“S.N.A.F.U.” – Aired on November 12, 2018
Written by: Jeff Rake & Bobak Esfarjani
Directed by: Michael Schultz
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

After last week’s single-story oriented “Off Radar,” the latest episode of Manifest gets back to managing a few storylines, and does so without any major hiccups. A new character named Fiona Clarke (Francesca Faridany) whose appearance was signaled in the last outing makes her entrance. The 11-passenger conspiracy is tackled in more depth. Olive, Danny, and Lourdes are back in the picture.

In the episode’s A story, Director Vance realizes that Ben is more efficient than not only his own team, but also all known detectives in the land of TV shows, and probably, real life. I already touched on Ben’s warp-speed investigative skills in my last review and he continues to plow full-steam ahead in this hour. So much so that Vance lets Ben find what appears to be a crucial piece of evidence while he snoops on him through NSA’s surveillance gadgetry, only to snatch it away from him at the end after Sherlock – I mean Ben – has done all the work.

Remember Unified Dynamic Systems (UDS)? Ben and Michaela learned in “Off Radar” that the buses carrying the passengers were contracted to the government by UDS. Our agent-investigator-citizen-father Ben concocts a plan. He reckons that he can find information in their books, thus he applies for an entry-level accounting job at JP Williamson, the lucrative firm that handles UDS’s accounts. Then, he plans on following the money trail to unearth the location where they are holding the passengers. He is confident that he can “blend in.” Stone… Ben Stone!

His intentions are revealed to the viewers through an excellent montage of short scenes, accompanied by a low-yet-effective score, during which we see cuts of Ben informing Saanvi and Michaela of his plan, mixed in with those of his job interview with a woman at the firm who struggles to believe that an over-qualified individual like Ben would apply for a “junior revenue accountant” position. The sequence is well-directed by the legendary Michael Schultz (Krush Groove, The Last Dragon), ending with Ben getting the job thanks to his charming smile and convincing pitch.

There is another similar sequence later with Ben updating Saanvi on the phone of his progress in the company which led him to temporarily steal his boss’s access card so that he could get into the computer files and identify Clarke as the woman who is “working for whoever took the missing passengers.” It helps of course that Ben’s boss, a gung-ho happy chum named Ronnie Wilcox (Michael Drayer), is a buzzy loose mouth who comes across as a malleable Flight 828 fanboy. Ronnie acts like he just met his long-lost drinking buddy as soon he shakes Ben’s hand for the first time. He expresses his disbelief in being in a position to supervise “the Ben Stone,” frequently pats him on the back, often chuckles, and uses phrases like “slow your roll B-Stone” when Ben appears enthusiastic to help him with Tier 1 companies like UDS (because Ben’s lowly position does not give him access to their books). Ronnie also happens to run a regular poker game with some IT guys in the company and wants Ben to join them. How convenient for Ben, right? Once again, Schultz’s directing and the score shine in this sequence, along with Drayer’s performance as Ronnie.

And honestly, that level of excellence in directing, acting, and scoring, is imperative to the flow of the first 15 minutes because it makes up for some of the outrageously fast plot advancement that zooms us to the point where Ben and Saanvi meet Fiona Clarke face to face at around 20 minutes into the episode!

Clarke is a well-known professor who, after being blackballed in the field of her original studies, neural psychology, shifted her attention to spirituality where she gained her fame and money. She was also a passenger in the plane and she happened to say the peculiar line “Now, we’re all in this together,” to the now-dead Kelly. Is that an echo of her possible knowledge of the events before they occurred? I hope the writers plan on fleshing out the potential represented by that possibility rather than dropping it due to the abundance of mysteries that are already piling up at a concerning rate.

Speaking of mysteries piling up, “S.N.A.F.U.” does not provide a resolution to any of them but does make an effort to take substantial steps in the right direction through minor reveals. Let’s take for example, the introduction of Clarke into the story.

“S.N.A.F.U.” pays a great deal of attention to revealing Clarke’s connection to UDS, including a suspenseful line – “Finally. I’ve been waiting for you” – delivered by her to Ben and Saanvi when she first comes face to face with them, before the show goes into a commercial break. Yet, the next scene is a dialogue between the three of them in which Clarke claims no knowledge of experiencing any callings or of the 11 detained passengers. She simply appears to be excited to meet other people who suffered in the wake of the traumatic events of Flight 828. Ben and Saanvi decide on the spot to go full disclosure (not sure about the wisdom of doing so, didn’t they just meet her?) and tell her about all their discoveries.

Clarke responds innocently that she was approached by a non-profit interested in her mind-body research under the umbrella of her Mirror Factor study. The reveal (or the added mystery, I shall say) is that the non-profit is called The Singularity Project. Ben quickly puts the dots together and ties the project’s name to the mysterious “SP” that he saw next to her name in some computer file, during his earlier investigation. There is no big mystery-solving here, but we are moving forward.

Ben also does just that. He moves forward, he digs deeper.

He joins the poker game noted above to get cozy with the IT guys. His target is another malleable guy named David James (Charlie Hudson III) – the chirpy Ronnie introduces him as the “insignificantly small cog in the IT machinery.” It takes Ben a short visit to David’s office and an ‘accidental’ dump of coffee in his lap to get him to temporarily leave his office for a change of clothes. That is all the time Ben needs as he gets into David’s computer and downloads all the SP-related data into his flash drive. That is also when Vance makes his appearance, confiscating the flash drive from Ben as he was attempting to leave the building.

We have indeed moved closer to solving some mysteries. There is now concrete evidence in Vance’s possession. The Director is also suspicious of the people working in his team (he lies to his deputy by saying that Ben was clean). Ben, for his part, may have lost his key piece of evidence but at least he is now certain about the names involved in the conspiracy of the 11 passengers, although that does not help him much at this point with regard to protecting Cal.

Clarke’s role appears to be diminished at this point. Or is it? See my earlier mention about her line to Kelly in the plane and also remember the shady looking scientist phoning a certain “ma’am” in the last episode. 

Up to this point, I have delved into the best of what “S.N.A.F.U.” had to offer. The Ben-Saanvi-Clarke-Vance storyline carries the episode. Unfortunately, there is also, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story.”

Michaela, with Jared’s help as usual, is trying to help a boy named Carlos (Mateo Ferro) whose uncle is killed. Michaela is motivated by the fact that she is hearing a heartbeat that seems to lead her to Carlos. It turns out at the end (I am bypassing the bland intricacies of this storyline) that Evie, Michaela’s best friend who had died in their car accident, was Carlos’s heart donor and that Michaela was hearing Evie’s heartbeat – thus, the inclusion of the minor scene showing Michaela’s visit to Evie’s still-grieving parents. The story lacks the pizazz of the previous ones centering on her callings and it ultimately results in more of the same, which is that “it’s all connected.” We have already reached this conclusion many times, in a much more consequential manner in “Connecting Flights” for example. Michaela even rehashes it herself in the closing scene: “I had to know that the callings were right, that it is all connected […] to us, to each other. That’s what all of this is for. It has to be.”

