“Precious Cargo” – Aired on May 6, 2021 Writer: Bobak Esfarjani & Ezra W. Nachman Director: Romeo Tirone Grade: 3.5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
“Precious Cargo” is a passable hour of Manifest, shifting the momentum onto other story arcs of season 3, after concluding the the-scumbag-Jace-vs.-the Stones conflict that ended with an intense denouement at the end of the previous episode.
There is some intriguing material here, especially with the mystery-parcel delivery to Eureka and its potentially noxious content judging by the dark cloud above the facility only visible to Flight 828’ers. Unfortunately, some uneven character behaviors that pop-up in unearned ways, and the universal problem of squeezing too many storylines into a single episode, cumulatively bog down what could have otherwise been a stellar outing.
The hour kicks off with an eerie shot of Pete’s face in a water tank at the basement of Eureka, placed alongside those containing Kory’s and Jace’s bodies, similar to the way Kelly’s body was preserved (see “Tailspin”). Dr. Gupta is being her unpleasant self at the lab, telling Ben what a farce it is that he is even allowed to step inside a top-secret government facility – I admit, I agree with her on that. She curtly informs Saanvi that her services will no longer be required once Ben’s regiment is over (remember, Ben offered himself for study in exchange for having Pete accompany him to Jace in “Graveyard Spiral”).
This scene seems unearned narrative-wise considering how we have been led to believe for a while that Vance is the head of the Eureka operations and seen him frequently halt Dr. Gupta every time she tried to voice her concern over Ben and Saanvi’s presence at the facility. As I watched this scene, I found myself asking if he approved this. Apparently, he did, because in a later scene, Saanvi tells Troy (the nerd is baaaaack) that Vance gave her 24 hours to gather her stuff. It makes little sense however that he would allow Dr. Gupta to deliver Ben and Saanvi the news of them being fired, so to speak, without even being present himself. This scene does make one thing clear though: Dr. Gupta is on her way to becoming a central character in this plotline, if not, in the season. What takes place by the end of the hour only serves to confirm that impression.
Without getting too far ahead, let’s switch over to another recurring character, Eagan, the con artist with a photographic memory who first appeared in “Wingman” as an 828-survivor. In that episode, he gave the impression of a voluntary loner, adamant about staying off the grid. Yet, in this episode, this supposedly-obsessed-with-privacy dude has suddenly amassed a following among 828 survivors, enough so that Ben must bargain with him and offer compromises, just to earn his trust. After all, Eagan’s followers are zealous enough to help him kidnap Ben, tie him to a chair, and beat him up.
After Michaela notices a dense cloud of smoke emanating from the top of a building at a distance and starts walking the streets toward it, she is soon joined by other survivors of Flight 828 among whom is Eagan. The smoke is only visible to them, meaning that it represents some sort of a calling. It turns out to be the Eureka building and the survivors notice Ben exiting it and getting in his car.
This is enough for Eagan to label Ben as a conspirator on the government’s side, and just like that, he decides that Eureka must be stopped. He and his followers kidnap and take Ben to the basement of a model home in a plush neighborhood. Eagan interrogates Ben and wants to stop “what’s going on in that building.” Ben explains that Eureka and the NSA are not the enemy. Neither can convince the other and the conversation turns sour when Ben tells Eagan that he believes they are resurrected, and that the government is beginning to believe that too. Unacceptable for Eagan who storms out of the basement, locking the door behind him.
Left alone, Ben snoops around and discovers the high-tech refrigerator’s email registration system, triggering one of the clever sequences of the episode. He sends a registration notice for the refrigerator using Michaela’s old email address. Already worried about her missing brother and knowing that only he would know that email address, Michaela understands that the new-refrigerator registration alert that she just received, with a zip code on it, could have only been initiated by Ben. She and Drea eventually locate the house from which the alert was sent and discover Ben and Eagan in the basement, in the middle of their second go-round with Ben trying to convince Eagan that the government will not put them on trial like the witches of Salem back in the 17th century.
Ben agrees that there is something ominous going on in the section of Eureka from where the dark cloud emanated. It is the loading-dock section and Ben wants Eagan to let him loose so that he can investigate it on everyone’s behalf. He is even willing to not press charges when Michaela and Drea find them, in order to convince Eagan that he genuinely wants to earn the trust of Eagan and his followers. They must not go forward with their plan to destroy Eureka.
The two women arrest Eagan anyway on prior charges. Michaela later asks Ben for an explanation of why he chose not to press charges against Eagan and what the two men discussed prior to her and Drea’s arrival. Ben not only replies with a blunt “nothing,” but also bails Eagan out of prison, in the name of earning the con man’s trust. Oh dear… Is this where things are now with Ben? He must get on the “same side of the fence” as Eagan and lie to his sister? Really?
Besides the uneven character developments, “Precious Cargo” is also overcrowded with too many storylines. There is a sapphire-related storyline with Saanvi and Troy discovering that it is the common element in all survivors of Flight 828, as well as other disappeared and returnees. Furthermore, there is the mention of a parcel due for delivery anytime to Eureka, but the other unnamed (so far) doctor at the table, played by Paco Lozano, has doubts: “Are we really buying its validity?” he asks Dr. Gupta with a certain degree of sarcasm.
There is an interjecting B-story also taking place at the now-deceased Tarik’s place. It contains emotionally charged scenes with Grace and Cal pyschologically dealing with the aftermath of Tarik’s brutal death by stabbing, as well as Angelina grappling with similar inner conflicts created by Pete’s supernatural, and violent, death.
To top all that, a new storyline with the beginning of a Jared-related romance is launched toward the end of the episode. Sarah, the Major’s daughter, apparently asked our bachelor detective to a coffee date because she appreciates that he was willing to help her and making her feel seen. Yes, it has romance written all over it, and I am not complaining one bit. I did after all express in my last review that I wished to see Lauren Norvelle’s character remain in the show in some capacity. So, there! Thank you, Jeff Rake and co.
The hour ends with Dr. Gupta who is seen smiling for the first time in the show, I presume, and she is smiling to Saanvi out of all people, the same person that she has been dismissing since day one. The truth is, the parcel has arrived, and Gupta obviously needs Saanvi to remain now because the latter’s earlier discovery of sapphire “may be the bridge” they’ve been looking for. It’s a “new beginning,” she adds, underlining that they are “on the brink of changing the definition of science as we know it.” Talk about raising one’s expectations!
Unlike Saanvi whose expression of bewilderment is obvious once Gupta opens the parcel, we the audience do not get to see its contents, yet, except that the symbols on the box make it clear that it’s coming from the Vatican! At the same time, Ben is outside the building staring at the massive, dark smoke cloud on top of the facility.
Stop the press, notify the Pope!
Last-minute thoughts:
— Ben tells Michaela, “it’s not just about us following the callings, now we have to make damn sure that every single passenger does the same thing, we sink or swim together.” Hasn’t that ship already sailed with Saanvi taking the retroviral serum back in last season’s “Emergency Exit,” thus eliminating the DNA anomaly in her system and no longer getting the callings?
— I am already tired of hearing the term “lifeboat.”
— Drea is like a kid who has discovered a new toy in Michaela since she has learned about the callings, and she is having a ball with it, inserting some comic relief into the hour. Her enthusiastic commentary on Michaela (to Michaela) at the precinct when Michaela notices the ominous cloud is hilarious, as well as the one at the Stone household when she observes the list of passengers on the wall in Ben’s Agent-Moulder-like basement office. Jared finally has some competition in the domain of one-line deliveries.
Until the next episode…
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“Graveyard Spiral” – Aired on April 29, 2021 Writer: Laura Putney & Margaret Easley Director: Sherwin Shilati Grade: 4 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
“Graveyard Spiral” picks up exactly where last episode “Water Landing” ended, with Michaela looking for Zeke in the woods at night time. In a period of two minutes where we go from dark to almost broad daylight, Michaela and Jace engage in a fairly entertaining fight sequence that ends with Michaela falling from a cliff and Jace walking away with a gun in his hand. He is quite inept at killing people though, at least until then. Both Zeke and Michaela walk away with minor injuries at the end of the ordeal. Notice that I used “until then,” because Jace makes up for his ineptitude later.
This entry goes into the records as one of the most action-packed and visually stimulating hours of Manifest. Director Sherwin Shilati is the star of the episode, using clever camera angles and sequences of one-take shots to convey the intensity of fight scenes, chases, and shootouts. The opening scene with Jace and Michaela, as it turns out, was just an appetizer. I would like to also add that if you can successfully pull off the idea of making Grace appear like the second coming of Sarah Connor when she raises from behind some parapet-like wall with her father’s rifle in her bloody hands, you have reached the pinnacle of directorship!
Jace gets in Michaela’s patrol car in search of Cal because he, along with Kory and Pete, had a vision of Cal in the woods with a basketball. According to Jace, this is a sign that Cal must die with the three of them on this day — their death date — so that they can come back alive again. When Cal is with a group of people who die, everyone in the group comes back alive later, Jace concludes, because it was the case with the Flight 828 passengers and also with the three of them when they fell into the lake with Cal. It’s a flimsy theory at best, but Jace will hang onto it because he is that much of a self-preserving scumbag.
How can he locate Cal? Well, of course, via the dumbest dispatcher ever who mentions “some 828 kid living there” over the police com system and promptly gives the address when Jace asks for it, prior to requesting the unit asking the question to identify himself! Oh-kay…
Several developments, some of which can be classified as contrivances (example: a pulled-by-the-hair basketball bouncing vision started by the thumping sound of Michaela’s and Zeke’s backs, when they fell on a big piece of flat rock, causing a ripple-effect through the air that makes Cal’s basketball at Tarik’s place move from miles away and bounce in front of the car driven by Ben and Angelina who, in turn, are the only ones capable of seeing the ball because they were passengers on Flight 828… or something like that…), or clichés (example: Kory escaping police supervision in the hospital via the window in his patient room). These scenes occupy the next 10 minutes or so, and they collectively pave the way for all the relevant characters to show up at Tarik’s place to set the stage up for the potent second half of the episode.
Grace, Tarik, Cal, and Eden are bunkered up in a hut named “headquarters” by Tarik and Grace when they were children. It’s hidden away from the house, outside of anyone else’s knowledge. They believe it to be the best place for them to hide because the local newspaper story published by the snooping reporter from “Water Landing” has made it unsafe for them to remain in the house.
The pace switches to fifth gear with a minute-plus-long, one-take shot that begins after Ben, Angelina, and Pete arrive to Tarik’s place to unite with Grace and the rest of the Stone gang (minus Olive, see “last-minute thoughts” section below). Agent Winger (Sam Edgerly), who was escorting Pete, gets shot in the head by Jace who is perched on top of the roof. The camera angles and the slow-motion patches are well coordinated here, and the viewer is put in the middle of the action as if they were the ones dodging the 20+ bullets raining upon them.
Jace takes off on foot in search of Cal, Pete takes off in pursuit of Jace, and Ben grabs Agent Winger’s gun and takes off running in the direction of where Grace and Tarik fled a bit earlier. Kory shows up in the safe “headquarters” – Cal repeating “x marks the spot” verse apparently led him there – with the intention to protect Cal and Eden from Jace. I guess this is when I should stop my habit of calling the meth heads “the skeevy trio” since Jace is the only member of the group left who is still a scumbag. Jared finds Michaela and Zeke who are still in the woods, and the three of them zoom ahead in Jared’s car to join the Rambo party taking place in the woods.
The first victim is Tarik who gets stabbed by Jace in the back. As he dies in his sister’s arms, in a poignant scene, the two long-lost siblings spend their last moments expressing their love for each other. One of the success stories of Manifest’s season 3, from a writing point of view, is how well Tarik’s background story and emotional make-up are depicted in a matter of four episodes to where his death really feels like a gut-wrenching moment it was meant to be. Warner Miller also deserves credit for portraying in such a visceral way the naïve-yet-enthusiastic brother in search of familial unity and contentment.
