“All-Call” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Laura Putney & Darika Fuhrmann
Director: Dean White
Grade: 3 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published more than a year after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

After a banner season opener in “Touch-and-Go,” this outing unfortunately contains a noticeable amount of trite storytelling and a few far-out-there dialogues and scenes that are likely to pull a few “oh-come-on-now” gasps out of viewers. It picks up couple of threads from the season opener “Touch-and-Go” but provides no game changers and no meaningful character developments.

Saanvi is the latest to pay Ben a visit, only to be left disappointed by how far he is wallowing in his misery. I admit, I found it implausible that Saanvi had been so out of contact with Ben and his family that she was unaware of the depths of despondency into which Ben has sunk. In any case, she brought the black-box recording that synced Captain Daly’s voices from two different times but, much to her dismay, Ben is not even willing to listen to it. She reiterates that the black box came into their possession because of a calling, but Ben doesn’t follow callings anymore because, as he flatly states, “the callings took everything from me.” His next move is to curl up back in his bed and look glum.

A crestfallen Saanvi tells Cal that it’s now on them to pursue the callings, because their death date is only 18 months away. Ben, for his part, will contact Aaron Glover (Marquis Rodriguez) who first appeared in season 1’s “Crosswinds.” Aaron has pursued Ben since then, in an effort to bring him on as a guest to his popular podcast. He finally gets his wish because Ben believes that listeners can help him find Angelina and Eden.

Speaking of Angelina and Eden, they left Anna’s house and Angelina finds a temporary room with a woman named Iris (Kerry Flanagan), seemingly friendly to 828ers. Once settled into their room, however, Iris locks them in for reasons unexplained. This ties much later in the hour to the C story involving Adrian who sees the same house in a calling during his scheduled interview at the registry. When he arrives at the house, he spots Angelina inside a boarded window and helps her and Eden escape. Adrian is not happy about Angelina kidnapping Eden and killing Grace, but he is stuck with her nevertheless.

Saanvi meets Vance back at their operation center and even though Henry claims to hear multiple voices overlapping in the humming of the black-box recording, Saanvi and Vance cannot hear them. To explain how he can hear them and how he survived four weeks at sea preceded by two years as a lab rat, Henry puts forth one of the most far-fetched tales ever, even by Manifest lore’s standards, I will try to describe it here only because it plays a role later in the episode, and not because I find one iota of credibility in it, even for a show that regularly demands viewers to suspend their disbelief.

You see, Henry has a scar that resembles a dragon on his forearm as the result of a lightning strike when he was young. His father told him that “this dragon lives inside” him and makes him “capable of doing anything.” Then, Henry adds, “I would channel my inner dragon, breathing through it until I could lower my heartbeat enough to feel vibrations from the box.” Thus, he hears a humming, “as if the box was meditating along” with him! “That is when it happened,” he continues. “I began to hear an ocean of voices buried beneath the hum.”

Ohhh-kaaay!

Look, I am willing to handwave, to a certain degree the staggering number of callings that merely serve as plot devices, their randomness (yet to make sense), and Zeke and others suddenly developing magical powers out of nowhere. But please, come up with a less hokey justification of Henry’s ability to hear voices in a humming. Anything but this! And how does this help in explaining the opening scene of the season where he simply walks out of the Chinese facility? What happened to the scientists at the lab who were monitoring him? Henry has been a key part of the season’s first two episodes, yet we genuinely know very little about him other than this clumsy inner-dragon saga.

Anyhow…

Michaela checks into the 828 Registry for her required regular monthly interview that gets interrupted by Drea and an NYPD lieutenant (Maceo Oliver). They ask Michaela some pointed questions about her possible knowledge of Henry Kim’s whereabouts. She denies ever being at the port and Drea skillfully convinces the lieutenant to buy her story while instructing Michaela via privately written note to go asap to the park bench where she and Jared used to meet.

In a flashback, we learn that on the day of Grace’s funeral, Michaela told Jared that they should not be in contact anymore because of what Jared said in a not-so-memorable moment back in “Mayday: Part 2” about losing Michaela for good when Zeke survived his death date. “He was supposed to be gone Mick,” Jared said, “That’s the only reason I stood there and watched him marry the love of my life.” Thus, their extended absence from each other’s life explained, as seen in “Touch-and-Go.” Side note: did Jared ever get officially divorced from Lourdes? Yeah, remember Lourdes?