The only meaningful addition in this storyline is Jared’s confession to Michaela that Vance had asked him to snoop on her, followed by his confirmation that he will be doing nothing of the sort. He is 100% on Michaela’s side, and I reckon that many more viewers just jumped on the good detective’s bandwagon.

Lourdes, Olive, and Danny appear in scenes that border from weird to extraneous. Danny and Olive are practicing rock-climbing together and this leads to some malaise on Olive’s part who goes back and forth between continuing the activity and dropping it. In the meantime, Ben comes face to face with Danny outside of his home as the latter is dropping Olive after their practice. Danny says, “I’m not gonna get in your way, Ben. Olive’s not my kid. But I stepped in when you were gone, and I care about her. When she comes to me, I can’t turn her away.” This is the same guy who showed up at the door step of the family unannounced and applied some emotional pressure to Grace in “Connecting Flights” even though Grace firmly told him to stay away because she was trying to rebuild her family. Ben responds, “Nice to see you, Danny,” and walks away. I would have had a few more words to say had I been in his shoes, but then again, I am not Ben, the consummate diplomat.

There is also an uncomfortable (and noncore) dinner scene with Lourdes, Michaela, and Jared, that gets interrupted, thankfully, when Michaela hears a calling and leaves. We are already aware of the fact that seeing Lourdes and Jared together still hurts Michaela no matter how much she tries to appear accepting of Lourdes’s friendship, and we know equally well that Lourdes feels guilty toward her friend. The dinner scene simply re-re-re-confirms this dynamic that may get old quickly if it is repeatedly harped on with scenes such as this one without any change in status.

Then, there is the closing shot, Cal’s drawing of Carlos with Evie’s heart on the refrigerator. “What does it mean?”**

**imitating some of the show’s actors who try to balloon the shock-effect of the cliffhangers by posting messages on social media right when each episode ends.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Deputy Powell (Tim Moriarty) is giving bad vibes and it seems that Vance is feeling them too.

– The connection between Cal and Marko is still on. It’s one of the more promising arcs in Manifest so far.

– Carlos enters the precinct and walks back to the detectives’ area carrying a gun in his hand (in a paper bag). Is that even possible without anyone checking him?

– Officer Diaz (Omar Torres) takes the recurring token-character award thus far. Three appearances and hardly anyone knows his name.

– Carlos donned the same facial expression throughout the episode.

– Again, stellar directing by Michael Schultz.  

​Until the next episode…

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“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…

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“Connecting Flights” – Aired on Oct 22, 2018
Written by: Amanda Green & Margaret Rose Lester
Directed by: Tawnia McKiernan
Grade: 5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Color me impressed! This tightly packed episode briskly advances a few narratives at the same time without conveying the feeling of being rushed, and still manages to sprinkle across the hour several genuine moments of character development. More importantly, it brings some desperately needed clarification to at least one area – the beginning and development of the relationships between Danny and Grace, and of Lourdes and Jared. After four episodes of mystery piling, some degree of hole-patching is always welcome.

Furthermore, “Connecting Flights” is a game changer. It moves the parameters of Flight 828’s central mystery from the “what” to the “how.” Cal’s storyline firmly lands Manifest (no pun intended) into the area of the paranormal. As Ben says late in the episode to Michaela: “It’s not like with us. He [Cal] is different.”

Don’t get me wrong, we had already been hovering (again, no pun intended) over the paranormal zone. Heck, the show’s premise is built upon the mystical. But the gist of the unexplained had remained, until this episode, in the domain of ambiguous callings leading to premonitions, and a plane that somehow disappeared five and a half years ago and reappeared recently. The show’s characters had essentially been busy tackling the complications brought about to their daily lives by the missing five and a half years. “Connecting Flights” changes that routine. Cal’s storyline confirms that at least one passenger directly witnessed the phenomenon that holds the key to the mystery that matters the most: how did Flight 828 lose five and a half years of earth time?

New information is injected into the narratives of the stifling Ben-Grace-Danny and Jared-Michaela-Lourdes love triangles. These triangles are still emotionally charged alright, but thanks to a series of shrewdly arranged flashback sequences that got complemented by pertinent follow-up scenes in the present**, the characters of Lourdes and Danny have now gained some depth. They no longer play the emblematic role of the supporting characters who only exist to complicate the lives of the main ones.

**Kudos to writers Amanda Green and Margaret Rose Lester for their obvious attention to detail with regard to the flow of those scenes, as well as to director Tawnia McKiernan for the impeccable camera execution.

Now, the ball is on the viewer’s court. Can you build some sympathy for Danny and Lourdes or not? Unlike many others, I never developed an aversion to either of them at any moment during the first four episodes. Why should they ignore their attraction to the other person, especially when it is being reciprocated? It is not like either Danny or Lourdes began “making a move” immediately after the plane’s disappearance. Or perhaps, the more intriguing question is, how do you feel about Jared and Grace**? How long is it acceptable for them to grieve before they can move on to other people without being judged?

**See my last-minute thoughts about the uneven – or, unfair – nature of the audience’s reaction on social media to Jared and Grace.

We are not far from the point at which the intricacies of these relationships will undoubtedly manifest their thorny side. Take Danny for example. He seemed like a great guy who showed a lot of love toward Grace and Olive, and seemed to fill the void left behind by Ben. So yes, I sympathized a lot with Danny until this episode.

Until… this episode.

My sympathy for him came to a screeching halt when he showed up at the Stones’s house against Grace’s wishes and used the Olive card on her. His point was so simple, yet so outrageous. According to him, it did not matter that Grace loves her husband and wants to stay with him (she had told him so). He was standing there, literally arguing that he does not want to let Olive go.

Grace: “Danny, I told you I am trying to rebuild my marriage!”

Danny: “This isn’t about you and me, Grace. This is about Olive.”

Excuse me Danny? You mean the daughter of someone else with whom you got to spend three years because you fell in love with her mother? Danny did not stop there either. He brought up his previous lover that he had lost before meeting Grace and continued: “So I know I’ll survive losing you. But I am not sure I know how to get over losing that… amazing kid.” Well, Danny, that is your problem, and not one for which you need to unexpectedly show up at the door step of the Stones and put pressure on Grace. The fact that you went that far in desperation of your desire to be with Olive when she already has a family (and one that loves her) is borderline creepy, dude! Plus, at least be honest. You want Grace back, you are not there just because of Olive.

To complicate matters, Olive later says to Grace that she loves her dad and she is glad that he is back, but then adds, “Danny is my dad too.” Grace replies, “I know.” And I am screaming to myself: “How are Danny and Ben put in the same boat here? Are you kidding me!?!?” In any case, Grace’s life is about to get unbearably painful and I am afraid Ben will be asked to play the adult in the room, thus find himself on the short end of the stick.