After a bunch of action scenes which really should be watched rather than read, we get to the point where Grace pulls the Sarah Connor act noted above and holds Jace at gunpoint before all others converge on the same spot. Ben stops Grace from killing Jace, convincing her that the scumbag’s time of death has arrived anyway. Sure enough, under the watchful eyes of Kory, Pete, Angelina, Jared, and the Stone gang, Jace starts vomiting inordinate amounts of water and suffocates to death. Pete and Kory are safe, or so it seems, because they had seemingly succeeded in redeeming themselves.
While this is taking place, the janitor on campus (Annie Pisapia) delivers Ben’s lost briefcase from back in “Wingman” when Eagan tossed it away to a trash bin with the piece of papyrus inside. Olive is ecstatic to discover the last missing piece to complete the papyrus but not so thrilled once she sees the full picture. “The Last Trial” is not about each person being judged individually, but rather the group being judged together. In other words, Jace’s failure to redeem himself should have also doomed Kory and Pete. The scene switches over to the woods where a dark shadow emerges from Jace’s corpse, splits into two and pulls Kory and Pete next to it before suffocating them to death! This is once again well-filmed, and I reiterate, director Shilati is the star of the hour.
My question for the so-called twist at the end is the following: Am I the only one who assumed that the group was being judged together anyway? That is how I understood it when Levi explained the allegory in the previous episode. So, for me, the twist worked in reverse. I was surprised when Pete and Kory survived Jace’s death at first, but then felt justified when they died later.
“Graveyard Spiral” carried several recurring characters to their grave indeed. See my thoughts above for Tarik, but as for the Jace-Kory-Pete storyline, I am glad to see it reach its conclusion before outliving its usefulness. Jace had become too much of a cartoon villain as of late, and I had never been able to fully jump on the Pete-Angelina romance train. I thought the one character out of the three, Kory, that had the most potential for growth considering his family background, was bluntly underused.
Last-minute thoughts:
— I have no idea what purpose the minor C-story with Olive stopping the transfer of the papyrus served. I am hoping it becomes relevant in some way in a future episode, but this hour, in and out of itself, would have been just fine if this commotion never happened and we only saw Olive when Ben’s missing briefcase was delivered to the office. Plus, we would have been spared from having to watch the humdrum sequence of the two gullible movers swallow Olive’s fantastical story about some chemicals being in the box.
— “Unless your kid’s really E.T.” mocks the state patrol (Amanda Bruton) right to Grace and Tarik’s faces. The irony is, while the officer’s sense of humor is horrendous, Amanda Bruton who plays her is hilarious as Connie in the comedic web series Confessions by Connie. Highly recommended!
Until the next episode…
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“Water Landing” – Aired on April 29, 2021 Writer: Matthew Lau Director: Marisol Adler Grade: 3 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
Short announcement:
I am finally able to resume my reviews after 10 months of putting the project aside. My apologies for the delay. As noted in my previous announcement, I have tackled a new adventure in my life, one that I absolutely love but that leaves me no time for hobbies such as writing detailed, quality reviews. Heck, I have not even found the time to watch the rest of Manifest‘s third season, although it suited me fine in a way, because I do not wish to write reviews influenced by my prior knowledge of the outcome of events in future episodes. Therefore, what you will read is the same as my reaction would be, if I watched the episode when it originally aired. It so happens that I have a week here, unexpectedly, during which I have some free time, so I will attempt to catch up as much as I can. I am glad to have found out that a 4th season is on its way, thanks to Netflix taking over the show! Yay!
End of announcement, onto the review.
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The hour begins by using one of Manifest’s standard operating procedures for episode openers – a flashback – that takes us to the immediate aftermath of Saanvi killing the Major in the Season 2 finale “Icing Conditions.” Vance’s all-purpose assistant Emmett is seen wrapping the Major’s body in a bag and putting it in the back of a garbage truck. This opening scene had me rejoiced, since Jared’s attempt to bring some clarity and peace of mind to Sarah by investigating her mother’s disappearance was the continuing storyline of Season 3 that had piqued my interest the most.
Remember the complaint that Jared investigated back in “Tailspin” about a sanitary truck making too much noise late on Saturday night by the park, and consulted with officer Molinaro who followed up on the complaint and talked to the truck driver, but let him go without a citation? This flashback puts on display the conversation in which Emmett works Molinaro’s emotions over with the sick-dog story that supposedly caused him to run behind schedule. “Water Landing” also features a dialogue between Jared and the woman who filed the complaint (named Allison according to the credits) that had me chuckling. Actor Angela Pierce perfectly nails the role of the spasmodic resident who sticks her nose into everyone’s business in the neighborhood and reports anything-n-everything to the authorities – her first question to Jared when he shows up at her doorstep: “Finally! Are you here about the loitering nannies?” Combine that with J. R. Ramirez’s dexterity in delivering one-liners as the officer overwhelmed by the woman’s negative energy, and you have the comedy portion of the hour covered.
We also learn via more flashbacks later in the episode that Emmett dropped the body into a creek, which fits neatly into the cover story fed to Jared by Agent Powell about the Major’s body being found submerged in a bog close to New Orleans, likely having been assassinated by a foreign asset based in the region. Powell menacingly tells Jared to drop his investigation into the disappearance of Kathryn Fitz, a.k.a. the Major, because it “threatens to expose a whole host of classified matters.” Aware of the Major’s intricate background in international matters, Jared buys this well-crafted story and informs Sarah of his findings. Sarah is devastated to learn that her mother is dead, although she suspected as much. Jared consoles her by saying that at least she knows that her mother “died a hero.” If only they really knew…
So, is this the end of the collaboration between Sarah and Jared? I am hoping Lauren Norvelle’s character remains in the show, but the writing room would need to find a way to make her relevant by allowing her to be more than just “the Major’s daughter,” so to speak.
Unfortunately, what takes place outside of the Sarah-Jared story is nothing to write home about in “Water Landing,” an episode that seems rather poised to fill an hour with run-of-the-mill scenes, with little character development, in order to get to more important matters in the next one. This would be fine if the hour in questions does a decent job of setting up the background in a meaningful way for what is to come and fill in voids that may lead to questions later when the denouements finally take place.
The episode’s other main story involves the cat-and-mouse game between Michaela and Jace. Jace is determined to find and kill Michaela who, for her part, is determined to catch him before even he gets his chance. This plotline is clunky at this juncture because the skeevy trio of Jace, Kory, and Pete is comprised of mostly one-dimensional characters with limited attributes that have already been squeezed out.
Consider, for example, Jace assaulting the woman who used to live at Michaela’s old address. For starters, the plausibility of such occurrence is low (Jace would have to literally do the assault without having even glanced at the woman, or else he would know it’s not Michaela), but more importantly, this scene was not even necessary. The audience did not need more cruelty from Jace to dislike him further, and Michaela did not need that to amplify her sense of urgency, especially knowing that Jace’s death date is a mere day later. Everyone knows that Jace is a vile piece of human detritus (credit goes to James McEmanin’s effective portrayal of such character). He is a scumbag of gargantuesque proportions! The fact that he gravely injured another woman adds nothing of substance to his profile, or to the episode.
In Jace’s RV, Drea and Michaela discover wall drawings made by Pete the scumbag which pique Olive’s curiosity when she sees a photo of them later in Ben’s X-Files-Moulder-like basement. She remembers them from the research that she and Angelina made when they were looking into Ma’at back in “Wingman.” On campus, she meets Levi (we finally hear his name), the artifact-expert dude played by Will Peltz from “Wingman,” who is stupefied by this revelation because the symbols are the exact same ones as those on the 2000-year-old piece of papyrus that he is working on forming from the artifacts sent by TJ from Egypt Nobody has seen those symbols in centuries. This ongoing mythological plotline is so far a winner for season 3, mostly because noteworthy revelations originate from it, and also because Angelina, Olive, and Levi have good chemistry in their nerdy ways.
Levi associates the drawings to an Egyptian allegory called “The Last Trial.” It depicts the story of three prisoners who are given a second chance to correct their previous sins. Although the first two succeed in correcting course, they ultimately fail because the third one chooses revenge over forgiveness. The skeevy trio is essentially playing the modern version of this story. Olive immediately informs Ben that the calling is not for Jace to kill Michaela but rather a test of his free will. If Jace chooses not to kill her, they will be saved.
At this point, our protagonists need to find out from Kory and Pete where the vision of Michaela getting killed by Jace takes place, so that they can locate the scumbag. For no apparent logical reason (read: plot requirement), Kory cannot pinpoint the location (other than “trees” around), but Pete can (“by the lake”). Pete needs to be the more centralized character, you see, being in Vance’s custody ‘n-all, so that the episode can delve into the extra minutes of Ben trying to talk to him while Dr. Gupta wants “the unicorn” all to herself because… “greater good” in the name “science.”
I refuse to belabor through the endless talks Ben has with Pete who shakes and repeats through trembling lips variations of the same things about Angelina and his brother. Nor did I care much for Gupta complaining about Ben’s presence, Saanvi throwing temper tantrums of guilt, and Vance listening passively to Ben criticizing him for thinking about “progress.” At the end of this otiosely drawn-out storyline, Ben basically offers himself for study in exchange for Pete (who suddenly has a modified calling midway through the episode that makes him claim adamantly that he must be present when they find Jace). And just like that, we’re good to go! Why didn’t anyone think of this adequate compromise before? Because it would not have allowed room for the ramrodded arguments involving Ben, Vance, and Gupta, nor for the repetitive Ben-Pete dialogues.
Back at Tarik’s place, Grace is listening to her brother’s proposal about reopening the family restaurant. She will entertain the idea, but makes it clear to Tarik, once again, that they are trying as a family to not just “keep a low profile” as Tarik mentions, but rather to “avoid having any profile whatsoever.” This somehow does not stop Tarik from talking freely at a bar about his sister being at his home and being a great cook, etc. Of course, this attracts the attention of a reporter who happens to sit nearby. He is later seen photographing Grace through the window of the house, so that he can add the photo to his news story.
The hour ends with Michaela and Zeke walking through the woods by the lake, searching for Jace. Zeke gets another one of his ripple-epiphany moments to sense Jace’s presence, shortly after which Michaela loses sight of Zeke who is seen laying on the ground, unconscious, before credits start rolling.
Last-minute thoughts:
— Another episode goes by with zero explanation on how/why Zeke is getting these ripple-epiphany moments. They sure insist on taking place at the most convenient moments to advance the plot, but I keep hoping that the writing room will at least provide a passable reason for their existence within the domain of Manifest’s core tenets that goes beyond their usefulness in inserting them at will to move things alone, so to speak.
— Did Ben (or anyone in the audience) really believe Olive would obey her father’s directive when he told her to stay safe instead of going to campus to investigate the symbols? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
— This episode has so many ties to “Wingman” that it almost makes me wonder why they were not aired back-to-back. It’s hard enough to follow mythologically referenced storylines, and the connections turn fuzzier in one’s memory when there is another episode inserted in between before you get to the one updating the plotline. I had to go back and read my own review of “Wingman” to remember some of it.
Until the next episode…
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“Tailspin” – Aired on April 22, 2021 Writer: Marta Gené Camps & MW Cartozian Wilson Director: Michael Smith Grade: 4,5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
Announcement time:
As the regular readers of my reviews know, I have always made it a goal to post my reviews 24 to 48 hours after the original airing of episodes. I admit that so far in 2021, it has taken me more than a couple of days to post them (this one is a good example), although I have still been able to do so within a week, prior to the next episode’s airing. This is due to some changes taking place in my ‘regular life,’ so to speak, that have lately caused me to have less time to dedicate to writing these reviews. I cherish the practice of writing them and try to be as detailed and extensive in my reviews as I can. I certainly do not wish to switch to condensed, watered-down versions of recaps just so I can claim to “be on time.”
To further complicate matters, international traveling has recently been added to my plate, possibly lasting through a significant portion of the summer – I am indeed writing these lines while I am waiting for a cross-ocean flight at a gate in an airport. This means that, starting as early as next week, my reviews may suffer more delays because once outside the United States, I cannot watch the episodes on their original air dates. Getting access to them will surely depend on which country I am in on a given week, and Manifest doubling up on weekly episode does not help my quest to avoid falling too far behind. So, I wanted to offer my apologies ahead of time for the upcoming delays to my reviews, but I promise that I will write them as promptly as I possibly can, and let you know on Twitter and Facebook each time I post one.