Back to the present, Jared meets Michaela at the bench to warn her that China is aware of Henry being on US soil because, as we later find out, Henry has a locator chip installed in his body somewhere. The NYPD is assisting the Chinese in locating him so Michaela needs to get him out fast. She hurries back to grab Henry and drive him to a safe location designated by Vance. Following a decent car-chase scene, NYPD cars corner Michaela and Henry before they can get to the location. Henry gets out of the car and turns himself in while Michaela escapes. As he is getting apprehended, Henry has a calling, as does Cal simultaneously, in which Henry finds Cal alone in the plane in his seat and extends his hand out to him.

Cal joins Saanvi, Vance, and Michaela and insists on seeing Henry to decipher the calling. Unfortunately, Henry is in custody, but of course the team will somehow get Cal to see Henry where he is held. One would assume that a dude like Henry would be guarded by a dozen national guards, or something, and unreachable to anyone except the President, so to speak. Nope! Cal walks by himself into the NYC registry facility, and Drea tells a simple lie to the lone guard at the door of Henry’s room to make him go away, and pouf! Cal is talking to Henry.

Except that Cal doesn’t get an answer as to why Henry’s hand was extended to him in the plane. Henry provides nothing more than a motivational speech, assuring Cal that he already possesses everything he needs, including the dragon inside him. “You just need to believe it,” he affirms. Thanks Henry, great instructions and guidance! At the end of the episode, Cal notices that he has the same scar as Henry on his forearm. Henry somehow activated Cal’s inner dragon. The old man now holds the title for the most magically powerful man in Manifest, this will be hard to top.

After the podcast, Aaron leaves a message for Ben, informing him that a woman may have spotted Angelina and Eden. She gave a location too, so Ben heads there accompanied by Zeke (who acts as Ben’s mind-reading sidekick throughout the episode). The location is a laundromat across the street from Anna’s house! Ben recognizes Anna’s house and notices the cameras at her entrance. He believes they may have caught a glimpse of Angelina and Eden.

They visit Anna who claims that her cameras are not real, a lie to which Zeke catches on effortlessly because… he has powers. Anna nervously confesses that she was manipulated by Angelina who described Ben and his wife as horrible parents. But after their adventure by the cemetery with the windmill in “Touch-and-Go,” Anna realized that Ben was a good person and that she made a terrible mistake, so she told Angelina to leave immediately. Redemption time for Ben (Josh Dallas is in peak-performance mode in this sequence) who finally has the proof that he has been seeking for two years and no longer has to face the stigma of being perceived as the desperate father in denial. Angelina and Eden are indeed alive.

Back at the operations center, Saanvi and Vance enlist Dr. Cooper’s help since the recording enhancer is his machine. He spits out some technobabble-talk to Saanvi that leads her, later in the episode, to adjust the settings on the sound enhancer. Somehow, multiple voices emerge with phrases like “slower” and “save her,” easily recognizable by an astonished Saanvi and anyone who has religiously watched Manifest. It’s a mix of all the callings 828ers have had so far!

In the meantime, for the sake of elevating the soap-opera barometer in future episodes, we see Jared and Drea in bed together. “No strings,” they repeat to each other in sultry tones. Oh dear…

Last-minute thoughts:

— The episode opens with a flashback to Grace’s funeral. It did not do anything for me because of my pet peeve about characters donning dramatically crying expressions, or even sobbing, and yet doing so with completely dry eyes. Surely, there are techniques and resources available to produce tears on demand, no?

— Will we learn more about Iris? Why did she lock Angelina and Eden in? Does she even know who Angelina really is, because the latter used the name Violet when communicating with her.

— Zeke and Michaela are dealing head-on with the Jared complication. Michaela admits that she still has feelings for Jared, but that she loves Zeke (however that works), and that she will always choose him. Zeke is ready to accept Michaela as she is. Sweet!

— In the final montage, it seems that the Stone household is united once again, thanks to the news of Eden still being alive.

Until the next episode…

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“Touch-and-Go” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Jeff Rake & Simran Baidwan
Director: Romeo Tirone
Grade: 5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Note: This review was published more than a year after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.