But hold on, you see what I did above? I could not resist, I took sides. I am certain that I am not the only one doing so either. The point here is that “Connecting Flights” creates clever human conflicts, engages the audience in these types of debates, and does so without spilling over to over-dramatization. The divide between good and bad treads on a thin line of ambiguity. I may not like some of things that character A, B, or C does, but my interest is piqued by their stories. This kind of story-telling is an asset, not a liability.

In the meantime, Ben takes Cal to Coney Island for a day of fun but can’t stop hearing the phrase “it’s all connected” in his head. As they are heading back home, out of nowhere, Cal begins to run away from Ben and heads into the alleys of the subway. He runs on impulse, but with conviction. He leads Ben, without knowing, to Thomas’s hideout in the subway. Ben asks Cal repeatedly how he knew where to find Thomas, but Cal does not know. He does, however, say “it’s all connected,” which is the same phrase that has been ringing in Ben’s ears all day. The hour ends on another flashback scene of Cal looking from the plane window into the bright light outside and saying, “it’s all connected.”

There is however more to the Ben-Cal storyline than this revelation. It causes Ben to reevaluate his earlier decision to drop his investigation into the mystery of Flight 828 and focus on spending time with his family. It is evident by the end of the hour that, the events of his day with Cal have led him to make a 180-degree turn-around from his earlier stance. “I can’t walk away now,” he confirms to Michaela. He is determined to seek answers.

NSA Director Vance is also in pursuit of answers. While everyone grapples with the “what” and the “how,” Vance is strictly preoccupied with the “who.” It’s all about security and control for the Director; security of the country (a noble cause) and controlling people (a not-so-noble one). He even weighs in with the NYPD to ensure that Jared gets no more than a light 10-day slap on the hand for his mistake from last week. He is aiming to gain leverage on Jared and twist the detective’s arm into reporting to him directly everything that Michaela does or says. He is quite intelligent and efficient, but his NSA crew is either grossly underpopulated or utterly incompetent. They cannot catch anyone, they are constantly late to the action (hospital scene in “Unclaimed Baggage”), and people under their watch seem to evade them without much difficulty. Is it a stretch to claim that, in a real-life setting, poor Dir. Vance would bear the brunt of the blame and probably be relieved of his duties by now?

Last-minute thoughts:

– Cal notices the door move in Thomas’s subway hideout, and insists that he and Ben leave. Only a few moments later, when everyone else notices the door being forced from the other side, he changes his tune and wants to stay: “I think she is a friend.” The person on the other side of the door turns out to be Georgia, Bethany’s wife. She is there to take Thomas to a safe house. Why did Cal want to leave so vehemently seconds earlier? We will never know (he does not either). But, we know that Ben is right. Cal is indeed different than the rest.

– So far, the writing room has pulled a respectable job of balancing between screen time between the few main characters and the recurring ones. One of the advantages of the show’s premise is that the writers have an abundance of characters from which they can draw to create compelling stories. Few of the names on the manifest have already been explored (ex: Kelly, Radd, Bethany). It would be nice to see one episode centering on the role (if any) that Capt. Daly played in the phenomenon. Considering the acting talents of Frank Deal who can bring any character alive (see him as Gary Levine on Gypsy, or his guest-star appearances in The Americans and The Knick), I certainly hope that his character is not slotted for a short-lived appearance or a quick write-off.

– There is a lot of anger on social media flowing in the direction of Lourdes and Grace. Am I sensing a hint of sexism here? Why is it that Grace is on the receiving end of a lot more anger that Danny is in the Ben love triangle, whereas in the Michaela one, people are not nearly as furious with Jared as they are with Lourdes? Grace and Jared are the ones who moved on in the absence of Ben and Michaela. Yet Grace the wife is getting slammed while the fiance Jared gets off hardly with a scratch. And no, the “one is just a fiancé, the other one is a spouse” explanation does not wash.

– Bethany is arrested. Does that mean we will not get to see her wife Georgia again? I hope not. Eva Kaminsky, who has guest-starred in more shows that I can name, is always a delight to watch.

– Did I say that I thought this was the best outing of Season 1 so far (with “Reentry” a close second)? 

– This was the best outing of Season 1 so far. ​   

​Until next episode…

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“Unclaimed Baggage” – Aired on Oct 15, 2018
Written by: Laura Putney & Margaret Rose Lester
Directed by: Craig Zisk
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

A decent, yet benign, fourth outing by Manifest, one that flows fairly well within its confines. While “Reentry” (ep.2) focused on character development and moved at a measured pace, and “Turbulence” (ep.3) was motivated by rapid plot advancement at the cost of character growth, “Unclaimed Baggage” manages to do a bit of both, although it carries less substance than either of the two previous episodes. No need to look for big revelations to the overall arc here. There are, however, two stand-alone stories that keep the hour interesting.

One of them centers on a stowaway passenger, previously unknown to everyone except Bethany (Mugga), the flight attendant. We first see him as a deranged patient when he runs into Saanvi at the hospital, asking for Bethany. Saanvi, with Ben’s help, locates Bethany and visits her to get the full scoop on him.

Well, the scoop is quite charged. His name is Thomas (Sheldon Best) and he is the boyfriend of Leo, Bethany’s cousin. Bethany was trying to help Thomas (who does not have a passport) escape so that he could join Leo who had already left for the USA. Thomas and Leo were in danger in Jamaica because they had caused a social ruckus as activists seeking justice for a third gay friend who was beaten to death. Bethany asks Saanvi, “You have any idea how dangerous being gay can be in Jamaica?”

Leo apparently disappeared during the years of Thomas’s disappearance aboard Flight 828. Poor Thomas is now alone, in shock, pumped with anti-psychotic drugs at the hospital, sought by the authorities, and he desperately needs help. It’s a well-written, elaborate-yet-plausible backstory, although its desired impact is held back by Mugga’s somewhat phlegmatic delivery.

Note: Hats off to writers Laura Putney and Margaret Rose Lester for coming up with a rich backstory to the mystery of the stowaway passenger. This is an instance where the writing room could have easily succumbed to the traps of lazy writing and spit out a pedestrian reason for Thomas’s risky trip, and probably gotten away with it since it is of no consequence to the overall story involving him, Bethany, Saanvi, and Michaela. Instead, they chose to pay attention to detail. Nice!

Saanvi wants to assist Bethany in getting Thomas out of the hospital before the NSA and Director Vance can get to him. She also has a personal interest in doing so, because Thomas is related to the visions that she is having. Earlier at the hospital, a gray, statue-like woman, who leaves wet footprints behind her, had appeared in front of her. Saanvi visited Dr. Feldman (Gary Lee Mahmoud), the head of the neurology department, asking his opinion on her brain scan, except she claimed that it was the scan of one of her patients. That is when Dr. Feldman noted that the brain scan was similar to another patient who happens to be Thomas. He noted that it could possibly be the early stages of schizophrenia. A worried Saanvi left Dr. Feldman’s office and noticed the wet footprints again. They led her to Thomas’s room at which point he ran into her arms frantically calling for Bethany.

