Jared are genuine in the same way that Angelina’s feelings for Eden are, and it does not necessarily mean that the relationship is 100% healthy.

— Otiose side note: According to Michaela’s pager, Tate & Turner Department Store is the location of the bomb scare. No such store exists. But I am wondering if this gets noted anywhere. What if five years from now, someone totally unaware of this show decides to name its store Tate & Turner?

Until the next episode…

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“Bogey” – Aired on May 13, 2021
Writer: Simran Baidwan & MW Cartozian Wilson
Director: Laura Belsey
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

I am starting to think that Manifest showrunners are deliberately – or inadvertently – blurring the lines between “chaos” and “quality.” Spitting out shocking revelations and mind-numbing twists at will does not negate the need for some plausible explanation as to why they came to exist in the first place. After almost 3 seasons, callings are increasingly beginning to feel like they exist as plot devices to carry the narrative from A to B, rather than as intricate, persuasive story elements, and some character developments — such as Zeke’s out-of-nowhere mind-reading dexterity – seem to serve nothing more than as “wow” effects with no rhyme or reason behind it. Add to these, choppy behavioral shifts like the sweet, magnanimous Angelina suddenly metamorphosing into Hedy from Single White Female in a matter of 2 episodes, and I don’t believe I am too unreasonable in getting the impression that the writing room acts at times as if “insane storytelling” and “quality storytelling” are interchangeable.

At the same time, Manifest is undoubtedly a successful show, renewed for a fourth season, which is a rarity in today’s cut-throat TV-show milieu. Perhaps, the show is delivering precisely what today’s audience demands and there is no need to be nit-picky or expect full dedication to cogent storytelling. Manifest puts forth a highly entertaining serialized TV adventure – I can confirm, from my first-hand experience – and that entertainment value, in and out of itself, may simply be enough.

As for a single episode, “Bogey” works well. There are still too many storylines being carried over from the previous two episodes, but the one covering the overall arc, with the Flight 828 mystery at its center, is tackled with audacity and the payoff is quite handsome.

At the Eureka facility, Dr. Gupta, Saanvi, and the scientists are experimenting on the effects of dark lightning on the piece of driftwood from the Vatican, with no substantial results in terms of altering the fragment. Saanvi is discouraged but wants to give it one last shot with her being the one delivering the dark-lightning bursts, before they ship the piece back to the Vatican.

Meanwhile, the B-story takes us to Zeke and Michaela’s house. They are preparing to host Jared and Sarah for dinner. Michaela asks Zeke to use his recently acquired mind-reading powers (still no explanation how) in order to get a feel on Sarah because she refuses to believe that the Major’s daughter hooking up with Jared is a mere coincidence. Zeke replies, “I’ll do my best,” which makes me erase in a hurry the positive check mark that I chalked up for him in my review of “Destination Unknown” when he told Cal that their powers were not to be used for personal gain shortly after Cal asked him for a similar favor. As a matter of fact, Zeke contradicts his advice to Cal more than once in this episode. I am not sure if this should be chalked up to inconsistent character writing or to Zeke having been disingenuous in his brotherly talk to Cal in the last episode. I don’t like either choice, frankly.

During the above conversation, Michaela has a vision of the ominous dark cloud hovering inside the house. She thinks it’s related to Eureka because the last time she saw it, in “Precious Cargo,” it led her there with Ben walking out of the building. Ben gets the same vision moments later in his X-Files basement office in the garage, except that his includes water falling on him. Finally, Eagan joins the calling party by arriving to the house, soaked in water, frantically claiming that same dark clouds hovered over him and dumped rain, and that there was a lion roaring at him.

Grace wants a private talk with Ben because she is not amused by the presence of a man in their house who recently had her husband kidnapped. Ben believes Eagan can be useful because “he is excellent at deciphering the callings.” Plus, he has influence over the passengers and Ben believes he must “keep his enemies close.” Eagan is close, all right! So close that the next time Ben catches up with him, the con man has the gullible Angelina giving him a tour of the house, including Ben’s Agent-Moulder office where he keeps all the information gathered on Flight 828 and its passengers. So close that he pockets the USB key on Ben’s computer. Grace is right, this dude should not have stayed in the house one second longer.

Ben asks Olive to go to campus and look into mythology about lions and floods. Michaela gets another calling with dark clouds, except that this time it includes a reflection of her face with blood streaming down her eyes. She, Ben, and Eagan try to make sense out of their common visions. Things are equally escalating at Eureka where Saanvi is spotted by Troy with blood streaming down her eyes while administering the dark-cloud energy bursts to the driftwood. It’s all connected, naturally!

I will avoid going step by step through every turn of event here (and I’d recommend a rewatch of the scenes solely involving this storyline for a better experience), but the crux of the matter boils down to Michaela eventually gaining access to the facility to demand answers from Vance and Saanvi, while Olive discovers, with the help of her new inamorato Levy, a Buddhist myth about a lion statue crying tears of blood at a village, with a neat story attached to it about punishing liars (hint: it’s related to what is happening to Saanvi).

The granular details of how this particular puzzle gets resolved are neatly woven into the dialogues featuring Ben, Eagan, Michaela, Olive, Saanvi, and Vance  – plus some bonus nerd talk with Troy and Patrick –, all culminating in a fascinating reversal of fortune for Saanvi who goes from almost dying to not only getting cured, but also learning moments later that her experiment did work after all. The Eureka crew overcame a big hurdle on the way to figuring out how to “create a miracle,” as Dr. Gupta would say. The driftwood did indeed disappear for 37 milliseconds at precisely 7:44 PM, at the exact same time as the nerdy Dr. Cooper’s computers recorded a barely detectable earthquake with Eureka sitting at the epicenter of it, despite the lack of fault lines anywhere near the vicinity of the building!