The cold opening lasts less than a minute and shows a lab in Shanghai Province of China filled with scientists experimenting on an Asian-looking gentleman with wires hooked to his head like a lab rat. He seems to suffering when a light emanates from his body leading to the scientists screaming in pain and covering their eyes. Next scene, we see him walking out of the facility without any supervision. It’s confusing start at first glance, but one that seems apt because it all makes sense when we learn more about him later in the episode.

“Touch-and-Go” is a sound representation of what Manifest brings to the table in the best manner possible, meaning by avoiding its every-now-and-then penchant for chaotic plot advancement and characters engaging in overly dramatic claptrap. Sure, there is a certain amount of emotional baggage being carried by them, but none behave histrionically and details in various scenes cumulatively tie into meaningful narratives.

The episode’s writers, namely the showrunner Jeff Rake and Simran Baidwan, succeed in keeping the viewers’ interest by providing early some clues to what occurred since the previous season’s finale and solidify those throughout the outing by adding granular details here and there to dialogues or scenes, instead of resorting to in-your-face form of revelation. I would rank “Touch-and-Go” as the best season opener in the series so far.

Back to the episode…

We quickly learn that Eden has been missing for two years as a bedraggled Ben with an unkempt beard is putting up missing signs everywhere he can. Eden would be 3.5 years old by now, the sign indicates. Flashback ensues to the day of Eden’s kidnapping. Grace is in a body bag and the older version of Cal (Ty Doran) that we encountered at the very end of the 3rd-season finale is watching Olive and Ben’s desperation from afar. He also seems surprised by his appearance when he notices his reflection in a car’s side mirror.

Back to present day. Cal hasn’t had a calling in two years and lives in the family house. He uses the false name Gabriel in his communications to stay under the radar, and out the registry set up for Flight 828 passengers requiring weekly check-ins, and whatnot.

Ben has built himself a new Moulder’s X-Files-like office, this time in the attic. He feels the wind blowing and notices papers flying although Cal who is there with him doesn’t see any of it. The photo of one of the passengers on the wall is fluttering. Her name is Anna Ross (Jacqueline Antaramian), previously seen in Season 1’s “Off Radar.” The wind stops when Ben grabs the photo. He is tired of following up on his callings because they have yet to lead him to Eden over the last two years, so Cal offers to go pay Anna a visit, to which Ben reluctantly agrees as long as Cal uses his Gabriel identity.

Zeke, for his part, works as a counselor, healing people with problems because his magical power of sensing other people’s feelings carries over from the last season. He has essentially become the Counselor Troi of Manifest. Why not put it to good use, right? His colleagues are impressed to say the least.

Michaela follows a calling that takes her to the port where she finds the man from the cold opening inside a container. How did he manage to get from China to New York in it and why does he have “Stone 828” tattooed on his forearm? Michaela sneaks him away in her car to some secret base out of which Vance and his team, along with Saanvi, are now operating. They are still investigating everything surrounding the Flight-828 phenomenon while looking out for the passengers in the present time. Saanvi’s latest obsession for the past 23 months has been the plane’s disappearance from Eureka.

Henry Kim (Clem Cheung) is the man in the container. He was supposedly executed by the Singaporean government as mentioned in season 3’s “Duty Free” when Michaela quit her job at the NYPD – pertinent nod backs to mentions in previous episodes remain a strong staple of Manifest. Vance speculates that Kim was probably announced dead so that he could, in reality, be traded to China where most extensive studies (outside of the US) on Flight 828 have been conducted. Henry faintly asks, “Where is the boy?”

Cal reaches Anna, introducing himself as a cousin of the Stones. She tells him, outside of her house because she believes the 828 Registry has bugged her house, that she had a calling that made her draw things – à-la-Cal, ironically. She drew a windmill and gravestones. Cal-Gabriel quickly searches the internet to find a picture of windmill upstate in Ramapo located inside a cemetery. Anna recognizes it as the one she drew. When Cal gets back to Ben to inform him of this development, Ben doesn’t care to accompany Anna because, well, the trauma of not being able to find Eden over the last two years has broken his spirit and turned him into a despondent dude. Michaela scolds him, saying that just because he has not found Eden, it does not mean he should give up on his family.