End of announcement, onto this week’s episode.
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“Tailspin” transports us to “two months later” from where the previous episode ended, and fittingly breathes fresh air into a season that has so far lacked the sparking ambition that carried Manifest throughout its first two seasons. It contains two (or three, depending on your perspective) A stories, each told with conviction, and the most intriguing subplot of the season finally marches forward with purpose after moving at snail’s pace for three episodes.
“Tailspin” is not one of Manifest’s finest hours by any means – one of the main storylines features a couple of baffling contrivances, for instance –, but its otherwise flawless execution without resorting to an overload of twists, coupled with an ambitious narrative that does not bleed into blunder territory, result in this season’s strongest entry to date.
In a super-duper Manifest-ish move, the hour begins with a nightmare/dream/calling sequence. It is a repeat of Ben’s vision in which the plane explodes in mid-air. He wakes up with his hand glowing and concludes that “the tailfin is beckoning [him].” Time to contact the fix-everything daddy named Vance with his never-ending flow of resources.
Vance has not contacted Ben or Saanvi since his return from Cuba (“nine weeks of silence”), his subsequent reinstatement to the NSA, and reassignment as the head of the 828 investigation. An unfriendly Emmett drives Ben to the facility where an unfriendly Vance meets Ben and Saanvi (driven in separate cars, don’t ask why).
Vance scolds Ben for not sitting tight and trusting him as he had told him back in Cuba. He did not need his help and Ben apparently caused a “massive international incident.” That’s a colossal conjecture in and out of itself, not because what Ben was trying to concoct in “Wingman” to save Vance was not outrageous (it was, totally, and I harped on it enough in my review last week), but rather because if someone had really caused an incident of that scale, he would no longer be working a university, live at home, and continue to spend hours in his Agent-Moulder basement office. Speaking of which, it apparently took the media two mere months to desert the Stone household front, despite the father causing a “massive international incident,” the discovery of the tailfin making headlines, and the whole family’s tight connection to the biggest miracle of modern times.
Vance takes Saanvi and Ben inside the facility and reminds them that everything they are about to hear and see is highly confidential. The tailfin is there “along with a confluence of top scientific minds convened to study the phenomenon,” quote by Vance. It is called “Eureka,” essentially a hangar where what is left of Flight 828’s hull, after it blew up on the runway in New York, is kept for further study.
Dr. Gupta (Mahira Kakkar), another unfriendly face, is the director of research at the facility. She immediately expresses her disapproval of Ben and Saanvi being present without clearance. Luckily, Vance is the head of the operation and his word rules. Ben’s hand begins to glow, but he hides it in his pocket. He asks Vance if they can get close to the tailfin, at which point I realize something that I find hard to believe. So, are you telling me that Vance came out of nine weeks of silence, during which he ignored Ben and Saanvi’s best efforts to reach him, only because of a mere “I need to tell you something” message by Ben, without even specifying what? Oh-kay, moving on…
Vance is actually the one, not Ben, with the interesting story to tell here. Initially, this is where the tailfin was preserved, but surveillance cameras recorded a footage of it vanishing into thin air on December 28th, at 10:39 PM, the same night that Saanvi killed the Major, the skeevy trio fell in the lake, and Zeke survived the death date. Furthermore, the tailfin recovered by the Cuban boat back in “Icing Conditions” shows corrosion equivalent to that of an object being in the ocean for seven years, although it disappeared a few months ago from the facility. Seven years, by the way, is the amount of time elapsed since Flight 828’s disappearance, on its way back from Jamaica. If it sounds complicated, you are not the only one.
Let’s stay in the land of unexplained phenomena, shall we? Saanvi runs into Troy who had made his first appearance as the socially awkward lab assistant in the season 1 finale “Estimated Time of Departure,” and his last in season 2’s “Black Box” where we last saw him collapse on the floor after being injected with something by Dr. Matthews, the Major’s vile inside man in the hospital at the time. My side note in the episode review reads, “I am assuming that he is indeed dead (I did with Vance too, just for the record)”. Well, I was right to think twice, I suppose. Troy ain’t dead. He sure seems to have also forgotten how badly Saanvi treated him the last time they saw each other when she relieved him of his lab-assistant duties because she (erroneously) suspected him of betraying her.
The way he ended up in Eureka also sounds bizarre and we only have his words to rely on. According to him, he woke up in a safe house getting recruited for research in line with Saanvi’s DNA mutation study, except that it was 828-focused, meaning that he was there to replicate Saanvi’s work. They did not give him a choice, he claims, since he was abducted and did not know where he was until he got cleared. He still sounds as nerdy as ever though, and still totally enamored with Saanvi.
Meanwhile, Vance takes Ben inside the glass compartment where the tailfin is preserved. Ben is disappointed because nothing happens when he places his hand on the tailfin and Vance, in another uncharacteristic move on his part, does not insist on knowing what on earth Ben is doing. Ben joins Saanvi again and the two begin walking as his hand starts to once again glow, which brings us to the most contrived sequence of the episode, with Ben smack in the middle of such sequence for the third episode in a row.
He and Saanvi are somehow left alone, unsupervised – ironically, Vance underlined that everyone in the facility was watching them like if they were “lab rats” moments ago –, which conveniently makes it possible for Ben to walk through some door that shockingly remains unguarded, considering that it is one of the possible ways to get to the most jarring discovery in the facility. A security guard (Bobby Potts) eventually spots Ben – about time! – in the underground corridors and a chase ensues, leading Ben to enter some secret room, unlocked of course (Vance, get a damn upgrade on your security detail). Ben is stunned by the sight of Kelly Taylor’s corpse immersed in ice in a large glass container and hooked by cables to… something. In case you cannot remember, and there would be nothing wrong with that, Kelly was the 828 passenger who was shot in the head waaaaaay back in season 1’s third episode “Turbulence.”
By the way, did I even mention that while Ben was on his little adventure at the “loosely guarded” basement level, the scientists’ minds were being blown away one level above by the handprint that seems to have appeared on the tailfin?
In Vance’s office, Dr. Gupta explains that any medical examiner would conclude that Kelly’s injuries are consistent with those of someone who died in a mid-air plane explosion, and not someone shot in the head. Moreover, her tissues have recently shown traces of tropical algae found only in the Caribbean, matching those found on the tailfin. This only reinforces Ben’s theory, in his mind, that they died in the plane seven years ago – thus, his vision of Flight 828 exploding in mid-air – and that they were resurrected! Vance, for his part, is tired of Ben keeping secrets from him and launches a warning his way: “It’s time you ask yourself the same question I asked back in Cuba. How much are you willing to sacrifice to get to the truth?”
Back at the new home of Zeke and Michaela, Beverly is having the type of mental episode that should come across familiar to anyone with a family member suffering from dementia (or Alzheimer’s). Beverly is paranoid and blaming people around her for everything. Michaela cannot handle her by herself and Zeke, who is seemingly developing the ability to mentally teleport himself into someone else’s mind via random ripple-epiphany moments — yeah, that is what I named those in last week’s review after the camera effect, and I am sticking with it, damn it! – does the same with Beverly and understands how helpless the old woman feels (Adriane Lenox continues to knock it out of the ballpark with her performance). He even explains to Michaela later that for a moment, he felt alone and scared and did not recognize him or Michaela through the eyes of Beverly sitting on the floor in fear. He is able to calm Beverly down thanks to a photo of Evie and Michaela that he sees on the refrigerator door. Zeke is the man of the hour, again, with his newly acquired healing capacities. Will there ever be an explanation on the how or the why? I hope so. Otherwise, chalk up yet another check mark in the column for convenient plot-device introductions.
The Major’s phone records show, according to the list Jared obtained, that the last call she took was from her daughter Sarah on December 28th, 9:37 PM. Jared plans to next check out the parks on the Major’s path from work to home because Sarah tells him that her mother would sometimes stroll by them on her way home. I am loving this intriguing plot as I have said many times and rooting for Jared to get to the bottom of it, even if it has the potential to spell disaster for others in the show.
Later in the episode, we learn that Jared had noticed a complaint placed about too much noise in the residential area near a park on the Major’s path on the night that she disappeared. A sanitation truck was making too much noise during the off-hours. Drea and Jared, the scrupulous detectives that they are, cannot get past the bizarre nature of a single call to complain about such noise by the park at that time. Would there not be, after all, calls from some of the other muckamucks living in that posh neighborhood about a garbage truck late at night? The detectives are not letting this go, and now I am cheering for Jared and Drea!
Jared contacts Officer Molinaro (Lisann Valentin) who responded to the noise complaint on that night. She says that the sanitation driver, who was white, 6 feet, 45 to 50 years old, claimed to have run behind schedule due to his sick dog, so Molinaro felt sorry for him and decided to let it slide. Jared asks her to email him her notes, and you just know the details of Molinaro’s notes will resurface in a very meaningful way, because Jared says that “something about this story doesn’t sit right.”
His suspicions grow exponentially when the sanitations services inform them that they do not have pick-ups scheduled on Saturdays in that area. And what does any of this have to with Kathryn Fitz, a.k.a. the Major, Jared wonders. Drea, for her part, is worried about him because Fitz was high in the Pentagon and Jared may be stepping into someone’s fiefdom where he will not be welcomed.
As for the skeevy trio, they are simultaneously having the same vision, running in some reddish-toned milieu with a clock running down to zero. Jace wakes up in a sweat in the RV, Kory coughs up an unusual amount of water at his mother’s home, and Pete gets taken by the vision in the middle of Angelina’s visit at the jail. She believes that she was chosen to help him. The callings saved her, and they can save him too. She reminds him that he has less than one week left according to his death date, so they must figure it out in a hurry. Pete points out that he cannot do anything, or follow his callings, if he is stuck in jail.
Angelina asks Zeke and Michaela for help. Zeke accompanies Michaela for another visit to Pete because his presence may convince him that death dates can be survived. It works. Pete is ready to talk when he notices Zeke, the man Angelina told him about. He tells them about the calling with the clock counting down to zero. It resembles the clock of the football field at his high school where he, Jace, and Kory would stay around after hours and play football. At one point, they got kicked off the team by Coach Hannity (Shaun O’Hagan) and their lives went haywire after that.
Pete is not the only one with whom Angelina is bonding, by the way. She decides to help Olive with her research into Egyptian mythology while telling her that she did not attend her prom either. She also consoles Olive for TJ not being there, telling her that short-term separation may be worth it, as long as it results in the two lovers being together and happy in the long-term. Yes, I have blown this horn more than once before, but I will annoyingly repeat it one more time: Holly Taylor is a tremendous addition to Manifest’s regular cast!
Michaela and Zeke visit Coach Hannity to learn more about the skeevy trio’s dismissal from high school back in the day, unaware that Jace is watching them from afar. Hannity calls it “the darkest moment of [his] career,” on which “four young lives were ruined.” He apparently found a kid named Derek dead from overdose in the locker room and the ensuing investigation pointed to Pete selling him the drugs. Pete denied Jace and Kory’s involvement and claimed he was acting on his own. He ended up in juvenile detention, while Hannity kicked Jace and Kory off the team. Michaela speculates to Zeke that maybe Pete feels guilty and that the calling is a chance for him to reckon with Derek’s death.
When Michaela and Zeke return to ask Pete about Derek, Pete initially refuses to talk about it, but thanks to another ripple-epiphany moment by Zeke who is now a “mind-reader” (Michaela said it, not me), it becomes clear that Pete is scared of someone. With Zeke’s encouragement about the calling wanting to give him a second chance, Pete spills everything out. Coach Hannity was making the boys deal drugs or else he would kick them off the team. After Derek died, Pete wanted out. He did not rat Hannity out because he was afraid that he would kill him and Jace. This Devin Harjes’s finest hour in the show so far. I never believed that Pete, as a character, could do anything that would enthrall the audience, and yet, here we are.
