NBC’s Manifest is in full swing. The sci-fi drama starts off with a slow ascent, but still provides a couple of shocking moments. The Season 3 premiere has a time jump, where Ben is on the hunt, Mick and Zeke are off to a tropical honeymoon, and Saanvi is still dealing with the aftermath of killing The Major. Titled “Tailfin,” here’s what went down on the first episode of the season.
Tail Spin | It has been three months since the events of Manifest. Ben (Josh Dallas) has made his way to Havana, Cuba in search of “Tesoro de San Antonio,” the fishing boat that recovered the giant tailfin of Montego Air’s Flight 828. Thanks to a drawing from Cal (Jack Messina), Ben is able to locate the boat and awaits its owners for some answers. He comes across two fisherman who run the boat and bribes with with a whole lotta cash to see the piece of wreckage with his own eyes.
Lo and behold, Ben comes face to face with a piece of his plane. That moment when the drape drops revealing the large piece of wreckage gave us chills! “But everyone saw that plane land in New York,” he says to himself, completely baffled. “How does this tailfin end up a thousand miles from shore?” Ben goes to touch the slab of metal and is blasted away from it, not long before having visions of him and his family shrieking in pain. A curious little boy manages to sneak into the premises and capture the whole thing on video.
A local police officer learns of the strange occurrence, and with backup, orders Ben to recreate what he saw on the video. “Before you go, I want you to touch the tailfin again.” Luckily, he wasn’t launched back a second time, explaining to the Cuban cops that it must’ve been some electric shock. Ben’s earpiece delivers some feedback, which the cops hear, and aim their guns toward him demanding to know who he’s working with. Just in time to save the day, Vance (Daryl Edwards) comes crashing in. “You don’t know me,” he says to them, “and trust me you don’t want to.”
24D | The Stones get a Calling which incudes the usual players — Ben, Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh), Cal — but introduces someone knew into the fold, a young woman who Mick and Cal learn is one of the passengers of the flight, Angelina Meyer (Holly Taylor). Olive and Cal pull up her file from Ben’s research and find that she was born in Long Island, New York in 1990. Her current whereabouts are unknown — she hasn’t returned any of Ben’s calls or emails. They do, however, have a location of Angelina’s parents: Tamarindo, Costa Rica, which just happens to be close to where Mick and Zeke (Matt Long) are spending their honeymoon, in Punta Islita.
The newlyweds make it to the Meyer’s vacation home in Tamarindo and seeks help as to why their daughter may be in danger. “She no longer carried God’s light,” the mother says. “We couldn’t connect with her. She wasn’t the same. She was losing her mind.” The father says they tried to help, pray with her, but she kept pulling away. “One day she packed up, passport and all, and left,” he tells them. “We think back to New York. That’s where she grew up. But it’s been months and no word.”
With secret assistance from Jared (J.R. Ramirez), Mick and Zeke track down a friend of Angelina’s, Elena Rojas. “I figured she want back to New York. She always talked about going,” Elena tells the pair. She goes on to say that her friend was distracted and paranoid like she was being followed. “She didn’t go back to New York, Elena,” Mick tells her. “She’s still somewhere in Costa Rica.”
Mick and Zeke return to Angelina’s parents’ house, when Mick gets an even stronger Calling, and asks to use the bathroom. Realizing Mick could use a distraction, Zeke fakes a Calling and collapses to the ground. While the parents tend to him, Mick pokes around the house and finds a little storage area under the house. She opens the hatch and finds Angelina, the girl who has been in their collective Calling. “You’re not possessed,” Mick tells the distraught girl. “The voices in your head, the visions — they’re far from a curse, no matter what your parents believe.”
Zeke, Mick and Angelina, along with Ben, fly back to the states with tailfin in tow. When they all arrive at the Stone household, everyone is reunited — and as Cal approaches the young girl, he tells her, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Flowerless | A young woman shows up at the precinct looking for Detective Stone regarding the whereabouts of her mother. She gets pushback from Drea (Ellen Tamaki), but Jared seems to take interest in the mysterious stranger. “She thinks the 828 cop can help,” she tells him when he asks what it was about. Eleven hours later, Jared is about to leave, when he finds the young woman still waiting.
She tells him that her mom worked for the government, and whenever she would go on a trip and wasn’t able to reach out to her, she’d send roses. “Three red roses meant she’d be gone three days,” she explains. “Two yellow roses, two weeks. And so on.” The last time she had spoken with her mother was three months ago, and since then, she had not received any roses. The woman believes what happened to her mother is somehow related to Flight 828, which is why she thought Detective Stone could help.
The Department of Defense just keeps telling her everything is classified, and no other cop will give her the time of day. “Please, you’re my last hope,” she tells him. Jared thumbs through the records that she had given him and comes across a photo of none other than Kathryn Fitz, the very woman that Saanvi (Parveen Kaur) had murdered while trying to save Zeke.
Resurrected | Back at the Stone’s, Ben and Mick talk about how the tailfin could have possibly ended up in Cuba. He tells her he believes that the plane itself had died in the explosion and had been resurrected. “And I think maybe we were, too,” he tells Mick. She asks if they are now angels or prophets and wonders why they’ve been brought back to earth. “I think we’re about to find out.”
Speaking of resurrection, Cal reveals that he has been having weird feelings again — the same ones he had when he was having those visions of the three shadows. Sure enough, the bodies of the three who kidnapped Cal resurfaces in the lake where police claim after a thorough search, no bodies were found. Cal is continuing to have those scary feelings, because they are still alive.
I know I’ve mentioned before about how silly it was that no one important ever stays dead on the show, but in this case, I would’ve preferred the “shadows” remained dead and Kathryn Fitz to be still alive to seek vengeance from Saanvi.
What did you think of the Season 3 premiere? Do you think the passengers died on the plane and were resurrected? Let us know in the comments below!
Manifest airs Thursdays at 8pm on NBC.