Wait…. Whaaaat !?!

The C-story is one with which I simply cannot get on board, and yes, I already harped on this in my previous review. Angelina has now transformed out of nowhere into a creepy girl obsessed with replacing or impersonating Olive. She wears Olive’s clothes, changes her hair style and color to match Olive’s, and refers to Olive taking care of Eden as “babysitting” (Olive swiftly replies that Eden is her baby sister). Are you kidding me? I am not saying that teenagers are not capable of such devious behavior, but I do find the character portrait that has been painted for Angelina for the first part of the season completely out-of-touch with what we are seeing here in the last 2 episodes.

Luckily, Olive is not as blind as her mother (I mean, come on Grace). She is aware of what Angelina is trying to pull off here. Angelina’s outré behavior reaches its pinnacle when she goes to campus and tries to sensually work her way into a kiss with Levi. Thank heavens Levi backs off and Olive catches her in the act. I was afraid of the writing room falling into the trap of using the cliché of terrible timing coincidence where the girlfriend spots her boyfriend kissing another girl when he really had no intention of doing so but was caught by surprise for a second (which of course happens to be the second that the girlfriend walks in). I am pleasantly surprised that they did not take that route. Nonetheless, please make this storyline go away! I insist that the season would be better off if this plotline focusing on the maniacal obsessive behavior of one of the otherwise most affable characters in the show never existed.

Back to the “most awkward dinner ever” (Jared’s words) at the house. Michaela must leave after a little while because she must join the A-story since she is getting the same calling as Eagan and Ben. Her vision also features blood coming out of her eyes, à-la-Saanvi who is literally bleeding out of her eyes at Eureka. Zeke remains with Beverly, Sarah, and Jared.

Couple of interesting developments occur in this B-story. Firstly, Zeke gets nothing but good vibes from Sarah who helps Beverly with a spill, even though Beverly initially startles as her by believing that she is Michaela. Zeke also gets good vibes from Jared and Sarah as a couple in a three-way conversation a bit later. There is no need, it seems, for people to freak out about Sarah being the Major’s daughter. It seems that Jared’s instincts were right. She is nothing like her mother.

Secondly, Beverly has a rare moment of clarity during which she tells Zeke, holding his hand, that his one day with Michaela where she thought he only had that day left to live, “doesn’t hold a candle to twelve years together,” obviously referring to Jared and Michaela’s past romance. This is obviously a sensitive topic for Zeke who asks Beverly if she can feel what he’s feeling, except that Beverly’s fleeting moment of clarity is already over. She is back to asking for ice cream. Hey Zeke, I feel for you man!

Last-minute thoughts:

–The 11^th-hour cliffhanger from the last episode, with Cal seeing the volcano erupt in his snow globe, mixed with visions of Ben, Michaela, Cal and others holding their heads in their hands and screaming their lungs off, is totally ignored here.

— Good on Saanvi to unload the burden of keeping her accidental killing of the Major a secret. And what better person to confess it to then Michaela! Now, what will happen when Sarah eventually learns of it? That may be an earthquake worthy of registering on on Dr. Cooper’s device.

— I laughed at Michaela’s mock-snark “thank you, goodbyeeee” to Ben when he got sarcastic about her cooking.

— I am not one to believe in the chances long-distance relationships surviving among young people, so it does not surprise me to see Olive and Levi connecting, at least for now, with no mention of TJ.

— According to Eagan, Ben is “Dorothy,” Angelina is “Little House on the Prairie,” and Saanvi is the “inside man.” He also refers to his lies as “-ish.” This guy’s a scuzzball, but he can be hilarious. I am willing to bet my house that Ali Lopez-Sohaili is having a ball playing this character.

— Jared: “Good on you, man, hosting the most awkward dinner party ever” – followed by – Zeke: “Ha!” Watch their faces in slow motion during this brief exchange and tell me if you can make it through without laughing.

— The Al-Zuras book is back, still emanating a bright light for effect, with references to the ship and people who jumped off. Ben wonders how he had missed the face of Saanvi drawn in one of the pages along with others who have gone insane on the boat, but unless my memory has gone grossly haywire, he did notice it back in “Airplane Bottles,” the ninth episode of season 2.

— I am going to recommend Grace not to give Olive advice on how to be nice to Angelina anymore. Dear mommy, Olive is mature enough to accurately read the room!

Until the next episode…

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“Destination Unknown” – Aired on May 6, 2021
Writer: Eric Haywood & Marta Gené Camps
Director: Claudia Yarmy
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

We have passed the midway point of the season and Manifest seems to justifiably focus more on its long-arc story with the high-concept mystery surrounding Flight 828 and its passengers. While this particular mystery exists since the series opener, it is now more nuanced with its stakes raised exponentially. Showrunner Jeff Rake and his writing crew have done a legitimate job of world-building and crafted multiple new layers to the mystery while expanding its parameters in terms of space and time. The show is far from being perfect, and this season has lacked the groundbreaking occasional episode the way the first two had them, but Manifest continues to be highly entertaining, if not addictive.

And perhaps those are the reasons why I have a bit of trouble understanding the obsession with running almost a half dozen storylines in a 42-minute episode, more than halfway into a 13-episode season. Last episode suffered from the same virus, except that the two A-stories in this one are much better paced and genuinely detailed, thus somewhat covering for the flaws dispersed all throughout the minor storylines. I would even argue that “Destination Unknown” would have been better off if a couple of those minor storylines were avoided all together, thus allowing time to give even more substance to the narrative surrounding the sapphire-related DNA anomaly found at Eureka via fleshed-out, additional dialogues between Vance, Saanvi, Dr. Gupta, Troy and other scientists (see my note below about the scene involving Dr. Cooper).