Michaela, accompanied by Drea, gives Coach Hannity “a more official visit” at his house. The problem is, Jace and Kory got there earlier and Jace’s intentions were in line with the gun he was carrying under his belt. Jace even shot Kory in the leg when he tried to stop him, before running away in front of a freaked-out Hannity. With Michaela and Drea on the scene, Kory yells to Hannity, “your clock’s run out,” which sends alarm bells to Michaela’s suspicious mind. She remembers Pete mentioning about the clock running out in his vision. It turns out that Hannity has drugs stashed away in the air ventilation unit (Kory told Michaela to check there) and the crooked coach gets arrested on the spot.
When Michaela goes back to tell Pete that his calling helped put a drug dealer behind bars, and that Jace shot Kory in the leg, Pete finally utters the words that she has been hoping to hear since his arrest: “I think I know how you can find Jace.”
Back at the Stone household, Angelina is fascinated by the story of Osiris, the “Lord of the Underworld.” She draws a parallel between Pete and Osiris. Yeah, I know, but wait for it, because it is not as far-fetched as it sounds at first. Osiris was killed by his homicidal-maniac brother before being brought back to life by his wife Isis with whom they end up having a baby together. Imagine the conclusions Pete would draw if he could be a fly on the wall and hear Angelina’s explanation!
Olive is, for her part, suddenly motivated to go to the prom again (not sure how or why that shift happened) and wants Angelina to accompany her. Angelina does, but will not go inside, telling Olive that it is her night and going inside with Olive will not bring her prom back. Olive understand and smiles back at her, before walking inside. She probably understands that Angelina’s priority lies with Pete at the jail, and that is where we see those two next, looking hopeful and smiling at each other as part of the montage of scenes accompanied by music (it is SYML’s “Symmetry” this time), a method used often in the last act of several episodes thus far in the show.
The montage also features Ben standing in his Agent-Moulder-basement room and watching his no-longer-glowing hand, Michaela, Zeke, and Beverly having a nice dinner, and Saanvi looking worried sick in her new desk next to Vance’s at the facility. Vance insisted that she join Eureka, and who is she to refuse Vance? Come on…
The last shot of the montage takes the cake though. Jared walks through the park, observed by Emmett from afar who notifies his boss that they “have a problem” because “Vasquez is getting too close to the truth.” Vance’s face tells it all!
Last-minute thoughts:
— Vance’s face is used for yet another episode closing shot. The writers know how to put a great asset to use, I presume.
— A nurse named Thalia (Greta Quispe) is helping Zeke and Michaela take care of Beverly.
— It appears that Zeke’s ripple-epiphany connections are progressively getting stronger. He said that much himself when comparing his connection with Pete vs. the one with Beverly earlier in the outing.
— Vance grabs the best line-delivery award of the week when Saanvi blames herself for causing the tailfin’s disappearance by killing the Major at the exact same moment, as well as for causing the other events that took place on that night, such as the skeevy trio drowning in the frozen lake and Zeke surviving the death date. He calmly states, “Saanvi, you’re a scientist. You can’t mistake correlation for causation.”
— Drea and Jared… Could it? Do they? Nah… never mind, for now!
Until the next episode…
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“Wingman” – Aired on April 15, 2021 Writer: Simran Baidwan & Ezra Nachman Director: Michael Smith Grade: 3.5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
Despite attempting to squeeze too many storylines into 42+ minutes, “Wingman” is an improvement from last week’s frenzied “Deadhead” in that most of them advance in a grounded way and feature engaging performances by actors in recurring roles.
After three episodes into season 3, Manifest is in desperate need of a smashing hour of early-season episode like “Reentry” or “Grounded,” both second episodes in their respective seasons, in order to allow room to breathe and marinate for the plethora of plotlines launched in the first two episodes. The show manifests (no pun intended) a conspicuous tendency to use contrivances to forge ahead this season and it feels as if the callings are used too frequently, more than in the show’s early days, as plot devices rather than creative ways to tell stories resulting in meaningful discoveries. One of this hour’s A stories (again, there is more than one) suffers from just that and it makes me question whether this tendency drags down the audience’s perception of the characters involved in those storylines. I will not yet get into specific examples, because it is early in the season and the show may correct course sooner than later.
Plus, there is some solid material in “Wingman” and the episode succeeds in one area where most other shows fail, which is the method of saddling A stories with unrelated B and C stories. When taken into consideration as a single hour of TV drama, the subplots involving Vance, Sarah Fitz, and Saanvi are only tangentially related, if related at all, to its three main storylines. This method hardly ever produces results, but it works here, only because Jeff Rake and co. have done a remarkable job of worldbuilding in the show’s 2+ seasons, leading the audience to get familiarized with the universe of Manifest and anticipate worthy payoffs in future episodes stemming from granular details in subplots.
One of those subplots occupies the opening and closing scenes of the hour. I should more specifically say, the very first and last seconds of “Wingman” are facial close-up shots of the character at the center of one of those subplots. I mean, when you have an able actor like Daryl Edwards at your disposal, who can fill the screen with authority and tell a thousand words with a single look, why not use that asset, right?
As Vance is getting interrogated in a dark room with only a spotlight on his face, I ask myself, is this still a thing on TV shows in 2021? The overused “dark room with a bright light on a face” trope, ubiquitously seen in movies and series since the 1950s at least, has zero impact here anyway, because the audience is conditioned by now to seeing Vance not get rattled by anything, let alone by a quasi-pitch-dark interrogation room and a spotlight. Moreover, we already carry the knowledge, courtesy of the long-released season trailer, that he will reunite with Ben and Saanvi to enthusiastically show them the reconstruction (or something like that) of the 828 plane in hangar. Dark rooms and spotlights on his face are peanuts to good ‘ole Vance!
Fittingly, it’s rather Vance who eventually gives hell to the interrogator and the dignitaries hiding behind the two-way mirror. Agent Powell and Director Zimmer are almost bullied into making a call when Vance throws a powerful fit looking straight at them through the two-way mirror. He accuses them of holding him for no reason and dares them to come out and face him directly. Apparently, that is all Zimmer can handle, because she drops the charges and reinstates Vance to the NSA as the lead on the Flight 828 investigation. Except that Vance is not interested, which, I admit, came as a surprise to me.
He astutely pretends not being aware of the Major’s death and says that he wants none of her wrath by going back to work for the NSA. The last time he did so, the Major almost killed him. This is when Zimmer tells him that the Major was found dead in New Orleans. Well played Vance, fishing job accomplished!
As he is leaving, Agent Powell pulls the last card they have, which he characterizes as “something” he wants to show his ex-boss. In the closing scene, Powell opens the entrance to some high-secret area that, at first sight, totally stuns Vance. His face is the last thing we see before credits roll, and it has ‘botched cliffhanger’ written all over it. Next episode’s trailer and the pre-season trailer have made sure of that.
Ben and Michaela are in Mr. Stone’s X-Files-Moulder basement office. They inform Jared that Kathryn Fitz is the Major and that she has gone missing. Jared, in turn, tells them about the Major’s daughter Sarah looking for Michaela at the precinct (back in “Tailfin“). He leaves to visit Saanvi after learning from Ben that the Major had sessions with her posing as her therapist.
With Jared gone, Michaela turns to Ben and says, “You know you don’t have to be a hero and take everything on.” Thank you, Michaela! This is just one example of why I keep referring to Michaela as “the voice of reason in Manifest.” She wants her brother to take time for himself and promises him that she will find all the meth heads. Thankfully, Ben calms down and decides to head to campus to meet Olive, because TJ sent some artifacts from Egypt and they may provide some mythological clue.
As he grabs his bag to leave, he gets an intense calling with a vision of objects falling, the ground shaking, and a teenager unconscious on the floor. The calling ends and he notices a page that just fell from his wall. The headline reads: “828 Chess Player Wows Parkgoers.” Eagan Tahrani (Ali Lopez-Sohaili) is the player’s name and Ben finds him at the park. The guy apparently lives off the grid, making money playing chess. He had the same calling as Ben, except that he did not see the kid, he claims — the verb “claims” added deliberately by me, because we learn sooner than later that what comes out of Eagan’s mouth is often far from being the truth.
In sharp contrast to Ben’s storyline that gets progressively hampered by rushed dialogues and contrivances, Michaela’s storyline blossoms into genuine character moments where individuals face bona fide dilemmas and find themselves making weighty decisions carrying long-term consequences.
Michaela questions Pete at the precinct but he is not giving up information about Jace and Kory. Instead, he seems to be fixated on how “brave” Angelina was. Coming out of the interrogation room, Michaela senses strong heartbeats in a nod to Season 1’s “S.N.A.F.U.” in which Michaela kept hearing heartbeats that led her to the discovery of a boy named Carlos whose life was saved thanks to a heart transplant performed with Evie’s heart after she died in their tragic car accident. Reminded of Evie, she decides to visit her parents Glen and Beverly who made their first appearance in “Turbulence” back in early season 1 and reappeared several more times since. Michaela finds Beverly helplessly sitting on the ground and muttering. Glen’s body is on the floor, dead due to a massive heart attack.
Jared stops by Bronx MD Urgent Care, the name of Saanvi’s clinic that houses Vance’s secret operation center as well, in case you did not know. He tells Saanvi that the Major went missing and wants to know if she shared anything private with Saanvi. Saanvi nervously replies that she did not and turns visibly shaken when Jared informs her of the Major’s daughter. Don’t ask why or how, but Jared leaves without noticing Saanvi’s fidgety comportment and panicky breathing.
Eagan has a photographic memory helping him remember “1327 opening chess moves,” one of the few conveniences added to this character in order to briskly move this plot forward. He describes the objects from his vision and Ben adds that there was an urn with the number 601. In a labored dialogue that puts together bunch of thinly held connections (Eagan also happens to be an ex-courier so he is familiar with all the museums, chalk another convenient attribute to his character), they figure out that the objects must be kept in some storage room. And voilà! Eagan knows where! He takes Ben to some unmarked self-storage facility where, according to him, “the not-exactly 1% hide their stuff from the IRS and their ex-wives.” They cannot enter the facility but manage to break into the building through an air unit serviceably placed on the street right next to where they are walking.
Jared brings Zeke to Michaela at Glen and Beverly’s house, thinking she could use his company — yeah, Jared Mr. Magnanimous continues to be the ultimate caretaker of the Stone gang. Beverly is happy to see Jared, saying that Evie will be happy to see him. Adriane Lenox is the star of this episode, painting a gripping portrait of a woman suffering from dementia.
Back at Tarik’s, Cal returns to the house after a short walk in the woods where he spotted a peacock. Tarik lightly mocks Cal, not believing him, which doesn’t sit well with Grace and she lets her brother know about it, which, in turn, does not sit well with Tarik, who then lets Grace know about it, re-venting his lingering bitterness about her abandoning him 11 years ago. She left him alone to deal with their dying dad whom he carried every day to the bathroom as he watched him cough up blood, he reminds her, while being occasionally forced to go to the restaurant in an effort to save it from debt. Grace needs to know, he believes, that it was hell, but he did it anyway because that is “what family does.”
The barrier between them melts later in a nicely executed sentimental sequence where Grace notices Cal and Olive sweetly reminiscing about their childhood via facetime and reciting a rhyme. This motivates her to reach out to Tarik using the same rhyme. It works, especially after she shows genuine remorse for not having been there for him. She also reveals to Tarik that she needed to be with Cal who had been diagnosed with his illness at the age of six, making the 11-year abandonment of which Tarik speaks chronologically feasible. My question is, why did Grace not say anything to Tarik about this earlier? It seems like it would be a valid explanation for her leaving him, and yet, not only did she not tell him anything at the time, or in the years that ensued, but she did not even try to explain that to him when they first arrived at the house back in “Deadhead.”
Olive and Angelina arrive on campus to check out the artifacts, as advised by Ben. They find some young grad student (Will Peltz) who is basically the artifact-expert version of “Nick Burns: Your Company’s Computer Guy” from Saturday Night Live. He is awkward, smug, curt, all at the same time and in a less-caricaturized way than Nick in SNL. He is already working on the artifact, comprised of papyrus pieces, except that one is missing. He comes down from his high horse after a while, but only a bit, and allows Angelina and Olive to take a closer look at the artifact.
