“Off Radar” – Aired on November 5, 2018
Written by: Matthew Lau & MW Cartozian Wilson
Directed by: Felix Enriquez Alcala
Grade: 3,5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
I must express praise for the variety of narrative and rhythm that Manifest’s writing room assigns to episodes. In just six outings, we have had slow-burners (ex: “Reentry”), fast-paced rides with multiple plots moving at the same time (ex: “Turbulence”), and a mix of both (ex: “Pilot” and “Connecting Flights”). “Off Radar” brings yet another form of narrative, one that builds on a single A story without any B or C ones. The hour solely centers on Cal and his connection to other passengers from the plane. The love triangles are swept under the rug. Danny and Lourdes do not appear. Neither does Olive!
Perhaps, it was necessary to have an episode entirely dedicated to developing Cal’s role in the core mystery. Frankly, his character development had lagged behind that of other main ones throughout the first five episodes. Then, there was also the previous episode’s closing scene. It not only signaled that Cal is a key player in the search for an answer to what happened on Flight 828, but it was also a game changer in moving “the parameters of Flight 828’s central mystery from the ‘what’ to the ‘how’” – yes, I just did the unthinkable, I quoted myself.
The hour did suffer, however, from some clumsy dialogues and questionable sequences, mostly led by Ben’s dubiously efficient investigative savoir faire. A conversation taking place between Saanvi and Ben toward the end of the episode echoed my sentiments:
Saanvi: “I am guessing you got a game plan for that?”
Ben: “And to think you just met me.”
No kidding! I mean, Ben made Jessica Fletcher, Sherlock Holmes, Columbo, and Adrian Monk look like rookies in this outing. Dear Director Vance, please hire this man and pay him top dough!
Here is a summary of Ben’s accomplishments in “Off Radar”:
– After his assessment that Cal and a passenger are somehow physically connected, he uses his magic iPad/tablet to find, in record time, the identity of the passenger in question. Marko Valeriev (Nikolai Tsankov), a Bulgarian, was looking for translation help in the plane and petted Cal on the head as he was passing by him. We see current shots of Valeriev severely suffering from tests being done to him in a sketchy facility and his pain is somehow being transmitted to Cal who is also in grave pain at the hospital.
– Ben goes through a bunch of news footage that he accumulated on his magic tablet, to figure out in record time again that 11 passengers never appear in any of them. He identifies them as either foreign nationals or people with no relatives. We are witnessing some outstanding investigative prowess on Ben’s part here folks!
– After Saanvi remembers that an “older woman” sitting behind her in the plane helped Valeriev with the translation, it takes Ben literally five seconds to pull out her profile. Anna Ross (Jacqueline Antaramanian) is her name, and naturally, she turns out to be a fountain of information – I mean, really! She distinctly remembers Valeriev getting on one of the buses that moved the passengers.
– Thanks again to the news footage, Ben figures out that there are five buses that moved the passengers instead of four as the records showed.
– Michaela informs Ben from the precinct that one of the buses separated from the other four and took exit 16 “outside of Woodbury” after a toll. That is all Ben needs to know. His magic tablet pinpoints the location of the exit. He immediately pulls out a large paper map to examine the area. He reduces the possible locations of the bus to four buildings in a huge area of farm land thanks to some superior drawing skills on the map. Let’s not dwell on the fact that the bus could have driven anywhere from that exit for five minutes, or for an hour, or five hours, because that peculiarity is covered with the line, “there is only a handful of roads they could have taken without tripping another scanner.”** Okay, I can live with that.
**The footage of the fifth bus moving as Ben narrates its possible location is aptly sequenced by the experienced director Felix Enriquez Alcala.
Unless I am mistaken, Ben accomplishes all of the above in a few hours (or less) from the hospital where Cal’s life is hanging by a thread. His findings eventually lead Mick and Jared to locate the secret compound while it’s still daytime.
Director Vance, I already told you what to do. Hire this man and add him to your team!