“Destination Unknown” opens with shots of Ben getting “poked and prodded” as the guinea pig of the Eureka project, to the beat of instrumental techno music in the background, under the supervision of Dr. Gupta and Saanvi. There is a crystallized form of sapphire found in his system, the same one that is also found in the systems of Jace, Pete, and Kory, all three kept in water tanks at the facility.

While Saanvi and Gupta are explaining all this to Ben and Vance at the lab, Ben gets a vision of a bunch of passengers’ photos on the screen at the lab bursting into flames. As he is leaving to investigate the calling, Saanvi informs him that they received a parcel from Vatican containing a piece of driftwood (the cliffhanger from “Precious Cargo”). They agree to give each other updates on their respective searches as Ben leaves the facility.

Cal’s getting ready to attend a book fair and Michaela and Zeke are helping him get a box of books together. Michaela finds a card from the Al-Zuras deck with a volcano on it. As soon as she picks it up, the volcano erupts, and the card burns her hand. She decides to stay behind to investigate the calling. Zeke wants to help, but noticing Cal’s disappointment about having to go alone, he agrees to go with him.

We find out later that Cal had ulterior motives in wanting Zeke to accompany him. He has a crush on a girl named Stella (Winter Donnelly) and he can use Zeke’s help in reading minds to get the scoop on how she feels about him. That little rascal! Zeke gives Cal a little life lesson on why it would be “shaky grounds” to use their abilities for personal gain. Chalk up another one in the plus column for Uncle Zeke. And yet, he is faced with a similar dilemma himself when Michaela arrives home later and tells him about Jared and Sarah flirting and how she is happy for Jared, and Zeke senses Michaela’s feelings of jealousy. So, will he follow his own advice and not use his ability to read Michaela’s mind in the future? Oh, the irony!

Angelina, in the meantime, is scrolling through Olive’s social media photos with great envy, almost as if she is obsessed with her. This bizarre development soon turns eerie when Angelina becomes obsessed with imitating Olive. By the end of the hour, we see her in Olive’s room, wearing Olive’s sexy dress, using her make up, accompanied by an ominous background music as if to echo the beginnings of Hedy’s destructive obsession with Allie in Single White Female (1992). Dear showrunners, I beg you, please don’t turn Angelina into that! And what is this sudden trend of inserting scenes of how Eden stops crying whenever she is picked up by Angelina, first from Olive’s arms in “Precious Cargo,” and now from Grace’s arms in this episode? Is there some supernatural force at work here or is it an unescapable component of this ham-fisted narrative?

Ben meets Michaela in his Agent-Moulder basement home office. They are trying to solve the connection between their two visions. Ben cannot remember every passenger that he saw bursting into flames, nor can the two of them find a connection between that and the tarot card, until Michaela notices the roman numeral XXI on top of it. Ben checks who was sitting in row 21 of the 828 flight and recalls specifically seeing the photo of a Rachel Hall (Sarah Hunt), the passenger assigned to seat 21A, bursting into flames in his vision.

Michaela and Ben drive to Rachel’s address but find instead her sister Hannah (Erin Fritch) living there with her husband Jonas (Robert Eli) who used to be married to Rachel before she disappeared on Flight 828 — quasi-replica of what Michaela went through in the beginning of the series when she came back five and a half years later to find Jared married to Lourdes, her best friend.

Jonas and Hannah do not know Rachel’s whereabouts because, according to them, things turned sour when Rachel’s behavior became so erratic that they had to get a restraining order against her. Michaela and Ben eventually locate Rachel who is now working for a cleaning company.

At Eureka, there is a bit of tension in the research team of scientists and Dr.Gupta’s disagreeable disposition toward her team members doesn’t help. During a general meeting, Dr. Bustamante questions her directive about everyone having to report their findings to Saanvi. Gupta bluntly informs him and the others sitting around the table that Saanvi is the reason why they all still have jobs because she made the discovery that the so-called “best and brightest scientific minds ever assembled under one roof” could not collectively make. Ouch!

And you can still feel the ripple effects of that “ouch” when, in a later scene, Saanvi and Troy request an update from Dr. Bustamante on his progress and he turns dismissive, mockingly noting that he will give his full report in due time since radiology is not Saanvi and Troy’s strong suit. Troy replies immediately that he read one of Dr. Bustamante’s papers and delivers the funniest line of the hour with the widest grin on his face: “Your writing is not that hard to understand.” Hahaha… Troy, please don’t change!

Saanvi and Troy run a DNA test on a sample of the biological matter found between the shards of the driftwood and find them to be roughly 6000 years old, originating in a type of peacock that had gone extinct, which makes it astonishing that they have the same DNA anomaly as Ben and the meth heads. Troy speculates that the peacock may have disappeared 6000 years ago and recently reappeared, which would not be that far off considering the peacock sightings at key moments in past episodes.

Jared and Michaela delve into the police report of Rachel’s car accident about a month prior to her trip to Jamaica. In fact, it was the injuries resulting from the accident that caused her migraines in Jamaica, ultimately forcing her to cut her trip short and return to New York on Flight 828. Jonas remained in Jamaica because he did not want the prepaid money for the hotel room go to waste. Lovely husband, ain’t he?

But, there is more…

It turns out that Jonas was driving the car that crushed straight into Rachel’s to cause the accident. Michaela notes that he literally “T-Boned” her car. Furthermore, in the only report of the violation of the restraining order, called in by a neighbor, Hannah did not press charges against her sister. Something is not adding up, and Michaela and Ben are determined to dig deeper. They first speak to the housekeeper (Susan Varon) working for the neighbor who reported the violation, and boy, is she a fountain of information! According to her, Jonas is never home at nights, and when he happens to be there, he is either “shouting” or “throwing things.” She doesn’t understand why Hannah stays with him and adds that Rachel stops by to help Hannah, not to cause trouble.