Once they put together the pieces in their possession, the image of an archangel appears on the papyrus with a colorful feather that Angelina described earlier as a peacock feather. The artifact dude, who is not named in this episode unless I missed it, is puzzled because the archangel resembles Ma’at the Goddess who placed the hearts of the deceased on a scale of justice in the afterlife. If the heart was lighter than the feather, the deceased would earn the right to continue in the afterlife. According to him, she did this with an ostrich feather though, and the feather on the papyrus is too colorful to be one. Olive and Angelina speculate to and fro about what the peacock connection could mean, but the bottom line is, they need the missing piece.
Back at Beverly’s house, Michaela hears the heartbeat again. It gets stronger as she approaches a box in which she finds DVDs of recorded footage from her childhood with Evie back in the 1990s. Zeke notices a DVD on the floor that reads “For Michaela.” It is a recording made by Glen, in case of his death. He informs her that he made arrangements for Beverly in an assisted-living facility and wants Michaela to have their house, resulting in Zeke grabbing the prize for the best line-delivery of the outing: “Sorry, did he just give you a house?”
In another moment of top-notch acting by Lenox, Beverly throws a fit when confronted with the prospect of leaving the house. Zeke experiences some sort of ripple-epiphany moment – yeah, that’s the only expression I could think of, just watch the scene – and finds a way to calm Beverly down by feeding her “smell the flowers, blow out the candles” imagery. Next, he asks her to find some object that gives her comfort, resulting in Beverly grabbing a neckless that Evie made for her with a pendant that has the word “brave” engraved. This triggers Michaela’s memory of Pete mentioning how “brave” Angelina was during the interrogation. Believing that there is a connection (is there ever not a connection?) she brings Angelina to the precinct to see Pete.
During the visit, Angelina tells him that it feels as if she is supposed to save him, while he tells her about the voice in his head saying, “Go to her,” when he found the picture by King Kone in “Deadhead.” I am intrigued indeed, looking forward to seeing how this particular development will play out.
Back to the so-called action storyline of the episode…
Having sneaked into the storage facility, Ben and Eagan locate room 601, which Eagan unlocks with a credit card, putting on display yet another convenient, plot-advancing skill of his. After finding nothing of importance inside, it dawns on Ben that that the reflection in the vision may have caused the number to appear upside down, thus they head to room 109 as the building begins to shake and rumble due to a gas leak – if and when someone has nothing better to do, please confirm to me that it’s common for large buildings to shake and rumble during a gas leak in the same way that they do during a severe earthquake.
In room 109 filled with gas, they find the teenager unconscious. They cannot call 911 because there is no reception, a hackneyed trope without the use of which this scene would have absolutely lost nothing. Ben grabs the teenager named Caleb (Mason Bleu) and carries him outside while Eagan tells Ben that he will attempt to shut the valves off in the basement.
He joins Ben outside who carried Caleb to safety, claiming that he was too late to shut the valves. Then, he flees the scene in lightning speed when sirens approach, confirming to Ben that he has no intention to get on the grid, so to speak. The reality is, he filled his bags with the objects from the storage room so that he could sell them at the pawn shop and make money, using Ben’s card as his identity. The pawnshop owner notices a piece of papyrus inside the urn and hands it over to Eagan, one that the dastard chucks away into the nearest trash bin in the street. If only Olive, Angelina, and the artifact dude knew.
As for Ben, he takes Caleb home as the boy reunites with his mother who welcomes him with tears of joy. Apparently, he ran away from home, and I speculate that it may have something to do with the trauma associated to his brother’s death/disappearance at the bottom of some frozen lake, because in a twist that I sure did not see coming, Kory is Caleb’s brother and he is also inside the house. I wonder if this will come back to bite Ben in the future, for having saved someone who is kin to one of the people who kidnapped and almost killed Cal. Unless the writers deliberately choose to take that overly dramatic route, it really should not. What would Caleb have to do with Kory’s decisions to turn skeevy, let alone with his involvement in the kidnapping and attempted murder of a child?
Back at Beverly’s, Michaela cannot bring herself to allow the assisted-living administrator escort Beverly away. She and Zeke agree on the spot to live in the house and take care of Beverly themselves. Beverly’s expression of joy is something to behold as Michaela and Zeke chat about what to prepare for dinner. It is yet another wonderful moment in this storyline, once again enhanced by Lenox’s performance. If I had the time and knew it would have any sort of impact, I’d start a campaign for Lenox to grab the award for the best performance by a guest actor in a primetime TV drama. Does such an award even exist?
In what appears to be, at least still for me, one of the more interesting overall arcs of the show so far this season, Jared informs Sarah, the Major’s daughter, that her mother was engaged in illegal practices like torture and kidnapping and tasked with covertly studying Flight 828. While distraught by these revelations, Sarah remains nonetheless fixated on locating her mother. Sarah’s arc is moving at a snail’s pace so far, largely due to being relegated to D or E storyline each week, but my interest continues to be piqued.
Sitting on the porch with Eden, Cal notices a peacock feather landing on the grass nearby. He grabs it and makes a clip for Olive, showing Eden and the feather. He recites the rhyme again, including the line, “X marks the spot, circle with a dot.” Kory in his mom’s house, Pete in the cell, and Jace in the RV, all hear Cal’s recital in their heads at the same time. Jace (although the camera doesn’t show him) is presumably the one scratching x’s with a knife on the eyes of Michaela, Ben, and Cal on pictures. Cal’s recital line doesn’t sound so cute all of a sudden.
Last-minute thoughts:
— The scene of Eagan disappearing quickly once the sirens were heard was filmed as if to create the sensation that the dastard has some superpowers to beam himself away. Ben’s bewildered stare at the empty street also contributed to that impression. Or, I am reading way too much into scenes.
— I touched on this in my review of “Tailfin,” but Angelina’s birth year on her ID showed 1990 in the third season premiere. She says in this episode that according to her birth certificate she is “almost 30.” Are we at some point in the early 2020s in the Manifest universe? I thought we were in current time, as in 2021**. Or, is this a small discrepancy that would not matter unless you get stuck in minutiae like I do? ** Edit (post-review): Thanks to the faithful Manifest follower on Twitter who alerted me to this tweet by the showrunner extraordinaire Jeff Rake for clarification on the current date of the show!
— Manifest will air two episodes per week, for the next two weeks, with future air dates beyond that, remaining unannounced as of the writing of this review. I hate to mention it, but this is usually not a good sign, especially if the network made the decision on its own to double up on episodes. The last time this happened to a show that I was reviewing, its cancellation was announced even prior to that season’s finale. Needless to say, I am hoping for a far different outcome here, let alone agonize about how I am going to find the time to review two episodes in one week!!
— Dear writers, tell me more about Zeke’s ripple-epiphany moment!
— More nitpicking… Since Zimmer’s title is “Director” and she is from the Pentagon, I must ask… Is she The Director of Pentagon? If so, does the Pentagon chief really have time, considering all other responsibilities they carry, to visit suspects’ houses like in “Deadhead” or to observe interrogations like the one in this hour? Wouldn’t other people do that and report to her?
Until the next episode…
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“Deadhead” – Aired on April 8, 2021 Writer: Laura Putney & Margaret Easley Director: Romeo Tirone Grade: 3 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
“Deadhead” is a barely passable outing of Manifest, significantly below the show’s regular standards, largely due to an excessive number of storylines running all at once, leading to a chaotic narrative with little chance of meaningful character exploration. Only one of them avoids coming across as rushed, while one other merely adds to the background of a main character. The rest is a combination of odd dialogues and pat coincidences for the sake of advancing the overlapping plotlines.
The actors, for their part, perform well and there are a few stand-out scenes, but the substance is overall thin and the constant oscillation between so many different subplots makes it hard to get invested in any of them. I say it with regret, but this is not one of Manifest’s finest hours.
The episode begins in the upper floor of the Stone household where Angelina is having a nightmare. She is chased by a spooky, faceless archangel with wings, hovering above, and wakes up in a cold sweat right before it is about to descend on her. Grace, with impeccable timing, walks in the door carrying Eden and offers Angelina a cup of coffee, as well as a few words of comfort.
There is not much comforting she can do for her husband though, other than locating his glasses, because Ben is on another one of his out-of-control “I must save the universe” modes. I am sure that Josh Dallas fans adore seeing him play the role of the glorified husband-spy-father-detective-professor-agent-savior character but from a storytelling perspective, it makes no sense that Ben Stone, a math professor and a family man with no background training in any type of secret operation, even entertains the idea of going into Ethan-Hunt mode and kidnapping a closely watched asset out of a foreign country like Cuba, while defying his own government, with only Emmett at his side.
What makes just as little sense, or even less, is Grace remotely considering allowing him to do so without an all-out sensory attack on his loony (non-)plan and drawing the definitive line at him leaving or staying. Because, while I have accepted Ben’s lack of common sense at times in the name of being the great savior, Grace’s common sense has mostly remained intact throughout Manifest. She does try to talk sense into him twice, because they get interrupted at one point by an unannounced visit by – get this – Director Zimmer of the Pentagon (Patricia Mauceri) and Agent Tim Powell of the NSA (Tim Moriarty reprises his role from the first season when he was Vance’s assistant), with the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Defense accompanying them! Three people with probably more power and access than hundreds of Ben Stones combined.
The conversation takes an unpleasant turn for Ben when Zimmer and Powell proceed with pointed questions and accusations, but the visitors are soon forced to leave only because Grace brings into the conversation the threat of calling a lawyer (or helping her with the calzone), and Ben adds the need for warrants.
So, forgive me, especially after seeing Ben revert to his dippy savior mode mere seconds following that rancid visit, for logically expecting Grace at that point in time to put her foot down and exclaim something along the lines of, “Are you freaking nuts? You have a family! You sound like a buffoon! Shut up and drop this right now, or else!”
Alas, no…
He sighs, rubs his eyes gently, and says, “At least I have to try.” She holds his hand, looks at him affectionately, and says, “I know you do.” I murmur to myself, “Um, ok…” I guess it’s farewell to Grace’s common sense too.
At the NYPD, Michaela – the actual voice of reason on Manifest, please don’t ever change Detective Stone – is back from her extended honeymoon absence. Jared, who is now a Lieutenant, tries to tell her about Sarah Fitz insisting to see her at the precinct (in last week’s “Tailfin”), but she is fixated on a notification left on her desk. It’s a message from the Fish and Game Warden saying, “Cameras picked up 3 people exiting the lake.”
Alarm bells ring in Michaela’s head because she had asked the guy who patrols the lake where the skeevy trio supposedly drowned in “Icing Conditions,” that he should contact her in case of unusual activity at the lake. It’s 84 days later, and there is unusual activity indeed! Drea and Michaela are shocked as they watch the footage of Jace and co. walking out of the lake.
Sandwiched in-between the above scenes, Captain Bowers reveals to Michaela that she intervened on her behalf when the Civilian Complaint Review Board recommended her termination. Bowers explicitly states that she put her “ass on the line,” so Michaela better play by her rules or she better quit, because the Captain ain’t planning on losing her job. The sincerity of the relationship-friendship slowly building between Michaela and Captain Bowers is one of the winners of Manifest in terms of long-arc subplots.
Michaela tells the Captain about the suspicious footage and wants to go with Jared to the lake. Captain Bowers reminds her that Drea, not Jared, is her partner, and adds: “Also, it isn’t 1973 – no one has to drive anywhere to see footage. Have Park Services email it.” It’s the best line delivery of the hour (with Zeke’s “I’m a muggle again” a close second) and I suspect that Captain Bowers is quickly becoming one of the favorite recurring characters, if not the favorite, of many Manifest fans, largely thanks to Andrene Ward-Hammond’s commanding screen presence.
Back at the Stone household, it is panic time. Michaela informed Ben and Grace of the skeevy trio’s resurgence and they are busy brainstorming on how to protect Cal for 84 days, the time the meth heads have before they die again à-la-Griffin, Ben presumes, in “Estimated Time of Departure” (Manifest excels, as usual, in nods to previous events and characters in meaningful ways). Grace’s solution is to take the children to her stepdad’s off-the-beaten-path place (not too sure about the “difficult to connect back to the family” portion). The problem is, her brother named Tarik (Warner Miller) resides in it and she has not contacted him in ten years following her departure that rubbed him the wrong way.