Jared finally shows up halfway into the episode, paying a visit to the Stone household. He is aware of Cal and his use of a fake identity. He and Michaela engage in a bit of awkwardly chat – they have not seen each other in six months, we learn later – before he walks up the stairs to Ben’s Moulder-like office-attic. He must inform Ben that the state has legally declared Eden dead and the NYPD closed the missing-person file on her. No wonder why nobody in NYPD is returning Ben’s calls.

Ben refuses to accept that, of course, despite Jared reminding him that Angelina and Eden’s prints were on “that bridge” and that Eden’s backpack was floating in the Narrows days after Grace died. The currents would have pulled them into the Atlantic, thus no bodies being found.

We get a second flashback taking us back to the moment when Cal rings on the door bell to reveal his older self to everyone in the family. Everyone is happy to see him, except Olive who blames him for letting Angelina back in the house on that fateful night. Much to everyone’s shock, Cal confesses with tears running down his face that he had indeed told Angelina about the key to the house.

Back to the present, where Zeke joins Vance and Saanvi standing over Henry Kim who is suffering deeply and hooked up to tubes. Zeke holds his hand, senses something, and Kim’s heart rate returns to normal. Zeke says bye and quickly leaves, before momentarily collapsing in the elevator, holding his heart. Can I get a ‘wut’? Did Zeke now add the ability to transfer other people’s pain into his own body to give them relief? Not that he didn’t already own an impressive list of magical powers. Is that how he runs his practice as a counselor? Transferring pain through contact?

Henry tells Vance and Saanvi that “the box is for the boy.”

Back at the Stone household, Ben notices a drawing of a windmill as the background on Eden’s death certificate. The wind blows again and the windmill on the page begins to spin. He should have listened to Cal. He immediately heads to the cemetery in Ramapo to join Anna. The weather vane is pointing in the opposite direction of the windmill’s spin. Ben concludes that the wind is not real and the weather vane’s direction will lead him to Eden. He and Anna follow the wind until Ben hears a child screaming “Daddy” by a creek. He believes it’s Eden until he runs and picks up… a boy! It turns out that the boy’s father is injured inside the creek a bit further and the kid is screaming for him. Ben and Anna save the boy and his father, but as far as Ben is concerned, “the callings just keep toying with [him].”

Michaela and Cal arrive at the port but Homeland Security is already there, so Michaela cannot go to the container, but Cal can, because nobody can recognize him. Michaela guides him to the container by phone, with Vance joining the conversation with access to all cameras from his operations center. Jared unexpectedly approaches Michaela at the port and the two have their second awkwardly talk in one day. Meanwhile, Cal discovers the box inside the container, which happens to be the black box of Flight 828! He also has a brief calling during his search for the box, his first in two years!

Cal gets back to Vance’s high-tech operation center, where Saanvi and Vance confirm that it is indeed the flight’s box that disappeared along with the plane from Eureka. So, where is the rest of the plane? Speaking of the plane, Saanvi is listening to the black box of the original Flight 828 in which she also hears Daly’s cry for help from two years ago when the plane disappeared from Eureka! Probably the frekiest moment of the episode! The two Daly’s voices from different times have synced!

The bigger twist takes place when Anna is back at her home. She is not alone because downstairs are Eden and Angelina! It was Eden who drew the windmill and Anna had to pretend that she drew it, in order to solve the calling and still protect Eden and Angelina from being discovered. Ben’s calling with the wind fluttering Anna’s photo would have led him to Eden indeed if it were not for Anna’s ruse, but will poor Ben ever know that? And did I mention that Eden calls Angelina “mommy”?

Last-second thoughts:

— Cal holds the ailing Henry’s hand and the old man confirms that he is “the boy” without looking. Cal doesn’t understand how and has never seen him before. Does Henry have powers of some sort like Zeke? Because the cold opening shows his head hooked to some wires and the scientists surrounding him suffering from some bright flash in the lab.

— Nice touch in the beginning of the outing with Ben not caring about a missing sign of Cal being overrun on a board by other signs. He even puts Eden’s sign halfway over Cal’s. It makes one wonder why he doesn’t care that Cal’s sign is almost not visible, but the reason becomes clear soon after.

— Grace is… gone! Wow…

Until the next episode…

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