A more realistic picture is beginning to form in the eyes of Michaela and Ben, one that depicts Jonas as the abusive husband who first controlled Rachel, and now Hannah. Rachel is only trying to protect her sister. Hannah later opens up to Michaela about how Rachel had everything, whereas she was always left in the background, basically admitting that she wanted what Rachel once had, and turned a blind eye at first to the signs of Jonas’s true nature because he made her feel good, like the center of his world.

While Michaela was talking with Hannah, Ben was stalking Jonas who went into his office at night. The problem is, Ben notices that Rachel is also in the building, with a gun, ready to kill him in order to protect her sister. Luckily, Ben stops her just in time from committing murder before the authorities arrive in time to arrest everyone. Michaela’s and Ben’s scenes are interposed over one another, switching back and forth, in such beautiful way that both events appear, justifiably, to be the essential pieces of a single story. This is first-rate editing work by Mark Conte and it’s the accumulation of quality elements like this, along with some great performances by the three guest actors Hunt, Fritch, and Eli, that turn this bottle story into one of the best A-stories of Manifest in a single episode. The inner conflict of each character is conveyed across the screen with great accuracy. The last scene of the two sisters talking to each other through bars at the precinct under the watchful eye of Michaela, is bittersweet, touching, and redeeming at the same time, because the episode succeeds in making us care about them.

Back at Eureka, Troy introduces Saanvi to a nerdy gamer friend of his named Patrick Cooper (J.D. Martin) because he believes Dr. Cooper can explain how a 6000-year-old driftwood can resurface after so much time. There is a lot of seismic babble-talk here that I found interesting, but the key moment takes place when Saanvi learns that the driftwood was found near a dormant volcano that possibly coughed it up (a theory by the nerd Patrick). This three-way conversation is, by the way, an emblematic illustration of the additional, fleshed-out dialogue of which I speak in my introductory paragraphs above.

She rushes over to Dr. Gupta who earlier told her that it was discovered in “south of Armenia.” Next, we see Saanvi put two and two together to realize that the dormant volcano is Mount Ararat in Turkey,** which is believed to be the final resting place of Noah’s Ark which, in turn, makes the piece of driftwood part of the vessel! If so, this is not only a stunning discovery but one that changes everything previously known about the link — or the non-existing link, depending on your perspective — between science and the divine.

** What is the point of referring to the location of Mount Ararat, located in Turkey, as “south of Armenia”? Would anyone refer to Chicago, USA, as “1 hour south of Canada”? Is Zurich, Switzerland, “just south of Germany”? Technically, sure. But would one refer to Zurich that way? Never. Why not just say “the piece of driftwood was discovered in eastern Turkey” instead of “it was discovered in south of Armenia”? Because of this, the sequence during which Saanvi began putting two and two together came across forced and artificial, not to mention that anyone with a moderate amount of knowledge about Noah’s Ark would have known where she was going with it once Mount Ararat was mentioned.

What if Noah’s Ark experienced the same phenomenon as Flight 828? This is the reason why Vance throws a fit to Saanvi when she mentions the passengers learning about this. He exclaims, “you have to stop thinking of yourself as a private citizen. You are now a government operative with top secret security clearance working on this country’s most highly classified secrets. We can’t risk this falling into the wrong hands!” From now on, Saanvi’s loyalty is the facility and no one else, not even Ben, and Vance ain’t joking here! He makes Saanvi promise out loud that she will keep everything mentioned in that room a secret. It doesn’t take long for Saanvi to suffer the consequences of her promise either, as she is forced to lie to Ben when he texts her for an update on the research.

“Destination Unknown” ends with Cal seeing a volcano erupt in his snow globe, mixed in with visions of Ben, Michaela, Cal, and Angelina holding their heads in their hands and screaming, reminiscent of the same terrifying calling as in “Tailfin,” the season-3 opener.

Last-minute thoughts:

— Grace is checking out prospective locations for a new café to honor her brother.

— There is no way the previous owner of the café left Prince’s guitar hanging on the wall! Come on…

— Jared and Sarah have their first kiss together in the presence of red tulips that Jared brought to her doorstep. I am rooting for them. I know it’s a lot to ask from Manifest writers, but please, dear Jeff Rake and co., don’t rock the boat too much for these two!

— Holy crap! Everyone’s using the term “lifeboat” now… Sigh!

— Michaela continues the be the voice of reason, calling Ben “Inspector Gadget” when he comments on Jared flirting with Sarah, and senses quickly during the Jonas-Hannah-Rachel investigation that everybody is either lying to them or to themselves.

— When Ben arrives to the entrance of the building, the outside door is locked. But, hey, no worries for our citizen-agent-detective-locksmith Ben Stone. All he needs is his Swiss pocketknife and… voilà!!

Until the next episode…

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“Precious Cargo” – Aired on May 6, 2021
Writer: Bobak Esfarjani & Ezra W. Nachman
Director: Romeo Tirone
Grade: 3.5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

“Precious Cargo” is a passable hour of Manifest, shifting the momentum onto other story arcs of season 3, after concluding the the-scumbag-Jace-vs.-the Stones conflict that ended with an intense denouement at the end of the previous episode.

There is some intriguing material here, especially with the mystery-parcel delivery to Eureka and its potentially noxious content judging by the dark cloud above the facility only visible to Flight 828’ers. Unfortunately, some uneven character behaviors that pop-up in unearned ways, and the universal problem of squeezing too many storylines into a single episode, cumulatively bog down what could have otherwise been a stellar outing.