Ben, for his part, will NOT join his family in this time of urgency. Instead, he will prioritize his fixation with saving Vance, while taking on two countries’ governments, with Emmett! He sighs and says, “I’ve got to help him, Grace.” Grace sighs and asks, “How long do you need?” I sigh and say to myself, “Really? Twice, this same nonsense?” But I feel oh-so-much better a bit later, because the great savior Ben will “get a plan in motion” and inform Grace “by the weekend.” And somehow, Grace is “okay” with this. Oh-kay…
In a far better-written scene taking place elsewhere in the Stone household, Olive notices Angelina having another nightmare about the spooky archangel. It comes down on her this time and shatters into colorful pieces of glass. Olive, the wonderful listener that she is, decides to help Angelina. This means that the Stone gang will be divided three-way, conclusively putting Grace’s dreams to bed about all of them taking refuge in her stepfather’s place. Olive and Angelina plan to go on a quest to solve the puzzle of the nightmare, Ben plans to concoct a plan with Emmett to fool two governments while kidnapping Vance out of hostile territory, and Grace, Eden, and Cal are heading to Tarik. This effectively increases the number of storylines to six – yeah, I haven’t even gotten to Saanvi and Zeke yet.
Alarmed by the footage, Michaela and Drea venture out to the spot where the skeevy trio walked off the lake. They soon find a couple assaulted by them. The woman (Whitney Bashor) tells Michaela that one of them asked what month it was before they fled in the couple’s RV. It does not take them too long to spot the skeevy trio in the RV passing them in the other direction in the highway with Jace showing his face to Michaela for convenience. When you have six storylines running simultaneously, coincidences of this type are welcomed.
Saanvi’s check-up of Zeke at the clinic results in neither a trace of the frostbite that hampered Zeke three and a half months ago, nor of the ischemic blood marker that all other “returnees” carry. Zeke senses, however, that there is something wrong with Saanvi instead. She brushes it off to exhaustion from too much work but Zeke is not fooled, and neither is the audience because the writers are laying it on pretty thick with Saanvi’s behavior in the two episodes so far this season.
This C (or anywhere from D to F) storyline eventually ends with Saanvi admitting to Zeke that there is indeed something wrong with her. She has not had any callings since she medicated herself and she is worried about what options she has if solving the callings is the only way to survive the death date. She also asks how Zeke knew that it was eating at her. I cannot tell with 100% clarity if Saanvi is completely honest in asking him that question or is she using the “no more callings” explanation to hide the larger secret that is eating at her, i.e., her murder of the Major.
After evading Michaela and Drea, the skeevy trio get in an argument in the RV, with Kory and Pete expressing doubts on the path Jace wants them to pursue. Pete is particularly convinced that they are the product of a miracle and that they were brought back “to do things differently.” This is the most notable outing so far in the show for Pete, and Devin Harjes delivers well in the role of the sibling who no longer desires to be pushed over by the other.
Ben visits Saanvi and Zeke and informs Zeke of Michaela’s discovery. He also updates Saanvi on what happened when he touched the tailfin, his plans for Vance, and the powerful individuals’ visit to his house. Saanvi is interested on the burn marks on his hand, leading her to collect a sample tissue for further examination.
Thank heavens, there is Emmett! In the ultimate relief moment of the episode (at least for me), he does what Grace should have done, emphatically scolding Ben with regard to his loony plan. I almost found myself pumping my fist every time Emmett spoke – “You’re not serious!”; “Stone, you’re a math professor!”; “We don’t have the resources”; “You need to stand down.” Preach brother Emmett, preach!
With Olive’s assistance, Angelina locates the stained-color glass in her old school that has the figure of the archangel from her nightmares. Its wings have peacock feathers (another nice nod to continuity) and Angelina remembers that she was burying a time capsule when some kid threw a stone that shattered the glass back in her school days. It does not take the them too long to figure out that ‘it’s all connected’ (my nod, this time) and they dig up Angelina’s time capsule. In the box, there is a picture of her with a slushie in her hand in front of a place named King Kone. Angelina reminisces on the happy days she had with her family – “They were almost normal then,” she says – and Olive consoles her in the best way a new, reliable friend can. As far as Olive is concerned, Angelina’s nightmare is a calling (she even refers to it as such) and needs to be pursued. Their synergy is one of the bright spots of the hour, and frankly, the storyline of their quest is the only one that does not feel rushed. They decide to visit King Kone.
While the two enjoy their slushies from the spot, Angelina accidentally drops the picture from her pocket. The skeevy trio park the RV to rob a store where Jace used to work, which also happens to be next to King Kone. People had already tipped state troopers about their presence in the vicinity, meaning that Michaela and Drea are on their way.
Jace and co. suddenly begin hearing Cal’s voice loud in their heads saying, “Go to her!” Spooked and aware of the police sirens approaching, they opt to flee, except that Pete is not moving. He found Angelina’s dropped picture and recognizes himself in it, standing behind her. Jace and Kory drive away but Michaela and Drea arrive in time to arrest Pete who now believes “Go to her” means that he is supposed to go the 10-year-old girl in the picture, Angelina. Olive and Angelina return to the spot to find Michaela arresting Pete who lets Angelina know that he is the boy standing behind her in the picture (and the one at the counter who had served her the slushie is Jace). Pete and Angelina blankly stare at each other as he is driven away in the police car, in a way that peculiarly made me feel as if this is not the last time they will be seeing each other.
Grace’s reunion with Tarik is not jovial at first, to say the least! Grace hangs around though, even after Tarik shut the door on her face after letting out steam about how she betrayed him 10 years ago by leaving when he needed her the most. A sentimental scene of Tarik being joined by Cal to shoot hoops ensues, with Grace watching from afar. It is essentially Tarik managing to melt the acrimony built within him toward Grace with an assist (not in basketball terms) from Cal, resulting in the brother and sister being reunited and him welcoming the family into the house. While the first talk between Grace and Tarik by the door was powerful and riveting (Athena Karkanis never fails to knock it out of the ballpark in emotionally taxing dialogues), the basketball scene came across a bit perfunctory for me, but I am glad if it worked for you.
Having had some sense knocked into him, courtesy of Emmett, Ben reformats his priorities and pays a visit to Vance’s wife Estelle (Denise Burse, strangely not credited anywhere for this episode). He gives her Vance’s ring, as promised. Estelle blames Ben for her husband’s troubles and sternly demands that he “fixes this.” Inside Vance’s ring, the sentence “You Shall Know the Truth” is engraved, and Estelle reads the one inside hers, “And the Truth Shall Set You Free.” The second is the sentence Agent Powell quoted out of nowhere to Ben in a low voice right before he left his house during the earlier unannounced visit with the Director from the Pentagon. Estelle says that only people who loved him enough to visit his grave knew about the quote because it is on his tombstone.
Next, Ben visits Vance’s grave and Powell appears standing behind Ben, saying that he has followed him all day. Ben spills out Vance’s movements since his supposed death and Powell, who is genuinely happy to hear that his ex-boss is still alive, is more than game to assist Ben in getting him back from Cuba. I have just one question. Why would Powell tell Ben an obscure quote that Ben would only hear again if Estelle happened to read aloud, directly to him, what is inside of her ring? Yes, it happened indeed, but Powell is obviously not Nostradamus, and he could not have known future events, so did he count on the extremely miniscule possibility of a certain succession of events occurring just to talk to Ben? Why not say to him at the house, “Hey, I need to talk to you in private, meet me at Vance’s grave”? Am I missing something here?
By the way, Ben’s plan involves something about Powell telling his bosses that there is something bigger in Cuba, such as a “piece of 828,” and them keeping it under wraps, and yet somehow that is supposed to help Ben retrieve Vance although Powell assures him that his ex-boss will be classified as a spy. Nothing makes sense about this plan, and it will soon blow up in everyone’s face, because the last related scene in the episode about the 828 is the bombshell news about “a section of 828 tailfin believed to be in Guantanamo.” So much for Ben asking Powell to keep it under wraps, although Powell is probably not at fault here. The media is already at the Stone household’s doorsteps, with Ben, Olive and Angelina inside. They will not be joining the rest of the gang at Tarik’s place anytime soon.
The episode ends with a montage – as “Destroyer” by Of Monsters and Men plays in the background — showing Grace, Tarik, and Cal having dinner, Michaela looking at a picture of the Major at the precinct, and Ben’s tissue sample glowing at Saanvi’s lab at the same time as Ben’s hand glowing at the house, as well as his handprint glowing on the 828 tailfin, securely locked away in some facility.
Last-minute thoughts:
— Ben receives a text message from “a friend” saying, “The truth has set him free.” He believes Vance is freed and texts the same sentence to Estelle who is filled with joy at reading it. I’ll wait one more episode to confirm before asking, how?
— Logan Crawford plays the news anchorman on TV, as he has done on several other TV shows. He is also an Emmy award-winning real-life newscaster. This is not the first time Manifest features an actual newscaster who also plays anchormen on TV shows. Kent Shocknek assumed a similar role in season 2’s “Coordinated Flight.”
— I totally felt for Ben when he was frantically looking for his glasses while they were within an arm’s reach, sitting behind the computer screen. Not to mention doing the same with my sunglasses outside, while they are sitting on top of my hat’s visor!
— Zeke is looking for apartments, for he and Michaela to move in together, I presume.
— Michaela insisted on keeping the picture as police evidence, much to the visible dismay of Olive and Angelina. It was a brief moment, but the way it was emphasized by the camera work, it felt consequential. Captain Bowers later handed it to Michaela at the precinct so that she can return it to Angelina. Will there be a scene devoted to that in the next episode? I am weirdly curious about this detail, and I admit that I may end up sounding stupid if there is nothing to it.
— Speaking of Bowers, she wants Michaela to keep a lid on the lake footage, partially because she is not sure what to make of the skeevy trio walking out of the lake alive after being assumed dead for over three months. Captain Bowers prefers facts over theories and I like how the show shifts between making that obsession work in her favor at times and against her in others.
— Cal’s voice functions as the calling in this episode. More to come on that, I hope.
Until the next episode…
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“Tailfin” – Aired on April 1, 2021 Writer: Jeff Rake & Bobak Esfarjani Director: Romeo Tirone Grade: 4 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
Three months have passed since “Icing Conditions,” the Season 2 finale, and much to Jeff Rake and the writing room’s credit, the opener begins with the very mystery that ended the previous season, thus helping viewers avoid an excessive amount of catching up due to the timeline having moved forward and sparing them the annoying monologue that functions as info dump. As for the question of why so many other TV shows do not engage in this simple formula, I have no idea. It is engaging, efficient, and it rewards the viewers for being patient by putting them right back at the spot where they were left wondering a season ago.
The above is not the only thing that Rake & Co get right**. The showrunners have proven over two seasons that they have a knack for world-building and high-concept storytelling. Lo and behold, the potential for riveting storytelling is impressive for third season as “Tailfin” lays the substrates out without overloading the senses with an inordinate number of shockers and twisters – unlike the second-season opener “Fasten Your Seatbelts” – and does so with adequate ambition.
**Speaking of getting things right, and I know I have mentioned this before so I will keep it brief, other showrunners could (and should) take tips from Jeff Rake on how to use social media to interact with fans.
A half-shaved Ben, speaking Spanish with an accent, dressed in a bright-cream-colored shirt and beige khakis (read: out-of-place, white American male) is strolling along the marina in Havana, Cuba. He is searching for Tesoro de San Antonio, the boat that found the Flight 828 tailfin in the closing moments of Season 2 finale. We learn that Cal drew the image of the boat when he got a calling and firmly believes that the boat found something that belongs to Flight 828.