Michaela is also having visions of a similar gray, statue-like woman, except hers has wings and whispers “save him” to her. This happens on a day where Michaela is part of the NYPD’s team that is helping the ATF with an operation that involves the busting of a rogue group while they are buying guns. The ATF also has an undercover agent on site posing as a member of the group. During a somewhat unimaginative discussion that Michaela is having with Jared (it basically amounts to Jared being worried about Michaela) while they are staking out the building and waiting for ATF’s word for action, the gray angel appears to her, repeating the words “save him” several times. Michaela takes it as a reference to the undercover operative and vigorously insists that they move in now to save him. Jared reluctantly agrees and gives the green light to the NYPD team standing by.

Michaela is wrong. The operation is botched. The operative was not in danger, yet his cover is now blown. Jared takes the fall for having made the call, Michaela wants to come forward, but both Jared and Ben convince her to stay quiet for different, but valid, reasons. She cannot reveal that she is having visions and attract even more attention to the survivors of Flight 828. As Ben warns, they would get locked up in “some government psych facility” if they were to come clean about the premonitions.

Of course, there is more to the gray angel appearing and whispering “save him” to Michaela, just like there was more to the calling “set them free” in “Pilot” than the two chained dogs. When Ben suggests to her that Saanvi has been having similar visions, Michaela decides to go talk to her. In the most contrived moment of the episode, Michaela’s car drives right in front of Saanvi and Bethany who are frantically running away from the hospital after almost getting caught by authorities while they were trying to sneak out of the hospital with Thomas, using fake discharge papers.

They conveniently – and naturally – get in her car and Michaela drives them away just as Director Vance comes out of the hospital one second later, looking for the two of them. They are long gone, thanks to the artificially coincidental appearance of Michaela in her car. Thomas is not with them either because he apparently had managed to leave the hospital undetected, earlier in the day. As Saanvi and Michaela are telling each other about the gray woman that they have been seeing (Micheala’s with wings, Saanvi’s with wet footprints), it dawns on Bethany that they are talking about The Angel of the Waters, the statue at the top of the Bethesda Fountain. The angel also happens to be a big part of Leo’s favorite play, Angels in America by Tony Kushner (Pulitzer Price winner in 1993). Thus, that is where Thomas must be, they figure, and that is where they find Thomas, of course!

They take him to a boiler room previously owned by Kelly, who was shot dead at the end of episode 2. According to Michaela, the building will be tied up in probate courts for years, so nobody should be coming down there anytime soon. Is that even a plausible expectation? Don’t ask me. The bottom line is, we now have a reliable hide-out space that can be used in future episodes, if needed. In any case, the weakest sequence of the episode that began with Michaela’s car cutting in front of Saanvi and Bethany, ends in some boiler room only known to our protagonists.

The second – and the better – story revolves around the strife within the Stone family. Ben, probably the most magnanimous character that currently exists on the land of TV shows, cannot seem to catch a break on the home front.

First, he learns that their household is basically bankrupt. Among the many updates that Grace did not care to give Ben in a timely manner once he reappeared, is the fact that the insurance company had paid her half a million dollars for Ben’s presumed death. Now, they want it back. To make matters worse, Grace used that money to cover the debt that she had accumulated over the two years following Ben’s disappearance because she had “shut down.” She even took out a home equity line of credit to finance her catering gig, so there is no equity left on their house. She is filled with shame and guilt as she confirms that “there is nothing left,” but Ben, the ultra-positive individual that he is, hugs her, consoles her, and says, “We’re gonna figure this out.” Oh Ben… If it were only that easy!

He also has a hard time connecting with Olive, and it goes beyond semantics (reference: “romper” vs “overalls”). Olive acts a bit distant. She later gets caught stealing at Bluemercury, the luxury beauty shop, and leaves a message for her mom to come and pick her up. Grace listens to the message in the middle of a romantic moment with Ben who offers to go and get her: “I need to work on my Olive speak. Perfect opportunity.” If you have not boarded the Ben train by now, I would recommend getting yourself checked, there may be something wrong. Let’s remind ourselves the context here. The guy just discovered some photos of Grace and her previous lover in a box at the basement while he was calculating numbers on a whiteboard to figure out how he can help the family climb out of debt. Grace entered and he put that aside to get romantic with his wife before getting interrupted by Olive’s voicemail to her mom (in all fairness, Grace also seemed to be disappointed there). He offered to go get Olive himself to give Grace a chance to rest. Little does he know that the biggest disappointment is yet to come.

Once Ben arrives to the store to pick Olive up, not only does he get slapped with the terrible news that his daughter got caught shoplifting, but also sinks deep into the well of disappointment when he realizes that Danny (Daniel Sunjata), his wife’s lover during his absence, is already at the shop comforting Olive while they are waiting for Grace. Meeting the lover of your wife unexpectedly, because your daughter chose to call him for comfort instead of calling you… Can a father feel anymore miserable than Ben does at that moment?

The brief encounter scene between Ben and Danny achieves its goal thanks to Josh Dallas and Daniel Sunjata who convey perfectly the malaise felt by the two men. This is followed by the strongest scene of the episode, a well-written dialogue between father and daughter, including a heartfelt confession by a teary-eyed Olive. Ben promises not to tell Grace about the incident upon Olive’s request as they hug.

Grace learns of it anyway and scolds Ben for not telling her, and in the process, gives away the fact that she had talked to Danny since she could not have known of it otherwise. Now, it’s Ben’s turn to scold Grace. The argument ends on an unpleasant note, with Ben angered by the fact that neither Olive nor Grace “seem to be able to let this guy go.” He wonders out loud if it is even fair that he asks them to, and leaves to get some air. In those last moments, only a timid “Ben…” comes out of Grace’s mouth, which officially makes me jump off the Grace bandwagon. Until then, I had been on Grace’s side, even when she was finding it hard to tell Ben about Danny, because I found her reassurances to Ben sincere when she said that she loved him and only him, and that she left Danny behind. I still believe that she loves Ben, but her passive stance while her husband was justifiably upset accompanied by a meek “Ben…” did not cut it. Plus, she is obviously still in contact with Danny, as the closing sequence showed. Grace needs to be honest with Ben and lay all her cards on the table, not just the few selected ones.

Neither of these storylines provide any answers to the many questions facing Manifest’s overall arc. I am not sure if that is a good thing. I will repeat what I said in my review of episode 3: You can build such a high pile of mysteries that you can drown yourself in it, not knowing how to climb out of the hole when time arrives for payoffs and resolutions.