The hour kicks off with an eerie shot of Pete’s face in a water tank at the basement of Eureka, placed alongside those containing Kory’s and Jace’s bodies, similar to the way Kelly’s body was preserved (see “Tailspin”). Dr. Gupta is being her unpleasant self at the lab, telling Ben what a farce it is that he is even allowed to step inside a top-secret government facility – I admit, I agree with her on that. She curtly informs Saanvi that her services will no longer be required once Ben’s regiment is over (remember, Ben offered himself for study in exchange for having Pete accompany him to Jace in “Graveyard Spiral”).  

This scene seems unearned narrative-wise considering how we have been led to believe for a while that Vance is the head of the Eureka operations and seen him frequently halt Dr. Gupta every time she tried to voice her concern over Ben and Saanvi’s presence at the facility. As I watched this scene, I found myself asking if he approved this. Apparently, he did, because in a later scene, Saanvi tells Troy (the nerd is baaaaack) that Vance gave her 24 hours to gather her stuff. It makes little sense however that he would allow Dr. Gupta to deliver Ben and Saanvi the news of them being fired, so to speak, without even being present himself. This scene does make one thing clear though: Dr. Gupta is on her way to becoming a central character in this plotline, if not, in the season. What takes place by the end of the hour only serves to confirm that impression.

Without getting too far ahead, let’s switch over to another recurring character, Eagan, the con artist with a photographic memory who first appeared in “Wingman” as an 828-survivor. In that episode, he gave the impression of a voluntary loner, adamant about staying off the grid. Yet, in this episode, this supposedly-obsessed-with-privacy dude has suddenly amassed a following among 828 survivors, enough so that Ben must bargain with him and offer compromises, just to earn his trust. After all, Eagan’s followers are zealous enough to help him kidnap Ben, tie him to a chair, and beat him up.

After Michaela notices a dense cloud of smoke emanating from the top of a building at a distance and starts walking the streets toward it, she is soon joined by other survivors of Flight 828 among whom is Eagan. The smoke is only visible to them, meaning that it represents some sort of a calling. It turns out to be the Eureka building and the survivors notice Ben exiting it and getting in his car.

This is enough for Eagan to label Ben as a conspirator on the government’s side, and just like that, he decides that Eureka must be stopped. He and his followers kidnap and take Ben to the basement of a model home in a plush neighborhood. Eagan interrogates Ben and wants to stop “what’s going on in that building.” Ben explains that Eureka and the NSA are not the enemy. Neither can convince the other and the conversation turns sour when Ben tells Eagan that he believes they are resurrected, and that the government is beginning to believe that too. Unacceptable for Eagan who storms out of the basement, locking the door behind him.

Left alone, Ben snoops around and discovers the high-tech refrigerator’s email registration system, triggering one of the clever sequences of the episode. He sends a registration notice for the refrigerator using Michaela’s old email address. Already worried about her missing brother and knowing that only he would know that email address, Michaela understands that the new-refrigerator registration alert that she just received, with a zip code on it, could have only been initiated by Ben. She and Drea eventually locate the house from which the alert was sent and discover Ben and Eagan in the basement, in the middle of their second go-round with Ben trying to convince Eagan that the government will not put them on trial like the witches of Salem back in the 17^th century.

Ben agrees that there is something ominous going on in the section of Eureka from where the dark cloud emanated. It is the loading-dock section and Ben wants Eagan to let him loose so that he can investigate it on everyone’s behalf. He is even willing to not press charges when Michaela and Drea find them, in order to convince Eagan that he genuinely wants to earn the trust of Eagan and his followers. They must not go forward with their plan to destroy Eureka.

The two women arrest Eagan anyway on prior charges. Michaela later asks Ben for an explanation of why he chose not to press charges against Eagan and what the two men discussed prior to her and Drea’s arrival. Ben not only replies with a blunt “nothing,” but also bails Eagan out of prison, in the name of earning the con man’s trust. Oh dear… Is this where things are now with Ben? He must get on the “same side of the fence” as Eagan and lie to his sister? Really?

Besides the uneven character developments, “Precious Cargo” is also overcrowded with too many storylines. There is a sapphire-related storyline with Saanvi and Troy discovering that it is the common element in all survivors of Flight 828, as well as other disappeared and returnees. Furthermore, there is the mention of a parcel due for delivery anytime to Eureka, but the other unnamed (so far) doctor at the table, played by Paco Lozano, has doubts: “Are we really buying its validity?” he asks Dr. Gupta with a certain degree of sarcasm.

There is an interjecting B-story also taking place at the now-deceased Tarik’s place. It contains emotionally charged scenes with Grace and Cal pyschologically dealing with the aftermath of Tarik’s brutal death by stabbing, as well as Angelina grappling with similar inner conflicts created by Pete’s supernatural, and violent, death.

To top all that, a new storyline with the beginning of a Jared-related romance is launched toward the end of the episode. Sarah, the Major’s daughter, apparently asked our bachelor detective to a coffee date because she appreciates that he was willing to help her and making her feel seen. Yes, it has romance written all over it, and I am not complaining one bit. I did after all express in my last review that I wished to see Lauren Norvelle’s character remain in the show in some capacity. So, there! Thank you, Jeff Rake and co.

The hour ends with Dr. Gupta who is seen smiling for the first time in the show, I presume, and she is smiling to Saanvi out of all people, the same person that she has been dismissing since day one. The truth is, the parcel has arrived, and Gupta obviously needs Saanvi to remain now because the latter’s earlier discovery of sapphire “may be the bridge” they’ve been looking for. It’s a “new beginning,” she adds, underlining that they are “on the brink of changing the definition of science as we know it.” Talk about raising one’s expectations!