Once Ben locates the boat parked at the marina and hops on it, he gets another calling with a blurred vision of him, Michaela, Cal, and a mystery woman, all holding their heads and screaming in pain — I must admit, I had to rewind and watch the vision three times to even clearly see that there was a fourth person in it, let alone notice that it was a woman. Cal in New York and Michaela in Costa Rica, on a honeymoon with Zeke, join Ben on FaceTime and confirm having the same calling themselves and wondering about the mysterious woman.
This perfectly cromulent prelude sets up the storylines, the locations where they take place, and the characters involved in them, including the introduction of a new one, all in a concise manner. The A storyline consists of the three of them identifying and helping the woman. We get a first glimpse at her, scared and shivering in some small, dark room. Her name is Angelina Meyer (played by Holly Taylor whose performance in The Americans as Paige Jennings was extraordinary), as noted a bit later by Olive and Cal who locate her on Ben’s XFiles-Moulder-basement wall with pictures of all the 828 passengers.
Speaking of the Stone household in New York, Grace is proudly watching Olive feed her baby-sister Eden, the newest member of the family. Cal walks in and tells them about the calling. This is the first time they apparently hear about it, which means that it never crossed their minds to ask Cal if Ben’s day-long disappearance — “radio silent,”Grace terms it — is related to a calling. Accuse me of being nitpicky if you will, but I call b.s. on that. Knowing Grace, not being able to contact Ben the whole day would have put her on the edge and led her straight to Cal with questions. She expresses genuine alarm only when Cal tells them that in the calling, he, Michaela, Ben, and the unknown woman were about to die.
Saanvi is apparently running a clinic for patients now and no longer at the hospital. I say this because when Grace visits later with Cal, Saanvi advises Grace to switch doctors, to someone closer to Queens and “with hospital privileges.” She can’t still be working at the hospital without hospital privileges, right? Plus, a few doors down from her office is the unmarked secret operation center, so to speak, for Vance and his team, which would be a lot harder to pull off in a hospital. Until I hear otherwise, I am going with Saanvi working out of a clinic.
Meet Alonzo (Alexis Suarez) who appears to be the poor man’s equivalent of Leverage’s Alec Hardison. He runs the Vance-led operation center, surrounded by screens on his desk that probably gives him the ability to access on a whim, million-dollar passwords, off-shore bank accounts, identities of Interpol’s secret operatives, and views from surveillance cameras around the globe, including your bedroom and bathroom. Vance’s resources seem to be endless, and this episode goes to great lengths to get that point across.
Saanvi stops by to ask Alonzo if he heard from Cuba, meaning that unlike Grace and Olive, Saanvi is well aware of the Havana operation led by agent-professor-citizen Ben Stone – oh wait, Vance reminds Ben, and everyone in the audience, that the operation belongs to his fiefdom, and that it was his “datamining and signal intelligence capabilities” that verified the “suspicious extraction from the ocean.” I won’t ask “how,” but I will say “I told you so.” The man’s resources are endless, literally!
Anyhoo, Vance and his loyal right-hand man Emmett (Brendan Burke reprises his recurring role) are indeed following Ben at the marina from a distance and communicating with him through earpieces. Ben had obviously convinced the otherwise-skeptic Vance that a trip to Havana was a worthy cause.
Flashing a wad of cash in his hand, he also manages to convince (Ben’s good at that) the two reluctant guys who own the boat to show him what they found in the ocean. They lead him inside a building and the tailfin of Flight 828 is revealed – though not much a revelation since it was one of the main highlights of the season-3 trailer. A curious kid with a smartphone sneaks into the building and films them as Ben touches the tailfin with his hand, only to get thrown back against the opposite side of the storage area. Scared, the kid runs outside and shows the clip to his friends. The problem is, he is not the only curious cat around, as a policeman (Frank Rodriguez) notices them and demands to see the phone. Upon seeing the clip, his curiosity is piqued further, causing him to venture inside the building with two of his colleagues.
Still recovering from the shock of getting launched across the storage area, Ben notices that his hand has taken a bizarre white glow. The policeman, in a not-so-friendly way, asks Ben to touch the tailfin again. Ben reluctantly complies and, although no secret energy throws him across this time, his body emits a buzzing sound. Alarmed, the policemen draw their guns, but Vance and Emmett appear in the nick of time to neutralize them. Vance is… everything! – though he does make one faux-pas, see last-minute thoughts below.
Back to New York…
At the precinct, a woman (Lauren Norvelle) insists on seeing Detective Stone because her mother is missing. Drea is brushing her off, believing that she is one of those who think Michaela, being an 828’er, can tell them where they can find their lost ones. Jared, the good Samaritan that he is, witnesses the exchange from afar and appears concerned.
At the Stone household, Ben and Olive pull up Angelina’s information – Ben also keeps detailed files on everyone in a cabinet in case you forgot that he was trying to find all of them in season 2. Angelina is from Long Island, NY, born in 1990 (Holly Taylor does NOT look 31 years old, but rather 25 or 26, which fits the timeline), and her parents own a home in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Zeke and Michaela are two hours away from there, which means that their until-then peaceful honeymoon is over. Zeke, who made a joke earlier about how he misses the callings, will naturally accompany Michaela to Tamarindo.
Once at the Meyers’ residence, it doesn’t take too long to notice that Angelina’s parents (Ben Livingston and Heidi Armbruster) are super-duper religious. They also turn dubiously uncomfortable once Michaela voices her opinion about their missing daughter possibly being in danger. Their version is that Angelina became distant after her reappearance five and a half years later. They could not reconnect with her and drifted apart. They concluded that she was losing her mind, because when they tried to pray with her, she pulled away even further. Kenneth, the dad, says that she packed up and left months ago and they never heard back.
Michaela and Zeke contact the always-resourceful Drea — though she still trails Vance in terms of grandiose problem-solving — for more information on Angelina’s whereabouts. There are no records of her having entered the US so she must still be in Costa Rica. Michaela and Zeke visit a friend of Angelina named Elena (Vanessa Morales) who tells them… nothing new. I wondered what contribution, if any, this scene made to the outing. I cannot come up with one.
Grace and Cal are back at the house after a visit to Saanvi for a check-up on Cal that went smoothly. Cal casually informs Grace and Olive that Dad’s bringing someone home to stay with them. Olive and Grace are not even shocked. Side note: This is one use of the callings that sits wrong with me in Manifest. They are used too often as plot devices to advance the narrative when there is a need for it, or for a ‘wow’ effect, and Cal conveniently zigzagging between predicting the future with ease at times and not knowing anything at others, is a prime example. I hope there is some larger purpose to Cal knowing ahead of time that Ben’s bringing Angelina to stay with them, other than providing a prelude to Cal telling her “I’ve been waiting for you” when she arrives.
Back in Cuba, we jumped from Vance and Emmett neutralizing the three Cuban policemen in the building to Emmett driving a truck with the tailfin in the back with Ben and Vance standing next to it (was there no room next to Emmett?). Don’t ask how or where they found the truck or how they loaded the “1800-pound tailfin” (Ben’s quote) on it, in the same way you shouldn’t ask how, with one phone call, the plane taking Emmett and Ben back to the US stops by Costa Rica later in the hour, to pick up Michaela, Zeke, and the passport-less Angelina, as if they were waiting to be ubered at a neighborhood ten minutes away.
As Emmett’s driving the truck to the site where there is a plane waiting for them – thanks to Vance’s resources, you know it – three other trucks appear in their pursuit. According to Vance, it’s a team from the DGI (Dirección General De Inteligencia), Cuba’s secret intelligence agency, and he affirms that they will do anything to get the tailfin. His solution is for Ben and Emmett to get on the plane while he uses the truck to block their vehicles, resulting in his capture, along with the tailfin. Prior to that, he gives his wedding ring to Ben and asks him to pass it to his wife. While that is worrisome for Vance fans (I am one), let’s remember who he is. The dude will survive, and even joke about it afterward. He is awesome, and so is the performance of Daryl Edwards playing him.
Michaela and Zeke are back at the Meyer’s house for more questions and the parents are fidgety about it to say the least. Michaela suddenly gets another calling with a vision of Angelina about to cut her wrist. Convinced by this time that Angelina is kept somewhere in the house, Michaela asks to go to the bathroom, only to sneak out a bit later to snoop around (thanks to Zeke distracting the parents, feigning to faint). She eventually finds Angelina in a small, dark cellar at the basement level, as we hear sirens in the background. I am going to assume that the sirens belong to an ambulance called by the parents for Zeke.
The next scene shows Zeke, Angelina, and Michaela safely back at their honeymoon shack. They assure Angelina that she is not a curse and that all Flight 828 passengers, including them, are hearing the callings. It’s probably the first friendly words Angelina heard for months so she is more than ready to depart with them, leaving her parents behind. I must assume that the parents had zero problems with Michaela and Zeke whisking away their daughter, thinking it’s good riddance, and that they somehow predicted Angelina would stop Zeke and Michaela from reporting them to the authorities. Yeah, I know, that’s a lot of hand waving, but I better, because to do otherwise would place me deep into the “don’t ask how” territory, a recurring issue in this season opener — Did the ambulance not take Zeke and Michaela’s names? Did the police arrive? How did they sneak Angelina out of the house? Did the parents not check on Angelina and attempt to report them to the authorities during their two-hour drive back? Or pursue them themselves?
Michaela calls the “Alonzo operation center” to arrange their exit with Angelina. Alonzo is skeptical at first, until Saanvi reminds him of the plane that just left Cuba with Ben and Emmett. The next time we see the plane, Michaela, Zeke, and Angelina are also on board. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
The scenes oscillate in acceptable intervals for around four minutes between the truck chase in Cuba and the discovery of Angelina in Costa Rica, with short bursts of callings mixed in, allowing the viewers to genuinely feel the crescendo of suspense while remaining able to absorb the progression of events. I cannot remember from the top of my head every action sequence over the last two seasons, but I feel certain that this was one of the most exciting Manifest had to offer in terms of edgy entertainment.
Everyone is finally reunited at the Stone household in a well-filmed, heart-warming scene that begins in slow motion. Cal welcomes Angelina into her new home with, “I’ve been waiting for you,” which probably sounded awkward to her (and her face shows it), but certainly not awkward enough to spoil the welcomed sight of the loving family in front of her, especially considering her parents and the hellhole in which they locked her up back in Tamarindo for months.
The woman looking for her mother is back at the precinct, this time wanting to chat with Jared. She had noticed his concerned look from afar earlier and she is desperate to talk to anyone who will take her seriously. “You’re my last hope,” she tells Jared who is very familiar with that role if you remember how many times he saved the day for the Stone family. He is, needless to say, ready and willing to help.
Her name is Sarah Fitz (ring a bell?), her mother who was working for some secret force (get it?) disappeared three months ago (got it!). The mother’s name is Kathryn Fitz, otherwise known as the Major, killed by Saanvi in the second-season finale. Jared, for his part, recognizes neither the name nor the face. Sarah believes that her mom’s disappearance is connected to Flight 828, thus her desire to see Michaela. This C story is the most intriguing development of “Tailfin,” and the writers make sure you know it, because the scene cuts to Saanvi who is collapsed on the ground and bawling her eyes out while listening to the recordings of her sessions with the Major. It appears that guilt is eating away at our good scientist-doctor.
Back at the most familiar grounds of Manifest, which is Ben’s Agent-Moulder-basement office featuring the Stone siblings contemplating the callings. Ben mentions the fact that he saw more on the callings than Michaela and Cal did, because he saw the plane explode. He reasons that it may have actually blown away with them in it, except that, they are resurrected in the same way that the plane is now being resurrected piece by piece. I love how Michaela, the voice of logic in the show, affirms that they are right there, standing, thus not dead. Because, yes, what Ben is concocting in his mind requires an enormous stretch of the imagination, but one that is forcibly needed to be mentioned since we know that the 828 plane (or a replica?), will sooner or later make an appearance in a hangar, thanks to preview trailers.
The closing scene consists of Cal telling his mom and Zeke that although he is no longer having the nightmares with the shadows, he is getting the same dreadful feeling that he did back then. Scene shifts to an overhead shot of the frozen lake from the second-season finale, now thawed, and the camera first zooms down on three bodies that resurface, then zooms in on the face of one of them, Jace, the skeevy trio’s leader. His eyes pop open and he lets out a loud gasp!