I appreciated the writers avoiding the ubiquitous cliff-hanger finish to the episode for a change. A montage of the main characters dealing with their issues, ending with Michaela asking the Angel of the Waters statue, “What do you want from me?” is a fitting ending.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Maybe I have bad hearing, but it seems to me like the background music in scenes where the characters speak in a low voice, or whisper, is a bit loud, making them harder to understand. I don’t know who is responsible of setting the volume levels (the sound editor?), but it would be nice to hear without strain what the characters say.

– I said multiple times in my previous reviews that I was firmly on Team Olive. I must admit that I wondered a couple of times during this episode if I made that call too soon. Having said that, I am still, and undoubtedly, on the Luna Blaise bandwagon. Passionate, high-quality performances by her in each episode so far.

​Until the next episode…

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“Turbulence” – Aired on Oct 8, 2018
Written by: Gregory Nelson & Bobak Esfarjani
Directed by: Paul Holahan
Grade: 3,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

After last week’s stellar “Reentry” that advanced at a measured pace and contained an ample amount of character development, “Turbulence” owns up to its title and attempts to simultaneously barrel through several plotlines. The result is a dose of narrative pandemonium, one that overloads the senses and takes attention away from the couple of storylines with promising intrigues. This is not to say that “Turbulence” does not have some good moments – it definitely does –, and the main cast continues to produce fine performances. It’s just that it suffers from glitches and stumbles precisely because it tries to carry such a bulky load in a single outing.

Within that load, one finds:

– The background story of Michaela’s tragic car accident that resulted in her friend Evie’s death.

– Related to the above, Michaela’s pursuit of “own your truth,” much like her pursuit of “set them free” in “Pilot.”

– Related to the above, Michaela’s efforts to reconcile with Evie’s parents, including her gut-wrenching realization that Beverly, the mom, has Alzheimer’s disease in possibly the most emotional scene of the outing.

– A fairly complicated investigation of Kelly Taylor’s murder.

– Cal’s struggle with Olive dating his once best friend Kevin.

– Ben’s ongoing reactions to his new discoveries about Olive and Grace. His daughter is dating and sexually active.  His wife has given several men keys to the house. She also has a lover – “had,” according to her.

– Isaiah (Olli Haaskivi), the suspect in Kelly’s murder, who does a decent impersonation of Ben Linus in Lost‘s early seasons by talking in riddles and uttering doctrines.

– Saanvi’s discovery of a “genetic marker” in Cal’s blood, and subsequently in hers, that neither had before the flight, pointing to Ischemic Stroke which alludes to near-death experiences.

– NSA Dir. Robert Vance behaving dickishly toward anyone and everyone.

– Jared having to deal with Michaela’s topsy-turvy behavior at work and a sketchy request by Vance.

– Signs of a cover-up, a secret operation, or something, by the government.

I may have even left out one or two others. In any case, you name it, “Turbulence” has it.

Due to the limited time allowed to juggle all these developments, artificial coincidences appear at an alarming rate. As a consequence, some storylines suffer quality-wise, while others, that actually do show potential, get shortchanged in terms of depth. For an example of the former, let’s consider the storyline involving Ben and Michaela, as they aim to solve Kelly’s murder:

– Detective Donovan (The Americans’ alumni Brandon J. Dirden), who is in charge of Kelly’s murder-scene investigation, allows, with little or no resistance, Michaela to enter the crime scene, although she is clearly out her jurisdiction. Furthermore, he does not even check the identity of the man accompanying her (Ben) – the justification implied is that he is surely her partner.

– NSA Dir. Vance happens to enter the crime scene just after Det. Donovan briefs Ben and Michaela on the essential information gathered by his team, and not one second earlier. As expected, Vance tells Ben and Michaela to leave and scolds Donovan for letting them in, but who cares? Our two heroes got what they needed.

– As soon as they walk outside, Ben and Michaela conveniently run into Patrick Taylor, Kelly’s husband, who happens to be alone and available to talk.

– When they decide later to go to the Taylor residence to talk to him some more, ‘poof’ walks in Christine the housekeeper, a key character who provides them with a valuable piece of information. According to her, Kelly had bruises on her arms a day earlier when she came back from the mall after getting her hair done. As to why Christine would even volunteer that information, considering what she had done (as it turns out later), I have no idea.

– Ben and Michaela go the mall and randomly spot a woman named Tami (Ella Ayberk) in the vicinity of the hair salon, who runs away when she sees them, probably because Ben and Michaela did not need to spend more than a minute at the mall before finding answers. She runs away just enough, you see, so they can still catch up with her in a quiet basement area where they can have a convenient chat during which Tami suddenly turns into a golden fountain of information.

Now, for an example of the latter (a.k.a. potent-but-shortchanged storylines), let’s consider Saanvi’s search for answers to the ultimate puzzle of Manifest: what exactly happened to the souls in that plane while everyone else aged five and a half years? Saanvi’s storyline occupies barely two minutes of the episode, yet it is the most consequential one out of all of them. Parveen Kaur continues to excel in portraying the motivated doctor-scientist-researcher. Luckily, the episode ends on a revelation made by Saanvi, echoing an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon in the upcoming episode(s), and in the process, giving Kaur a chance to further flesh out her character.

Another character that needs more growth is the NSA Director Vance. Despite his continually gloomy-doomy disposition and arrogance, I do not see him as a one-dimensional character. For example, he did not appear to be just another uniform or suit, so to speak, in that brief meeting with government officials in “Reentry.” It would be nice if Vance remained outside the mean-government-vs-good-citizen dichotomy. Daryl Edwards certainly possesses the talent to thrive if given the chance to operate with a rich and layered character rather than the one-dimensional villain of the shady government.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Who is Rob (James Hiroyuki Liao) and why is he so protective of Danny? And what is the logical explanation behind the absurd notion that, somehow, Grace is cheating on Danny with her husband?

– Michaela running into Christine with the necklace in her car as she saves Beverly is a nice twist that places “own your truth” into a meaningful perspective.

– I do not necessarily agree with the interpretation made by many on social media that Grace did not answer Ben’s question when he asked if she loved Danny. She says, in a firm tone, looking directly into his eyes, “I love you, Ben” (her emphasis). Then adds, “I never stopped. Not for a moment. Not for 5 ½ years.” It does not mean that Danny will not be an issue in the future – he will, judging by the next-episode teaser. But, since the late stages of the previous episode, in my opinion, it has become clear that Grace loves her husband.

– How old is Olive exactly? I ask because I would like to know why she is having to sneak out of the house through the window. Regardless, I am still firmly on Team Olive! By the way, can twins be anymore delightful than her and Cal are, under such strenuous circumstances?

– Patrick and Kelly owning a mall, Patrick only renting to illegals so he can blackmail them into extortion, Kelly wanting to expose it after the flight and getting killed in the process, not because she was aiming to come clean, but because the ex-maid could not handle her return after 5+ years with Patrick, is an elaborate enough narrative that you could almost build a season on it. It’s a shame that it had to get reduced to the role of a B story in a 42-minute episode.

