‘Manifest’ Stars Preview Life for Zeke After Surviving His Death Date

Melissa Roxburgh as Michaela and Matt Long as Zeke in Manifest - Season 3 Premiere Tailfin
Preview
NBC

As Manifest Season 2 ended, newlyweds Michaela Stone (Melissa Roxburgh) and Zeke Landon (Matt Long) received probably the best wedding gift ever: The groom survived his death date. As his time was seemingly up — he’d been back for the amount of time he’d been gone (before suddenly, mysteriously returning) and therefore should have died (of frostbite, like he should have originally) — following the Callings paid off and he lived.

“Zeke comes back in Season 3 basically reborn with a completely refreshed perspective on his life and how grateful he is to have this existence he has [and] Michaela,” Long shared during a recent press event. “He has 110 percent faith in these Callings and [thinks] he has the answer for surviving the death date. He’s hopeful and he’s upbeat.”

But just because following those mysterious auditory and visual hallucinations appears to be the way for those who have returned — like Michaela, her brother Ben (Josh Dallas), and the rest of the passengers of Flight 828 who came back after being gone for five years — to survive their death dates doesn’t mean life is easy for Zeke now.

“He’s also struggling to find some sort of normalcy in his life,” Long continued. “You’ll see throughout Season 3, he does things that are domestic. But it’s deeper than just doing those things. It’s about his own struggle for normalcy and where he fits back into this world because he doesn’t get Callings anymore, [but] he does have this other supernatural thing that’s a gateway into his emotional side and feelings. He’s not completely normal, but he’s also trying to give Michaela some stability and bring her happiness and security because she’s still tormented by these Callings.”

Speaking of those Callings, Zeke’s survival does set up quite a few questions, and that’s the “focus” heading into the new season, according to Roxburgh: “What does that mean for the rest of us?”

Jared Zeke Manifest Season 2 Michaela Wedding

Giovanni Ruffino/NBC

As for the love triangle with the newlyweds and Michaela’s ex Jared Vasquez (J.R. Ramirez), Zeke’s survival does “continue to complicate” it, Long shared.

The other shock at the end of Season 2 was the discovery of the tail fin of Flight 828 at the bottom of the ocean. So what plane brought the 828ers home after they were missing for five years and was blown up in Season 1? That’s what they have to figure out.

The tail fin isn’t a big part of either Michaela or Zeke’s story in Season 3. (It is for Ben’s.) “But it does come into play later in the season with a specific character who is more involved in the tail fin and what that character’s choices around the tail fin puts onto Michaela,” Roxburgh teased. “Essentially there’s a consequence of one of our main characters through the involvement of the tail fin and other aspects that drags Michaela in, and Michaela has to make a really interesting choice.”

Josh Dallas Manifest Season 3 Premiere Ben Stone

NBC

In other words, you probably have even more questions now than you did after the Season 2 finale.

Manifest, Season 3 Premiere, Thursday, April 1, 8/7c, NBC