“Hard Landing” – Aired on February 11, 2019
Written by: Gregory Nelson & Bobak Esfarjani
Directed by: Claudia Yarmy
Grade: 3 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
An odd penultimate episode “Hard Landing” is, for a show that has been, for the most part, riding an overall arc filled with conundrums and twists. Last week’s brilliant “Upgrade” did a great job of bringing the major players of Manifest back into the center of the tableau and set the last two hours up for a fantastic landing. Yet, unlike its title would suggest, “Hard Landing” contains no ‘hard landings’, not even mere ‘landings.’
Don’t get me wrong, the narrative works reasonably well as a self-contained episode. The problem lies in its position within the episode count. “Hard Landing” feels like an early-to-mid-season episode in its ambition and form. It focuses on an 11th-hour character, James Griffin (Marc Menchaca), while reducing the role of the characters that are central to solving Manifest’s main puzzle to either background visuals (Cal) or to nothing (the Major).
This 15th episode of the 16-episode season seems more concerned with creating new storylines and questions than bringing any type of resolution to the numerous dilemmas tackled so far in the show. As a result, going into the last hour of the season, we have a whole new character pop up as a major villain who belongs to the same ‘blood-work family’ as the Flight 828 passengers and Zeke, a recurring character in Zeke himself who was added to the mix late in the season to expand the scope of the show’s predominant mystery and whose behavior continues to generate further questions, and Saanvi whose problems are compounded because she is now suffering from trauma due to the assault she had to endure in Alice’s house last week. Even its new minor characters seem to come out of left field, such as Dr. Matthews (Rey Lucas), another doctor at Saanvi’s hospital, who notices her discomfort and offers help, before she ‘gently’ brushes him off. Surely, there is more to follow on Matthews, or else, why even waste time on him in such an important episode. At the same time, how significant can his contribution to the season finale possibly be, if he is in it at all?
In the meantime, what about the Major? Cal? The light that Cal saw from the window of the plane? The physical manifestation of Cal’s connection to the passengers? The fact that there are now people other than Flight 828 passengers linked to this phenomenon? Peacock and the petroglyph? FBI and CIA’s involvement? Fiona and Daly’s destiny? The ‘what-really-counts’ list goes on and on, and yet, almost every item on that list remains ignored by “Hard Landing.”
Now, there is only the season finale left to bring a resolution to all of the above and more. It certainly does not seem possible. In fairness, I doubt Jeff Rake & Co. planned to provide an answer to every question anyway, leaving some hanging in the balance for a possible – probable – second season (What on earth is taking NBC so long to give the green light?) Nonetheless, “Hard Landing,” while doing a decent job of handling its own contained narrative, dishes no assists to the season finale and effectively puts it into a corner.
At the end of “Upgrade,” Griffin was alive when the van was pulled up from the water. He is brought to the hospital in the beginning of this episode where Saanvi, in her trademark lovely and nerdy way, calculates that he has been under water for 82 hours and 8 minutes and associates it with “828.” The flashback in the beginning of the episode aptly provides the backstory of how Griffin ended up as the driver of the van. He stole money that he put in the van with help from a couple of buddies, whom he killed before driving the van away by himself. Michaela and Saanvi notice him having a vision in the ICU bed and yelling something about an explosion. This sets up the interrogation scenes between Michaela and Griffin, which act as the driving force of the hour.
Once Griffin is transferred to the precinct, Michaela attempts to extract information from him, with help from Ben, Grace, and Olive as they investigate the criminal’s past from their home to dig up dirt that Michaela can use to get under his skin. Her ultimate goal is to get Griffin to reveal the location of the upcoming explosion. Unfortunately for her, she also faces an insurmountable problem that she mistakenly created herself. For some unfathomable reason, she shared with Griffin everything that she knows about the callings and their tendency to portend future events while he was still at the hospital, although she knew by then that he committed a robbery and a double-homicide — Come to think of it, Captain Riojas may need a lesson or two in choosing his favorite cops. Jared and Michaela appear to be his preferred duo because he always calls on them to handle the important cases. Yet, the former does nothing but serve as the full-time caretaker of the Stone family while the latter is apparently prone to serious investigative blunders. Dear Captain, hire Stone, Ben Stone!
The most sensitive information found by the Stone trio involves Griffin’s foster brother Devon who saved Griffin’s life at one point only to be framed for murder by him later. Michaela speculates that Griffin may carry around bottled-up regret about Devon in the same way that Zeke and Michaela do about Chloe and Evie respectively, and tries to use that link to connect with Griffin, to no avail. Griffin, whose moral turpitude is apparent to anyone with eyes and ears, is well aware of how crucial the location of the explosion in his vision is to the authorities (there is also a token FBI agent with Riojas overseeing the interrogations). He is determined to keep the information to himself until they guarantee him full immunity.
The interrogation scenes drag on a bit too long, and unsurprisingly, Michaela fails in her endeavor. FBI Agent Dayton (Julee Cerna) and Captain Riojas are left with no choice but to give Griffin immunity. Once signed, he reveals the bomb’s location, a hot-dog cart in Times Square. The bomb is successfully diffused, and the episode ends with Michaela seeing the blood-curdling CGI-wolf growling at her before he disappears into the crowd.