Unlike Saanvi whose expression of bewilderment is obvious once Gupta opens the parcel, we the audience do not get to see its contents, yet, except that the symbols on the box make it clear that it’s coming from the Vatican! At the same time, Ben is outside the building staring at the massive, dark smoke cloud on top of the facility.

Stop the press, notify the Pope!

Last-minute thoughts:

— Ben tells Michaela, “it’s not just about us following the callings, now we have to make damn sure that every single passenger does the same thing, we sink or swim together.” Hasn’t that ship already sailed with Saanvi taking the retroviral serum back in last season’s “Emergency Exit,” thus eliminating the DNA anomaly in her system and no longer getting the callings?

— I am already tired of hearing the term “lifeboat.”

— Drea is like a kid who has discovered a new toy in Michaela since she has learned about the callings, and she is having a ball with it, inserting some comic relief into the hour. Her enthusiastic commentary on Michaela (to Michaela) at the precinct when Michaela notices the ominous cloud is hilarious, as well as the one at the Stone household when she observes the list of passengers on the wall in Ben’s Agent-Moulder-like basement office. Jared finally has some competition in the domain of one-line deliveries.

Until the next episode…

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“Graveyard Spiral” – Aired on April 29, 2021
Writer: Laura Putney & Margaret Easley
Director: Sherwin Shilati
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

“Graveyard Spiral” picks up exactly where last episode “Water Landing” ended, with Michaela looking for Zeke in the woods at night time. In a period of two minutes where we go from dark to almost broad daylight, Michaela and Jace engage in a fairly entertaining fight sequence that ends with Michaela falling from a cliff and Jace walking away with a gun in his hand. He is quite inept at killing people though, at least until then. Both Zeke and Michaela walk away with minor injuries at the end of the ordeal. Notice that I used “until then,” because Jace makes up for his ineptitude later.

This entry goes into the records as one of the most action-packed and visually stimulating hours of Manifest. Director Sherwin Shilati is the star of the episode, using clever camera angles and sequences of one-take shots to convey the intensity of fight scenes, chases, and shootouts. The opening scene with Jace and Michaela, as it turns out, was just an appetizer. I would like to also add that if you can successfully pull off the idea of making Grace appear like the second coming of Sarah Connor when she raises from behind some parapet-like wall with her father’s rifle in her bloody hands, you have reached the pinnacle of directorship!

Jace gets in Michaela’s patrol car in search of Cal because he, along with Kory and Pete, had a vision of Cal in the woods with a basketball. According to Jace, this is a sign that Cal must die with the three of them on this day — their death date — so that they can come back alive again. When Cal is with a group of people who die, everyone in the group comes back alive later, Jace concludes, because it was the case with the Flight 828 passengers and also with the three of them when they fell into the lake with Cal. It’s a flimsy theory at best, but Jace will hang onto it because he is that much of a self-preserving scumbag.

How can he locate Cal? Well, of course, via the dumbest dispatcher ever who mentions “some 828 kid living there” over the police com system and promptly gives the address when Jace asks for it, prior to requesting the unit asking the question to identify himself! Oh-kay…

Several developments, some of which can be classified as contrivances (example: a pulled-by-the-hair basketball bouncing vision started by the thumping sound of Michaela’s and Zeke’s backs, when they fell on a big piece of flat rock, causing a ripple-effect through the air that makes Cal’s basketball at Tarik’s place move from miles away and bounce in front of the car driven by Ben and Angelina who, in turn, are the only ones capable of seeing the ball because they were passengers on Flight 828… or something like that…), or clichés (example: Kory escaping police supervision in the hospital via the window in his patient room). These scenes occupy the next 10 minutes or so, and they collectively pave the way for all the relevant characters to show up at Tarik’s place to set the stage up for the potent second half of the episode.

Grace, Tarik, Cal, and Eden are bunkered up in a hut named “headquarters” by Tarik and Grace when they were children. It’s hidden away from the house, outside of anyone else’s knowledge. They believe it to be the best place for them to hide because the local newspaper story published by the snooping reporter from “Water Landing” has made it unsafe for them to remain in the house.

The pace switches to fifth gear with a minute-plus-long, one-take shot that begins after Ben, Angelina, and Pete arrive to Tarik’s place to unite with Grace and the rest of the Stone gang (minus Olive, see “last-minute thoughts” section below). Agent Winger (Sam Edgerly), who was escorting Pete, gets shot in the head by Jace who is perched on top of the roof. The camera angles and the slow-motion patches are well coordinated here, and the viewer is put in the middle of the action as if they were the ones dodging the 20+ bullets raining upon them.

Jace takes off on foot in search of Cal, Pete takes off in pursuit of Jace, and Ben grabs Agent Winger’s gun and takes off running in the direction of where Grace and Tarik fled a bit earlier. Kory shows up in the safe “headquarters” – Cal repeating “x marks the spot” verse apparently led him there – with the intention to protect Cal and Eden from Jace. I guess this is when I should stop my habit of calling the meth heads “the skeevy trio” since Jace is the only member of the group left who is still a scumbag. Jared finds Michaela and Zeke who are still in the woods, and the three of them zoom ahead in Jared’s car to join the Rambo party taking place in the woods.

The first victim is Tarik who gets stabbed by Jace in the back. As he dies in his sister’s arms, in a poignant scene, the two long-lost siblings spend their last moments expressing their love for each other. One of the success stories of Manifest’s season 3, from a writing point of view, is how well Tarik’s background story and emotional make-up are depicted in a matter of four episodes to where his death really feels like a gut-wrenching moment it was meant to be. Warner Miller also deserves credit for portraying in such a visceral way the naïve-yet-enthusiastic brother in search of familial unity and contentment.