Never mind that at the compound, experiments are being held on passengers impacted from the greatest anomaly of modern times and that it’s supposed to be heavily guarded with armed men and drones. Michaela and Jared get within about a hundred yards of it without any trouble, pull their car to the side, get out, and observe the building before a guard finally arrives to tell them to leave. As they are leaving, they even get to conveniently stop at the building’s driveway with a clear shot of the front door. Michaela takes pictures while the guard simply watches them from afar. As he begins moving again toward the car, our two heroes drive away. Don’t ask me if the guard even bothered to get the plate number. Michaela and Jared sure got what they wanted, without breaking a sweat.
Ben, desperate for answers, leaves the hospital to find Director Vance – “give me an hour,” he says to his wife who can’t believe that he is leaving her alone while Cal is in critical condition.
Grace is struggling on multiple fronts. Put yourself in her shoes for a second. Remember that she does not have the luxury of knowing what the viewers know. From her point of view, Ben is asking her to take a leap of faith and place her son’s life into the lap of a wild, implausible theory that he has developed because he has been “seeing things, hearing voices.” In the meantime, she is helplessly watching Cal’s life wither away. To make matters worse, Ben leaves her alone in pursuit of answers to his absurd-sounding theory. Then, when the critical moment hits and she is asked to make a life or death decision on behalf of her son, she is alone and pressured by Saanvi and the doctor into buying into an idea that could possibly result in Cal’s death. At one point, Grace is so overwhelmed that she escapes into the bathroom and has a nervous breakdown. Athena Karkanis excels throughout the episode, putting forth a golden hour of acting performance.
I should add that Grace warns Ben about not falling into the deep end again at one point. This is the second time that she refers to a previous breakdown by Ben. I am expecting an episode at some point that explores in depth the troubled period in question in the couple’s past. It has to do with Ben shutting down over five years ago – from Grace’s perspective – after Cal’s initial cancer diagnosis.
Ben finds Vance and his sidekick, the NSA Deputy Tim Powell (Tim Moriarty). He threatens to go public if they don’t locate Valeriev so that Cal can be saved. He leaves empty-handed but Vance’s interest is piqued. He makes a few phone calls and begins asking questions. That is enough for the experiments in the shady compound to come to a halt and for the passengers to be transported to another unknown location. Valeriev’s treatment is thus interrupted, which also means that Cal is temporarily safe although his ordeal is far from over. The teaser for next week’s episode indicates that his connection to the mystery will be explored further.
The sequence noted above also confirms my suspicion about Vance that I expressed back in my review of episode 3. Vance is not the one-dimensional “bad guy.” This is conveyed to the viewers through a phone call made by some individual to a “Ma’am,” informing her that they had to temporarily “terminate the experiment because somebody in the NSA started poking around.” Vance the disruptor finds the compound, and a bloody tissue inside on the floor, after it has been abandoned by the actual bad guys who work for a corporation named Unified Dynamic Systems (UDS). Michaela has learned that the buses carrying the passengers were contracted to the government by UDS.
Last-minute thoughts:
– Michaela finally opens up to Jared about the callings and he is willing to listen. Ben has less success with Grace when he does the same.
– Will Danny and/or Lourdes be back next week?
– In the last episode, Jared felt the pressure from Vance who was basically demanding that Jared keep him abreast of Michaela’s activities. Now that Michaela has let Jared in on the callings, what will the good NYPD detective do? He indeed owes Vance after what happened in the last episode with the internal police investigation.
– Is there a point to that short scene with scientists advancing theories (or not advancing any) on the disappearance of Flight 828?
– There is obviously a point to showing a woman named Fiona Clarke speaking on a TV screen in the hospital. Michaela momentarily notices her, and the chyron indicates that she is one of the passengers of Flight 828. I am assuming that is the “ma’am” and the teaser for next episode shows that we will meet her.
– What is the deal with the man bumping hard into Ross in the hotel lobby? Was that thrown in there just to have a reason to fit the “men can’t keep it in their pants” line? Okay, but a bit distracting.
– I don’t care if Montego Air is a fictional airline. Get me on one of their flights, pretty please! I want to have the surreal experience of walking in an ultra-wide aisle in a plane like the one I saw in the flashback scene at the beginning.
Until the next episode…