– Grace needs to be an open book with everything that she went through while Ben and Cal were absent. Ben getting slapped with one overwhelming discovery (condom under Olive’s bed) after another (men having access to their house), only to have Grace offer the ex-post-facto explanations for each, is not an efficient way to deal with the process of healing as a couple.

– The writing room is throwing a plethora of curve balls at Ben and Grace, and actors Josh Dallas and Athena Karkanis appear to be having fun running away with them.  

– Mysteries are rapidly piling up. It creates a great whaaat! effect for rating purposes, but the danger of falling into the same trap as Lost lurks beneath. You can build such a high pile of mysteries that you can drown yourself in it, not knowing how to climb out of the hole when time arrives for payoffs and resolutions.

– Speaking of pay-offs, Christine was the “shadow man” from last week’s episode, if I understood correctly. It’s basically a variance of the cliché about the maid who kills out of jealousy, a somewhat reductive pay-off to a promising plotline.

– Kelly may be dead, but her body is still needed!

​Until the next episode…

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“Reentry” – Aired on Oct 1, 2018
Written by: Jeff Rake & Matthew Lau
Directed by: Dean White
Grade: 5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Following a premiere that did a fairly solid job of setting the parameters of a complex plot with multiple B and C storylines, the second episode “Reentry” checks all the boxes in terms of pacing, meaty character development, and five-star performances by the actors in recurring roles. In fact, if it were not for the last 20 seconds of the episode, I would go as far as calling it one of the best pilot-follow-up episodes that I have ever seen on TV, not that such a category exists.

However, I am gladly willing to overlook those last 20 seconds – more on that later – because the episode’s co-writers Jeff Rake (also the showrunner) and Matthew Lau manage to avoid the temptation of shock-and-awe frenzy that plagues other series of its genre over the last decade and walk the fine line between too many mysteries and too little characterization with great success throughout the episode.

Director Dean White, who carries more than a decade of experience directing TV shows, begins the episode with a brief montage of news from the media to update us on where things stand after the explosion of the plane that ended “Pilot.” A few quick conversations, featuring some of the Flight 828 passengers that we met in the premiere, take place in what looks like a warehouse at the airport.

These people are understandably having trouble curbing their anxiety for various reasons. The pilot fears that he will be the designated scapegoat, the sarcastic dude who sells sporting goods (Rich Topol is having fun playing that character, I bet) is busy taunting the investigators, Ben wants him and his sister to keep a low profile, Saanvi tells the two of them about her connection to Cal’s treatments, and Radd (Curtiss Cook) is frantically wanting to see his son who has apparently been jailed for three days. This is a tidy and efficient start to the first act because it leaves enough time to explore the story angles during the rest of the episode.

“Reentry” is indeed about people and their stories, and how uncertainty and fear encroach on their personal spaces. Frantic plot advancement accompanied by multiple shockers takes a back seat.

We jump into the Stone household with Grace trying to cover up her cleavage when Ben unexpectedly walks into the bedroom – a confused Ben says, “just me.” Josh Dallas and Athena Karkanis are great in the scenes with the two of them, and in this particular one, the malaise felt by Grace and Ben, for different reasons, are conveyed through subtle stares and smiles sprinkled between what would regularly be considered “sweet talk” between two people in love. They are not the only ones experiencing emotional discomfort in the house. Cal is unhappy about his toys from five years ago having disappeared, and Olive is turning bitter against her mom for not having told dad the not-so-secret secret that she is hiding (more on Olive later).

Then, Ben hears the sound of a violin playing in his head. It eventually leads him to Radd who is playing his violin to the same tune in Times Square. Radd does not understand why the same melody has been “beating against his ear drums,” but he is convinced that it was meant to bring the two of them together so that Ben can help him with his son Adio (played by his son in real life, Curtiss Cook Jr.). Radd rejects the possibility that his son is capable of committing the robbery of which he is accused. He wants to talk to Adio and asks for Ben’s help (and Ben asks for Michaela’s to arrange it). Radd is unable to visit his son in jail because his visa from five years ago expired. Well done by Rake & Lau who seem to have made sure that details are not brushed aside here, because they matter with regard to plausibility.

Cook gives a gripping performance throughout the episode as a father who is torn between the knowledge that the 13-year-old son he left behind for a one-night performance in Jamaica could not possibly be involved in a crime, and the incertitude that the now “18-year-old man,” as he calls him, may have changed for the worse in ways that he could not imagine during his missing five years. When Radd finally talks to his son through the glass at Rikers Island’s visiting room, Adio claims his innocence, saying that when he was closing shop about a month ago at the jewelry store where he used to work, he was attacked and knocked unconscious. When he woke up, the store was cleaned out. But Adio’s face looks beaten up and Radd is tragically aware of the fact that the damage on his son’s face did not occur a month ago. It is easily the most powerful and emotional scene of the episode. Both Cooks nail it as Radd and Adio.

Ben and Radd visit the store to see the owner who is not interested in hearing them, but his son Blake (Jake Horowitz) is willing to talk. He says he does not know what to think, considering that Adio gave them fake job references and ID’s, that he was the only one there that night, and that no alarm was tripped.

In the meantime, Michaela’s life is moving forward, but not so smoothly. She runs into Lourdes, Jared’s current wife, in the precinct. It’s a very uncomfortable moment because we know from last week that they were best friends when Michaela disappeared five years ago aboard Flight 828. Michaela is bitter, without knowing how, or against whom, to channel her anger. Lourdes, for her part, feels guilty, knowing that there is no way to solve the conundrum in which they inadvertently find themselves. Michaela also wants to get back to working as a cop, but the Captain requires her to get a psych evaluation to see if she is fit to return to duty.  

As if these complications were not enough for Michaela, she becomes aware of the secret that Grace is hiding from Ben, when she hears her sister-in-law talk on the phone. She confronts Grace and advises her – strongly – to tell Ben before he finds out for himself. Karkanis shines again as Grace in this scene, as she confesses with tears in her eyes that she did not even realize how much she still loved her husband until he showed up five years later. Now, with both Olive and Michaela aware of her secret, the pressure mounts on Grace to make up her mind quickly.

All the above takes place within the first half hour of the episode and what is impressive is that the driving force of the narrative is a series of emotionally charged – yet, rich in substance – conversations, leading to character growth. The dialogues between Michaela and her shrink, Ben and Grace, Radd and Adio, and Grace and Michaela carry the narrative, giving them layers in ways that make the audience care. “Reentry” almost feels like a slow burn, and I mean that in the most positive way possible.

Even the most pedestrian scene of the episode, the one taking place in a high-tech government office with national security agents gathered around a table to determine the fate of the 20 passengers who happened to be present when the plane exploded, has a purpose. It shows that the NSA Director Vance, despite coming across as your typical dickish agent filled with suspicion when he deals with the survivors, does not hesitate to stick up for their rights when everyone else around the table seems to label them as dangers to national security.