After a bunch of action scenes which really should be watched rather than read, we get to the point where Grace pulls the Sarah Connor act noted above and holds Jace at gunpoint before all others converge on the same spot. Ben stops Grace from killing Jace, convincing her that the scumbag’s time of death has arrived anyway. Sure enough, under the watchful eyes of Kory, Pete, Angelina, Jared, and the Stone gang, Jace starts vomiting inordinate amounts of water and suffocates to death. Pete and Kory are safe, or so it seems, because they had seemingly succeeded in redeeming themselves.

While this is taking place, the janitor on campus (Annie Pisapia) delivers Ben’s lost briefcase from back in “Wingman” when Eagan tossed it away to a trash bin with the piece of papyrus inside. Olive is ecstatic to discover the last missing piece to complete the papyrus but not so thrilled once she sees the full picture. “The Last Trial” is not about each person being judged individually, but rather the group being judged together. In other words, Jace’s failure to redeem himself should have also doomed Kory and Pete. The scene switches over to the woods where a dark shadow emerges from Jace’s corpse, splits into two and pulls Kory and Pete next to it before suffocating them to death! This is once again well-filmed, and I reiterate, director Shilati is the star of the hour.

My question for the so-called twist at the end is the following: Am I the only one who assumed that the group was being judged together anyway? That is how I understood it when Levi explained the allegory in the previous episode. So, for me, the twist worked in reverse. I was surprised when Pete and Kory survived Jace’s death at first, but then felt justified when they died later.

“Graveyard Spiral” carried several recurring characters to their grave indeed. See my thoughts above for Tarik, but as for the Jace-Kory-Pete storyline, I am glad to see it reach its conclusion before outliving its usefulness. Jace had become too much of a cartoon villain as of late, and I had never been able to fully jump on the Pete-Angelina romance train. I thought the one character out of the three, Kory, that had the most potential for growth considering his family background, was bluntly underused.

Last-minute thoughts:

— I have no idea what purpose the minor C-story with Olive stopping the transfer of the papyrus served. I am hoping it becomes relevant in some way in a future episode, but this hour, in and out of itself, would have been just fine if this commotion never happened and we only saw Olive when Ben’s missing briefcase was delivered to the office. Plus, we would have been spared from having to watch the humdrum sequence of the two gullible movers swallow Olive’s fantastical story about some chemicals being in the box.

— “Unless your kid’s really E.T.” mocks the state patrol (Amanda Bruton) right to Grace and Tarik’s faces. The irony is, while the officer’s sense of humor is horrendous, Amanda Bruton who plays her is hilarious as Connie in the comedic web series Confessions by Connie. Highly recommended!

Until the next episode…

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“Water Landing” – Aired on April 29, 2021
Writer: Matthew Lau
Director: Marisol Adler
Grade: 3 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Short announcement:

I am finally able to resume my reviews after 10 months of putting the project aside. My apologies for the delay. As noted in my previous announcement, I have tackled a new adventure in my life, one that I absolutely love but that leaves me no time for hobbies such as writing detailed, quality reviews. Heck, I have not even found the time to watch the rest of Manifest‘s third season, although it suited me fine in a way, because I do not wish to write reviews influenced by my prior knowledge of the outcome of events in future episodes. Therefore, what you will read is the same as my reaction would be, if I watched the episode when it originally aired. It so happens that I have a week here, unexpectedly, during which I have some free time, so I will attempt to catch up as much as I can. I am glad to have found out that a 4th season is on its way, thanks to Netflix taking over the show! Yay!

End of announcement, onto the review.

———————

The hour begins by using one of Manifest’s standard operating procedures for episode openers – a flashback – that takes us to the immediate aftermath of Saanvi killing the Major in the Season 2 finale “Icing Conditions.” Vance’s all-purpose assistant Emmett is seen wrapping the Major’s body in a bag and putting it in the back of a garbage truck. This opening scene had me rejoiced, since Jared’s attempt to bring some clarity and peace of mind to Sarah by investigating her mother’s disappearance was the continuing storyline of Season 3 that had piqued my interest the most.

Remember the complaint that Jared investigated back in “Tailspin” about a sanitary truck making too much noise late on Saturday night by the park, and consulted with officer Molinaro who followed up on the complaint and talked to the truck driver, but let him go without a citation? This flashback puts on display the conversation in which Emmett works Molinaro’s emotions over with the sick-dog story that supposedly caused him to run behind schedule. “Water Landing” also features a dialogue between Jared and the woman who filed the complaint (named Allison according to the credits) that had me chuckling.  Actor Angela Pierce perfectly nails the role of the spasmodic resident who sticks her nose into everyone’s business in the neighborhood and reports anything-n-everything to the authorities – her first question to Jared when he shows up at her doorstep: “Finally! Are you here about the loitering nannies?” Combine that with J. R. Ramirez’s dexterity in delivering one-liners as the officer overwhelmed by the woman’s negative energy, and you have the comedy portion of the hour covered.

We also learn via more flashbacks later in the episode that Emmett dropped the body into a creek, which fits neatly into the cover story fed to Jared by Agent Powell about the Major’s body being found submerged in a bog close to New Orleans, likely having been assassinated by a foreign asset based in the region. Powell menacingly tells Jared to drop his investigation into the disappearance of Kathryn Fitz, a.k.a. the Major, because it “threatens to expose a whole host of classified matters.” Aware of the Major’s intricate background in international matters, Jared buys this well-crafted story and informs Sarah of his findings. Sarah is devastated to learn that her mother is dead, although she suspected as much.  Jared consoles her by saying that at least she knows that her mother “died a hero.” If only they really knew…

So, is this the end of the collaboration between Sarah and Jared? I am hoping Lauren Norvelle’s character remains in the show, but the writing room would need to find a way to make her relevant by allowing her to be more than just “the Major’s daughter,” so to speak.