The larger message of the whole Griffin plotline is that while the callings may appear to be benevolent in their nature, as in warnings to prevent future tragedies from occurring, they can also turn into weapons in the hands of a malevolent individual such as Griffin. It’s essentially the rehash of the over-a-century-old cliché of Alfred Nobel and his invention of dynamite. It takes 38 minutes in a 43-minute-long episode for this point to be explicitly expressed (by Grace and Ben first, then by Saanvi a bit later).
I don’t have the exact figures of course, but it feels as if Griffin occupies more screen time in this episode than any character, main or not, did in any other episode of the season. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that he is replacing the Major as the main villain in Manifest at the eleventh hour. But, surely not, although he looked the part when he said at the end that he would take the callings to a “whole new level.”
The scenes with Ben, Grace, and Olive as they assist Michaela are marked by some pleasant moments. In one of them, Olive, who is working the internet with a much higher degree of efficiency than Ben and Grace are, delivers one of the most charming lines of the hour in the best teenage-y way possible when she says to her parents, “There was this thing called MySpace, it’s hilarious.” In another scene, Grace meets with Angela Graham (Jade Wu), the woman who used to be Griffin’s foster mother. In a meaningful dialogue, enhanced by good performances by both Karkanis and Wu, Angela talks of Griffin’s troubled childhood and concludes it with a premonitory warning that makes the viewer wish that Michaela was there to hear it: “Maybe not everyone deserves to be saved.”
Jostling for space and time in this whole Griffin mess is Jared who is rolling in some type of angst because Zeke has entered the picture and Michaela has not kept him in the loop (as if she ever has). He scolds her in the most ungainly manner possible, never mind that he did not have the courage to divorce his wife and set things on the right path with Michaela before Lourdes ended up leaving him, and that now he is arduously pursuing Michaela with the wedding ring still on his finger. He pulls the teenage move by bullying “the other boy,” much to to the dismay of Michaela who feels cornered into the position of playing “the girl in the middle.”
Jared thinks Zeke is a shoddy character and has him arrested when Zeke is caught trying to unlock the entrance door to a house with a pin (I am going to assume that the police car was there because Jared wanted him followed). Jared wants to also check Zeke’s background once he is brought to the precinct. By this time, Michaela has had enough and when he accuses her of trusting Zeke too much, she replies, “I don’t think that’s what you’re upset about,” as I cheer, “Yes! Go Michaela!”
At the same time, Jared may not necessarily be wrong about Zeke. We find out that the latter was actually trying to enter his mom’s apartment, but Michaela justifiably wants to know why he did not simply knock on the door. Zeke’s explanation is sketchy to say the least in my opinion, although you may need to listen to it and judge for yourself. And there is also the matter of him not giving his last name to the police at the precinct.
He does nonetheless come across genuine when he implores Michaela to believe in him and reminds her that he is not like Griffin. Michaela lets him out of jail so that he can visit his mom. The last time we see Zeke, he is at his mom’s door, ringing the bell. Of course, we are assuming that it’s his mom’s door because Zeke said so! If that is enough for Michaela, it is enough for the audience too, right? Or is it?
On the other hand, nothing Zeke can say is enough for Jared who is far from being done with him. The good detective is last seen turning the coffee cup used earlier by Zeke into the evidence-collection desk.
As for the side story centering on Saanvi’s PTSD, Michaela notices her condition first and notifies Ben who later comes to Saanvi’s office to get Griffin’s blood results only to find her visibly shaken. The magnanimous Ben that Manifest fans have come to love comforts her and lets her know that he and the others are there for her if she needs them. And there is also Dr. Matthews, not that Saanvi showed much interest in his offer to help.
As to this episode’s contribution to Manifest‘s overall arc, other than pointing out that the callings can also be exploited for pernicious reasons, your guess is as good as mine. I can simply say that it offered minimal progress toward resolutions. Now, the task of sticking the landing rests solely on the shoulders of the season finale’s writer(s) and director.
Last-minute thoughts:
– Cody the jerkwad makes a brief computer-screen appearance, one appearance too much if you don’t mind me saying so. I have zero interest in watching him or his storyline taking up valuable space and time.
– It seems as if Captain Riojas looks younger and younger with each episode. Did Alfredo Narciso request that his scenes get filmed in reverse chronological order?
– There is a terrific montage of scenes, further enhanced by great camera work (director: Claudia Yarmy) and an eerie score by Danny Lux, that begins with the end of the Grace-Ben dialogue around the 38-minute mark. It is the best visual sequence of the hour.
– Was I the only one whose heartbeat got elevated thinking that the bomb was going to explode when the squad agent gave the thumbs-up sign after cutting the red cable?
– The sarcasm in Michaela’s voice when she said, “All right. This was special,” following the initial snarky dialogue between Jared and Zeke, is the one moment in the episode where I literally laughed out loud.
– The way Manifest’s showrunner Jeff Rake interacts with fans through social media and in public appearances should serve as a model for other showrunners. It’s one thing when actors do it, which also serves to increase their own visibility, but there is something special when the person helming the show remains accessible to the fan base, demonstrates the ability to absorb feedback, and responds to fans with bonafide sincerity, rather than being elusive like some others in their position mysteriously prefer to do. I am also assuming that Rake’s exemplary disposition in this department may pay off as fans will react with more brio if NBC’s lack of clarity in renewing Manifest lingers on any longer.
Until the next episode…