And no, I did not forget Olive. Luna Blaise’s performance is absolutely stellar here, as the grown-up teenage daughter who has a firmer head on her shoulders than her mom, it seems, yet torn by the question of how to act toward a dad that she missed dearly, because she has no desire to face that probable moment in the future when dad finds out about mom’s “other” and realizes that Olive also knew about it and didn’t tell him anything. During an evening ride with her dad, she decides to come clean as she takes him to a storage facility in Long Island.

Olive never believed that Cal was dead even though the therapists, the counselors at school, and her mom had suggested that she let go. “Some kind of twin thing,” she explains to Ben as she leads him to a unit within the storage facility. Unlike her mom who was a wreck and took the shrink’s advice, leaving of all of Ben’s and Cal’s belongings in boxes for the Salvation Army to pick up, Olive showed the dexterity to cancel the pick up and move the boxes to the unit. A wonderful little twist, which puts me officially, and firmly, on Team Olive. She also says just enough – the storage belongs to a “friend of mom’s” – for Ben to figure out Grace’s secret.

The intensity of the reveal as Ben and Olive hug each other does such a good job of sidetracking us that we feel as startled as Ben does, when he hears the violin tune in his head again. He searches for the source of the music in an awkwardly edited sequence through the hallways of the storage facility and walks into Blake who is standing by another unit filled with all the stolen inventory from his father’s jewelry store. Blake is busted figuratively, and then literally with a smack on the face, when he offers Ben half of the money if he stays quiet. The tune that Ben kept hearing apparently had a bigger purpose than just helping Radd visit his son in jail. It helped to save Adio.

Michaela, thanks to her talks with the psychologist that she had opposed at first, and to some heartfelt messages left by Lourdes on social media following her disappearance, comes to terms with her situation. She visits Lourdes at her home and the two begin the road to reconciliation. Another reconciliation (of sort) takes place after Grace realizes what Olive had done with the boxes and witnesses Cal’s delight at getting his toys back. She decides to no longer “hide her cleavage” to Ben in a quiet but meaningful scene with the two of them in the bedroom. The scene does not clarify if she comes clean about her “other” or not, but there is no doubt at this point that she has rediscovered her love for Ben. These scenes could have easily come across as cheesy and overly dramatic, but they do not, thanks to the slow build-up noted above. Kudos to the writers.

Not too many kudos, though, for the final twenty seconds. With the end of both “Pilot” and this one, it appears that Manifest‘s writing room has joined multitude of others in the business in feeling the necessity to have 11th-hour shock-endings to episodes. One of the passengers named Kelly (Julienne Hanzelka Kim) is shot dead at the very end (we see blood splatter all over the TV screen). She was also seen a few times earlier during the episode, giving an interview on TV or followed by a shadow figure in the garage. The idea is to push forward the mystery on the hidden identity of those (people or forces) behind the incident.

Honestly, this episode would not have missed a beat if this last-second shocker were left out – or even the whole Kelly storyline, for that matter. Yet, this is the à-la-mode obsession across the land of TV shows nowadays. Even the show’s cast joined in the effort to amp up the viewers on social media when the episode ended. Yet, everything that happened before those last twenty seconds is what makes “Reentry” the outstanding episode that it is.

Overall, the first two episodes exceeded my expectations in that, while the show has elements seen in other mystery shows – see my review for “Pilot” – Rake and his crew are building genuinely human storylines that grapple with relevant day-to-day issues.

Bring on the next episode already…

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“Pilot” – Aired on Sept 24, 2018
Written by: Jeff Rake
Directed by: David Frankel
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

I am not a big fan of monologues in TV series, especially ones designed to hold viewers by the hand, so to speak. There are rare cases where one serves as a necessary ingredient to the effectiveness of the show’s core drama – such is the case with You (Lifetime), where the thoughts of the main character get transmitted to the audience via monologues by the character himself, and they act as the driving force behind the central narrative, with the intent to intensify the viewer’s emotional response. Otherwise, monologues are convenient tools, far too often used by showrunners to bypass the challenge of visually conveying the story to the audience. So, you can understand my sense of apprehension when literally one second into Manifest’s nascence, a monologue took over the sound system of my TV.

Like a dull brochure that introduces you to the people whose presentations you are about to watch at a conference, the beginning monologue flatly presents the members of the Stone family to the audience, with some background information about each one. It even tells us which members take which flight, although their conversations clearly relay those particulars to anyone watching. It also informs us that the young boy has leukemia, although we would have easily figured that out within the first 15 minutes, had the monologue not said a word. Dear writers, please, oh please, avoid monologues of this type. Your show’s viewers are smarter than you think and they a narration to understand what they can already see and hear.

The Stones are at the airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica. They are waiting at the gate to get on the Montego Airways Flight 828 to New York. We witness a few brief but well-written dialogues, giving us a glimpse of the dynamics within the family. Michaela (Melissa Foxburgh), who was the voice behind the opening monologue, is lectured by her mom and dad about the happiness that marriage can bring to her, and they believe that a certain Jared is just the right candidate to take her to the mountain top. Michaela’s apparently not ready to get married, but mom reiterates that “even people that have made mistakes deserve happiness,” and cites a verse: “All things work together for good.” It is obvious that, to Michaela, this sounds like the fraud spiritual preceptor Pangloss who repeats “Tout est au mieux” throughout Voltaire’s Candide. Little does she know that her mother’s mantra will become a point of interest to her in the upcoming days (or five years later, depending on which person’s perspective you are considering).

Michaela’s brother Ben (Josh Dallas) and his wife Grace (Athena Karkanis) are also with them at the gate, along with their twin children Olive and Cal. The family gets split when Ben and Michaela opt for a later flight in return for monetary compensation because Flight 828 is overbooked and they could use the money for Cal’s leukemia treatments. Cal (Jack Messina) joins them and the less-than-two-minute-long airport scene, dominated by the dreadful monologue comes to an end.

The end of the monologue is not the only reason why the hour begins to improve once the flight takes off. Seasoned director David Frankel (Collateral Beauty, The Devil Wears Prada, Marley and Me) excels with his camera work in the scenes shot inside the airplane, including some brief shots of a few characters who will surely settle into recurring roles later. The head pilot, named Captain William Daly, steals the show here with a few great what-the-hell lines that the actor Frank Deal delivers with the driest tone of irony possible. The flight experiences a few seconds of severe turbulence during which lights flicker and everything shakes violently. Once it’s over, Capt. Daly informs the passengers that some “weather surge that was not on the radar” caused the disturbance, but no big deal, or so thinks Daly, who then announces that “all engine controls are back to normal.”

It is a big deal though…

During the surge, unbeknownst to the 191 “souls on board,” they moved forward in time by five and a half years. Having left Jamaica on April 7, 2013, they arrive to New York on November 4, 2018. Never mind that they were on the plane for only three hours and nineteen minutes as far as their body clocks are concerned.