The ubiquitous eleventh-hour shocker-cliffhanger inserted, mission accomplished, credits can now roll.
Last-minute thoughts:
— When Saanvi, Cal, and Grace talk to Vance from the “Alonzo operation center” at the clinic, Vance drops the bomb on them about Ben claiming to be in the presence of the tailfin inside the building. Emmett snarks (rightfully so) at his boss for doing so. Vance retorts, “What’d you expect me to tell them? ‘Ben’s facing down three Cuban cops at the moment, please hold’?” Dear Vance, there is a third option, you know? Not saying anything at all. Or lying, something along the lines of, “we’re working on it.”
— Light moment between the siblings when Ben asks Michaela in the plane, “What year do you think it’ll be when we land?”
— On her phone call with Ben at the beginning of the hour, Michaela tells him to be careful because he is in a “dangerous place.” I can do without the trope of the American TV show inserting a line about a foreign spot being a “dangerous place,” especially when I do not see Havana listed among the top 50 cities in the world with the highest homicide rate while five American cities are on the list.
Until next episode…
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“Part Ten” – Aired on February 14, 2021 Writer: Peter Moffat Director: Bryan Cranston Grade: 2 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
The penultimate episode “Part Nine” ended with Adam leaving Michael behind at the house to meet his girlfriend Fia. It was passed as a mild cliffhanger, with Adam on his way to meet the father of the boy he killed, and Michael smiling about his son meeting a “girlfriend,” unaware that she also happens to be the his nemesis Jimmy Baxter’s daughter. That so-called cliffhanger is not pursued (did Adam meet Jimmy? How did it go?) as “Part Ten” begins, and the finale plows ahead as if that moment never existed.
And that example sums up this reductive, unambitious season (series?) finale during which contrived events and mostly pedestrian dialogues (outside of a couple, see below) fill the first 50 minutes or so, before we arrive at the final sequence of overwrought action at the Baxter hotel.
Michael’s nonchalance** about the identity of his son’s girlfriend, as it turns out, was a deliberate choice by the writers, in order to amplify the dramatic effect of his eleventh-hour realization that his son is dating Jimmy’s daughter.
**I could never buy into the notion that Michael, considering the close connection between Adam and Carlo’s court case, would neglect to severely limit his son’s movements, let alone learn every detail about his girlfriend. Little did I know that cogent storytelling across several episodes was being sacrificed in the name of elevating the drama quotient for a single scene in the finale.
Look, I am fine with the writing room leaving a storyline open-ended as long as it contains compelling characters dealing with the aftermath of a fallout. I am fine with an intriguing turn of event that seemed important during an early episode, but lost its significance as the show progressed, as long as there is some type of pay-off on its intrigue, or at least a nod to its existence. I am fine with the idea of tweaking the interaction dynamics between main characters to create a conundrum and leaving the interpretation up to the viewer.
It is not fine, however, to let subplots fall into oblivion, to expect viewers to completely disregard clues from earlier episodes, to overlook important details in editing**, and to offer a complex ensemble of characters, only to later turn them into mere sidekicks because, seemingly, the storyline of only one — Michael — genuinely matters at the end of the day.
** See my review of “Part Five” for the discrepancy about Trevor’s car pulling up to the gas station. Apparently, I gave too much credit to the editing team when I inaccurately believed that the blackmail photo did not come from Trevor.
For instance, do you remember when Frankie discovered Adam’s inhaler at the crime scene back in “Part One”? And when he confirmed in “Part Two” that he would have it tested for DNA and get the results back within 36 hours? I believe that was months ago in the show’s timeline. It now looks like that detail was swept under the rug for the sake of the WOW! revelation scene, when Jimmy and Gina are alerted by the sound of Adam puffing away at his inhaler outside the courtroom.
Do you remember the SUV that suspiciously followed Adam? Whoever was inside the vehicle witnessed an accident that involved the murder of a renowned mobster’s son, one that soon took the city and the media by storm. The camera work makes a conscious effort in the pilot to foreground the SUV, as it follows Adam and speeds away after the accident. Ten episodes gone… nothing! It never existed. What SUV?
Consider the Desire crew’s storyline over the season and this excerpt from my review of “Part Seven”: — For instance, wouldn’t it be fascinating to learn more, via a flashback or two if necessary, of the formation of the Desire Crew? Or the succession of events that brought Big Mo to its leading role? Was Kofi’s mother a close friend? How about delving for a scene or two into the history of Little Mo’s allegiance to Big Mo? — Well, the season is over and we still have no background information of substance on the Desire crew. Its narrative function was apparently limited to providing a plotline echoing racial tensions, except that Your Honor never dares to scratch beneath the surface and uncover the intricacies among the city’s legal system, police force, and gangs. Within that context, the show offers nothing other than off-the-shelf portraits: Cusack the officer is corrupt, Baxter the mobster is powerful, Frankie the brute bodyguard shadows his boss, and judges are corrupt. Oh-kay… yay?
Big and Little Mo are neither fleshed out beyond their single-dimensional portraits, nor given a chance to earn the viewer’s interest. Ask yourself, do you know anything more about them than you did since their first appearances? Desire’s sous-entendu intent to retaliate against Jimmy Baxter never materializes (read: classic red herring). As for the finale, Big Mo is reduced to the role of informing Lee that the no member of Desire was at the wheel when the fatal accident occurred. Don’t you love, by the way, the convenient simplicity of Lee readily taking Big Mo at her word, as if she weren’t the one who threatened her life seconds earlier?
Speaking of Lee, the last shot deemed appropriate by the showrunners for the woman portrayed as the bastion of ethics and civil rights for over eight episodes consists of her giving the money collected from the sale of the baseball to Eugene and walking away.
And Nancy, the other woman portrayed as the efficient and meticulous bulwark of justice, the razor-sharp thorn in every criminal’s derrière, gets to perform a blank stare at the corrupt offer of Charlie Figaro in her last appearance on screen.
With Big Mo, Lee, Nancy, and Gina, seemingly euchred out of potentially riveting storylines and screen time, I now believe that my sustained rants over the season about Your Honor missing the boat on Gina’s character and shortchanging Hope Davis’s talent were naïvely narrow in scope. It’s not just Gina. The show had an overall difficulty figuring out what to do with female characters.
The only stories with any degree of genuine character exploration were Michael’s, and to a lesser degree, Jimmy’s. Carlo’s case being the centerpiece of how Michael has held on to his life and protected Adam, the verdict was bound to have consequences. Nonetheless, the moment of Michael reading the verdict fell flat because it was inevitable that Carlo would walk away a free man, despite how far that stretches the boundaries of plausibility. Explain please how the jury can afford to overlook Carlo’s blatant lie about murdering Kofi, exposed as the result of Lee’s apt investigative work of the prison door followed by Fiona’s shrewd questioning in the courtroom.
Actually, wait. Don’t explain. Who am I kidding? At the end of the day, the not-guilty verdict represented the most suitable avenue to attain the finale’s larger goal, which was to gather everyone in one location in order to amp up the degree of unbridled action-drama in the final minutes, instead of aiming to enthrall the audience via complex character conflicts amidst the ethical and social dilemma.
There is, after all, a couple of bright scenes in “Part Ten,” the only ones that attempt to truly grapple with the moral quandaries facing the leads. Michael is at the center of both – naturally –, with the first putting on display his helplessness, and the second, the depths of his hypocrisy.
The former takes place outside the courtroom when Charlie, in a well-written dialogue that Bryan Cranston and Isiah Whitlock Jr. deliver with dexterity, realizes that Michael has fallen into Jimmy’s clutches. Judge Desiato desperately needs Carlo to go free but faces the reality that the verdict is likely to go the opposite way – it does not, because the voice recording of Rocco’s last moments are somehow deemed more powerful by jury members than Carlo’s gross lie getting exposed, with camera footage to confirm. But yeah, sure, let’s roll with it anyway!
Charlie does, I presume, what any loyal buddy would do for his friend who recently joined him in the hellish pit of moral ruin. He attempts to persuade Nancy to stay quiet about Michael and Adam by promising to lend her his support once he becomes mayor in her quest to rid the NOPD of corrupt officers. How ironic! The outraged Nancy stares at Charlie and the scene cuts away because, you see, why would we be interested (?!) in the potentially fascinating analysis (not even asking for a resolution here) of how she deals with the conundrum.
The second meaningful scene takes place in Michael’s chambers where Lee confronts him about his “lies” and “manipulations.” It’s easily the outing’s most powerful sequence largely thanks to the duo of Cranston (also the episode’s director) and Carmen Ejogo giving tour-de-force performances.
At first, Michael tries a number of maneuvers to weasel out of various corners into which Lee puts him with her statements of brutal truth. Once he is left with no choice but to fess up, he moves onto his Plan B, which is to guilt Lee into not reporting Adam, mentioning something about her soul feeling cleansed. Lee exclaims, “It’s your soul that needs cleansing!” She adds, “Four children and their mother are dead because of you.” Michael then pulls the “I love you” card, the last one left in his deck. That earns him an angry slap in the face as Lee yells, “Stop talking about yourself!” Prior to walking out on him, she challenges him to show proof of what little sliver of moral ethics he has left by allowing Eugene to testify on behalf of his brother.
All traces of hesitation left within Michael quickly dissipate when he, as noted earlier, realizes in the courtroom that Adam’s girlfriend is Jimmy’s daughter. Much to the dismay of Lee and Fiona, he rules that “the prosecution’s case cannot be reopened.” Eugene is not permitted to testify.
Next is Michael’s scheme with the fake note from the jury asking to hear the recording of Rocco’s last moments. I mentioned above the implausibility of this sequence swinging the pendulum in Carlo’s favor so I will not harp on it again, but the more significant moment occurs when Adam, Gina, and Jimmy exit the courtroom in order to avoid hearing Rocco’s gasps for air. Adam, having trouble breathing himself, pumps his inhaler into his mouth, leading Gina and Jimmy to notice him and experience the emblematic eureka effect.
Having heard the verdict and absorbed Lee’s empty words outside the courtroom, killing Carlo becomes Eugene’s mission. He buys a gun with the money from the sale of the baseball and sneaks into the Baxter hotel during the evening celebration. In the meantime, Jimmy calls Michael to inform him of Adam’s presence at the celebration (Fia had invited him). That is all it takes for Michael to rush to the hotel.
Thusly begins the choppy final sequence where Michael gets rejected twice by the guards at the hotel’s entrance and ends up banging on the windows of the main celebration hall from the outside, in full view from the inside, yet with nobody noticing him except Jimmy. Why not, right? Never mind that nobody outside seems to care either about an older man pounding as hard as he can on the hotel’s windows while yelling from the top of his lungs. Eugene aims for Carlo and pulls the trigger. The bullet finds Adam’s throat, standing in perfect angle behind Carlo who briskly moved aside by chance at the right split second. The season comes to a close with Michael crying while clutching Adam’s dead body in his arms.
Last-minute thoughts:
— It turns out that Elijah (John Beasley), the homeless veteran at the door of the cemetery, is not just any homeless man. October 10th evokes a tragic memory for him, so he can confirm to Nancy without a doubt that Michael and Adam visited the cemetery on that day and not on October 9th.
— Chalk another one up for shows that begin with a promising pilot and early intrigue, only to fizzle out at the end by doting too much on either run-of-the-mill action or hammy drama accompanied by plenty of hand-waving. I would love to read a study on the success rate of TV shows in terms of sticking the landing. Is it turning into a lost art form? As the years go by, I can think of less and less shows who truly triumph in their season/series finales.
— Let’s not kid ourselves about Jimmy taking into consideration Fia’s feelings for Adam, thus hugging the boy at the celebration as a gesture of acceptance into the family. Adam would not have survived long even without a bullet in his throat. Yes, it’s true that Fia’s happiness is high on Jimmy’s priority list, but it has also been demonstrated multiple times that he is powerless against Gina’s fury, and hell will turn to ice before she accepts her son’s murderer into the family.
— According to this report, there will not be a season 2 for Your Honor.
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