Unfortunately, what takes place outside of the Sarah-Jared story is nothing to write home about in “Water Landing,” an episode that seems rather poised to fill an hour with run-of-the-mill scenes, with little character development, in order to get to more important matters in the next one. This would be fine if the hour in questions does a decent job of setting up the background in a meaningful way for what is to come and fill in voids that may lead to questions later when the denouements finally take place.

The episode’s other main story involves the cat-and-mouse game between Michaela and Jace. Jace is determined to find and kill Michaela who, for her part, is determined to catch him before even he gets his chance. This plotline is clunky at this juncture because the skeevy trio of Jace, Kory, and Pete is comprised of mostly one-dimensional characters with limited attributes that have already been squeezed out.

Consider, for example, Jace assaulting the woman who used to live at Michaela’s old address. For starters, the plausibility of such occurrence is low (Jace would have to literally do the assault without having even glanced at the woman, or else he would know it’s not Michaela), but more importantly, this scene was not even necessary. The audience did not need more cruelty from Jace to dislike him further, and Michaela did not need that to amplify her sense of urgency, especially knowing that Jace’s death date is a mere day later. Everyone knows that Jace is a vile piece of human detritus (credit goes to James McEmanin’s effective portrayal of such character). He is a scumbag of gargantuesque proportions! The fact that he gravely injured another woman adds nothing of substance to his profile, or to the episode.

In Jace’s RV, Drea and Michaela discover wall drawings made by Pete the scumbag which pique Olive’s curiosity when she sees a photo of them later in Ben’s X-Files-Moulder-like basement. She remembers them from the research that she and Angelina made when they were looking into Ma’at back in “Wingman.” On campus, she meets Levi (we finally hear his name), the artifact-expert dude played by Will Peltz from “Wingman,” who is stupefied by this revelation because the symbols are the exact same ones as those on the 2000-year-old piece of papyrus that he is working on forming from the artifacts sent by TJ from Egypt Nobody has seen those symbols in centuries. This ongoing mythological plotline is so far a winner for season 3, mostly because noteworthy revelations originate from it, and also because Angelina, Olive, and Levi have good chemistry in their nerdy ways.

Levi associates the drawings to an Egyptian allegory called “The Last Trial.” It depicts the story of three prisoners who are given a second chance to correct their previous sins. Although the first two succeed in correcting course, they ultimately fail because the third one chooses revenge over forgiveness. The skeevy trio is essentially playing the modern version of this story. Olive immediately informs Ben that the calling is not for Jace to kill Michaela but rather a test of his free will. If Jace chooses not to kill her, they will be saved.

At this point, our protagonists need to find out from Kory and Pete where the vision of Michaela getting killed by Jace takes place, so that they can locate the scumbag. For no apparent logical reason (read: plot requirement), Kory cannot pinpoint the location (other than “trees” around), but Pete can (“by the lake”). Pete needs to be the more centralized character, you see, being in Vance’s custody ‘n-all, so that the episode can delve into the extra minutes of Ben trying to talk to him while Dr. Gupta wants “the unicorn” all to herself because… “greater good” in the name “science.”

I refuse to belabor through the endless talks Ben has with Pete who shakes and repeats through trembling lips variations of the same things about Angelina and his brother. Nor did I care much for Gupta complaining about Ben’s presence, Saanvi throwing temper tantrums of guilt, and Vance listening passively to Ben criticizing him for thinking about “progress.” At the end of this otiosely drawn-out storyline, Ben basically offers himself for study in exchange for Pete (who suddenly has a modified calling midway through the episode that makes him claim adamantly that he must be present when they find Jace). And just like that, we’re good to go! Why didn’t anyone think of this adequate compromise before? Because it would not have allowed room for the ramrodded arguments involving Ben, Vance, and Gupta, nor for the repetitive Ben-Pete dialogues.

Back at Tarik’s place, Grace is listening to her brother’s proposal about reopening the family restaurant. She will entertain the idea, but makes it clear to Tarik, once again, that they are trying as a family to not just “keep a low profile” as Tarik mentions, but rather to “avoid having any profile whatsoever.” This somehow does not stop Tarik from talking freely at a bar about his sister being at his home and being a great cook, etc. Of course, this attracts the attention of a reporter who happens to sit nearby. He is later seen photographing Grace through the window of the house, so that he can add the photo to his news story.

The hour ends with Michaela and Zeke walking through the woods by the lake, searching for Jace. Zeke gets another one of his ripple-epiphany moments to sense Jace’s presence, shortly after which Michaela loses sight of Zeke who is seen laying on the ground, unconscious, before credits start rolling.

Last-minute thoughts:

— Another episode goes by with zero explanation on how/why Zeke is getting these ripple-epiphany moments. They sure insist on taking place at the most convenient moments to advance the plot, but I keep hoping that the writing room will at least provide a passable reason for their existence within the domain of Manifest’s core tenets that goes beyond their usefulness in inserting them at will to move things alone, so to speak.

— Did Ben (or anyone in the audience) really believe Olive would obey her father’s directive when he told her to stay safe instead of going to campus to investigate the symbols? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

— This episode has so many ties to “Wingman” that it almost makes me wonder why they were not aired back-to-back. It’s hard enough to follow mythologically referenced storylines, and the connections turn fuzzier in one’s memory when there is another episode inserted in between before you get to the one updating the plotline. I had to go back and read my own review of “Wingman” to remember some of it.

Until the next episode…

PS1: Click on All Reviews at the top to find a comprehensive list of my episodic reviews.
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