Confusion and shock surround first Captain Daly who is instructed to divert the flight to some other smaller airport, then everyone else when they eventually disembark from the plane and get told by the NSA Director (Darryl Edwards), who is accompanied by FEMA agents and police force, that they have been presumed dead for five and a half years.

Just like that, in less than seven minutes, the whole premise of Manifest is laid out. I mean that as a compliment, because it leaves more time for “Pilot” to develop storylines and characters to convince the viewer to tune in again next week. There is nothing more golden than establishing a loyal fan base within the first few weeks of a show.

The episode succeeds in doing just that – developing characters and storylines – by focusing on Ben, Michaela, and Saanvi (Parveen Kaur), a third passenger we noticed earlier in the plane when her computer with “six weeks’ worth of research data” broke during the turbulence. Their stories, which cleverly merge into a larger plot later, are arguably the strongest parts of “Pilot.”

Yes, there are echoes of Lost, the 4400, Sense8 (thanks for the tip @RoseConnolly8) and FlashForward here. Yes, The Returned even had the same trope of the separated twins where one ends up years older than the other who disappeared and came back. Yes, there are other similarities to forward-time-travel shows, such as love interests of the disappeared having moved on to other love interests, recently deceased friends and family members, or advanced technology unfamiliar to the disappeared. Yes, there are even some cliché sentences like “the universe just gave all of us a do-over” uttered by Grace to Michaela.

Nevertheless, Manifest’s creator Jeff Rake, who also penned “Pilot,” and director Frankel manage to keep a fairly complex narrative flowing with remarkable lucidity, while avoiding the 11th-hour shock revelations with quick cuts and booming sounds that have become all too common in today’s high-octane-action oriented land of TV shows. Well, they do not avoid it entirely, as the episode ends on one such scene (not to mention that the unpleasant monologue also comes back). Everything in between, however, is one thoroughly enjoyable ride.

First, there is a neat montage of passengers being interrogated by agents who are just as confused by the reappearance of the plane as the passengers are of the passage of time. Furthermore, none of the “191 souls” seem to have aged. This brings forth an intriguing juxtaposition of confusion on the part of the crew and passengers, and suspicion on the part of the investigating agents that I hope the writers will further flesh out in the upcoming episodes. “Pilot” also seems to flirt with other contrasts such as religion vs. science and individuality vs. collective. These are just a few examples of how Manifest packs enough material in its first hour to lay the groundwork for a vigorous first season, assuming that the writing room plays its cards correctly.

Michaela’s background is explored next. She worked for the NYPD along with Jared (J.R. Ramirez), her husband candidate from five years ago, at least from his perspective. From Michaela’s perspective, who apparently made up her mind to marry him during the flight, it feels like he is still a current candidate. Except that he is not, much to her dismay. According to Jared, after he had lost hope of ever seeing Michaela again – it took him two years to even look at another woman, he claims – he fell in love with Lourdes, one of Michaela’s best friends, and married her. He is also promoted to detective and heads the investigation of the case on which Michaela is having premonitions. Yes, the fact that Jared is no longer available represents only a fraction of Michaela’s problems at this point.

Shortly after Flight 828 landed, she first learned that her mother died during her five-year-plus absence. Next, she is having to cope with her own voice inside her head giving her premonitions. As annoying as the voices are, they help her save a boy from being killed by a bus. Then, a larger plotline involving two dogs and two kidnapped girls, despite its predictability, syncs nicely with her character development, although Foxburgh could slightly tone it down with the number of melodramatic stares to the horizon during conversations.

Ben is in the same boat as her sister. His voice is also giving him directives. We know this because both are drawn to the same location more than once in the episode, realizing that they are not alone in their newfound ability to predict events. On the family front, Ben experiences renewed hope as the advanced discoveries in the world of medicine over the last five years seem to point to a solution that can dramatically increase Cal’s chances of long-term survival. Ben’s wife Grace, for her part, feels as if she has been given a second chance at life with her son.

Dallas and Karkanis perform well in their “couple” scenes, effectively transmitting the malaise in the air, once the happy-reunion jitters are over. Ben is not forthcoming with his premonitions and we learn that Grace is hiding something from him when a concerned Olive asks her mother in the kitchen “What are you going to do?” Grace was indeed messaging someone who was asking her “Did you tell him? I miss you.” There are conspicuous signs of a rocky road ahead for this household.  

In the meantime, the scientific solution that gives Ben and Grace hope with regard to Cal’s illness happens to be – lo and behold – based on the research that Saanvi was developing when she boarded Flight 828. While she was presumed dead, her research was completed by Doctor Cardoso (Joel de la Fuente) and became an integral part of a treatment that has been saving hundreds of lives since her disappearance. Saanvi essentially comes back into existence as a bona fide hero.

She also goes through a rollercoaster ride of emotions during the hour. She expresses joy when she finds out that her research was a success, surprise when her colleagues welcome her back as a star, shock when she witnesses Cal’s treatment being denied by the doctor she thought she knew, anger when she talks to Dr. Cardoso about it later, and deep sorrow when she watches Cal in the hospital, all within a span of sequences that add up to no more than 10 minutes. And it all works because Kaur nails her role.

In fact, the hour’s most pleasant surprise, for me at least, was how well the actors carried their roles, considering that hardly any of the names in the cast enjoyed major starring roles on breakthrough TV shows (Dallas comes the closest with his role as Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time).

Manifest’s success will largely depend on quality character development, considering how many of them they must develop, and not falling into the trap of getting tangled in its own web of mysteries, à-la Lost in its later seasons. For now, though, I remain optimistic that Rake and the team of writers can deliver the goods (Robert Zemeckis is also credited as an executive producer). “Pilot” seems to have done its part as an adequate prelude to a promising trip in the land of the paranormal-mystery subgenre.

Last-minute thoughts:

– “Acting out, trying to get my attention, get back at me.” Really Jared? I can forgive you falling in love with Michaela’s friend after two years of abstinence following her disappearance, but this self-centered line you pulled? No dude.

– Michaela did pull a pretty good come-back line: “Thanks for your condolences, by the way.”

– Ok, I know I am stuck on Jared’s behavior here, but what on earth is the purpose of that “You still take my breath away” line he uttered to Michaela in a later conversation? Dude, stop!

– We learn that Michaela was in a car accident that caused the death of Evie sitting in her car. We do not know yet who Evie is, but we do know now that Michaela had to suffer through a trial to claim her innocence after the accident.

– Luna Blaise is great as Olive.

– “We can’t risk breaking protocol.” Are you kidding me Dr. Cardoso? That is the best explanation you can provide to your colleagues for denying Cal treatment? Come on…

– For how glad they were to see the kidnapper when Jared brings them back to him, those two beautiful German Shepherds ran away rather quickly when Michaela initially released them.

Until the next episode…

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