Is Michaela’s New Calling Connected to the Shadowy Figures on ‘Manifest’? (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 2, Episode 11 of Manifest, “Unaccompanied Minors.”]
If you thought the 828ers should be concerned about those three shadowy figures chasing down Adrian through the alley and in Cal’s (Jack Messina) room at the end of Episode 10, “Unaccompanied Minors” shows you’re probably right.
Poor Cal has been seeing them every night for the four months that have passed since Eden’s birth, and now Ben (Josh Dallas) may be getting on board with Adrian’s theory that they’re false prophets. As he found in the Book of Revelation, “I saw three spirits come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, out of the mouth of the false prophet.”
What Cal is seeing is so dark that Ben worries they may be doing good for bad reasons, that the Callings may be lulling them into obedience for some kind of end of the world scenario. Is he right?
Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) doesn’t want to believe he is, but she’s also very worried about Zeke (Matt Long), who doesn’t have much time left. She even prays for something to help her understand so she doesn’t lose faith … and then runs into a shoplifter and has a Calling to “let him go.” Thinking he’d only taken a candy bar, she does, only to learn that he’d stolen 20 boxes of cold medicine, just the latest in a string of robberies.
She stumbled on a major meth operation, one that uses a dark net delivery service. It all leads back to Jace Baylor, who’s served time for possession and the sale of meth, and while staking out his probable location, Michaela tells Jared (J.R. Ramirez) about Zeke’s limited time and the death date.
(Peter Kramer/NBC)
Once they’ve confirmed they’re at the site of the meth lab, they make the bust, only for Michaela to once again hear “let him go” when she corners Jace in the basement. “You don’t want to do this,” he tells her. “You best walk away. You know there will be hell to pay, don’t you, pretty lady? The pain I’ll bring down on you, a holy vengeance like nothing you’ve ever seen before.” But despite hearing “let him go” again (and louder and more insistent) and his warning, “This is bigger than both of us,” she arrests him.
Then, as the episode ends, Cal once again sees those three shadows on his bedroom wall. But then we also see those shadows on another wall — in the jail cell where Jace and his accomplices are being held. How is it all connected?
And what will it mean for Michaela that she defied a Calling? She doesn’t know, since she hasn’t yet, but she’s still hoping that “let him go” wasn’t referring to Zeke. Given those shadows at the end, it probably doesn’t, but then that does call into question if Adrian is right and they shouldn’t trust the Callings. After all, they may have wanted Michaela to let a drug dealer go.
Meanwhile, it’s the anniversary of the death of Zeke’s sister, and he’s struggling. He even admits in a meeting, “It’s hard to work towards something when you know you’re dying.” His sponsor suggests that he may need closure and may have someone he needs to forgive.
(Peter Kramer/NBC)
Ben offers that same advice after a Calling leads him and TJ (Garrett Wareing) to save Zeke’s father from killing himself. Zeke doesn’t want to see the father who abandoned him and his mother after his sister’s death, but Ben tells him it’s a chance for him to let go of his hurt and anger. After seeing his father — and seeing he still has the same music box he’d used to make up songs for his children — Zeke informs Michaela that he’s stopping the treatments for his frostbite.
“I’ve been staying alive, but I haven’t been living,” he explains. He hopes he’s around to take a cure if they find one, but he’s made peace with everyone he needed to and got his closure. And as part of his decision to live every day like it’s his last, he decides he wants to make one more memory with the love of his life to take with him. He proposes to Michaela, and she accepts.
Finally, it’s not looking like that cure they’re hoping for is going to come in time. Saanvi’s (Parveen Kaur) still experimenting with her formula, but suddenly finds herself not only locked out of her lab, but with her hospital privileges revoked. Uh-oh.
Ben and TJ’s Callings may not have led to doom and gloom like they’d feared, but that certainly seems to be on the way.
Manifest, Mondays, 10/9c, NBC
