One thing becomes evident at the conclusion of Manifest Season 4 Part 2— thank god, thank the divine, thanks fans, and thank Netflix for reviving this show, believing in it, and giving it another shot at a proper ending, the one that was always planned since Flight 828 went missing. 

Because it was… absolutely incredible. 

***Warning: Spoilers Ahead for the final 10 episodes of Manifest Season 4***

The series hasn’t always been smooth sailing, or, I should say, it hasn’t been without its turbulence—frustrating fans with vague twists and turns about what happened to the passengers, death dates, callings, and more for four years—but the second half of the season proved that Jeff Rake always knew how it was going to end. He had the blueprint, and he delivered it flawlessly to those fans who stuck around for the journey.

If you’ve read any of my previous reviews, you know that I hate series finales because they never stick the landing, but Manifest came quite close, and I’d go as far as to say that for such a complex series, it got as close to perfect as it possibly could.

It gave not only viewers the closure they needed but it also gave the characters what their hearts desired—and they’ve been fighting for. 

Flight 828 disappeared and landed five years later, completely upending the lives of passengers and stripping them of any chance at returning to what once was. During that time, they chose to power through and live as best as they could—through all of the hate crimes, lab tests, and government lockups—all in hopes that they could find some answers about what happened to them. And that included solving the Callings in hopes of balancing the scales and saving the Lifeboat when the Death Day finally came knocking on their door.

While it would’ve been much easier to leave the series as an open-ended finale, allowing viewers to come to their own conclusion about what happened, Rake decided not to do a disservice to loyal fans who campaigned for the truth and begged for clarity, trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle along with the passengers week after week.

Instead, we got a full conclusion that went into depth and provided so much insight into all of those questions that have been floating around for years, including the “why.” Why these passengers? And the beauty of this is that there wasn’t a good reason for this one. Rarely do we get a reason in life for why things happen to certain people—so this felt fitting. The simplicity of it was that it was just because. They were a group of random people connected by a situation—a mix of good and bad, who, given the choice, could decide if they wanted to be better or continue on their same path. There wasn’t anything special about them, nor were they chosen for any specific qualities—it just was what it was. 

And they all mostly rose to the occasion. As the Death Date closed in on them, Cal figured out that the Peacock calling was a hint that he needed to merge two sapphires together. And when Angelina, who considered herself an angel and the chosen one, decided not to stop the end of the world but rather encourage it so that only her “flock” would survive, Saanvi discovered that the driftwood she threw into Storm King Mountain also contained sapphire and would suffice. 

Cal, hailed as the Holy Grail throughout the first half of the season, made the ultimate sacrifice for his family, connecting with the sapphire, which resulted in a huge beam that lured all of 828 to the same point in time. They always said that it was connected, and the moment of all the passengers uniting and waiting for their judgment day was simply proof of that. They were always in this together, from beginning to end, helping each other figure out how to navigate the complexities of what was being asked of them.

Cal’s sacrifice then miraculously unearthed the actual missing plane, in perfect condition, waiting for them to board. 

It was all surreal, but that was kind of the point. There were biblical references, sometimes to the point of annoyance, but the one that kept bubbling up to the surface was Noah’s Ark, and Flight 828 was Noah’s Ark. 

The passengers were tested many times throughout the course of the five years for a reason. When judgment came, their actions and flaws were weighed against each other, with those who didn’t take their second chance and make the best of it, quite literally disintegrating into a pile of ash. The divine assumed that those passengers didn’t learn the right lesson from their second chance, harnessing the power for the wrong reasons.

 The visuals on this were stunning—particularly for Angelina’s death (which was much deserved and necessary)—though actually seeing the effects of the death date shouldn’t have been all that surprising as we’ve seen it before with the methheads.

Those who survived their judgment day—including Eagan, Adrian, and Saanvi—all made it into the glow, and this time, the doors opened for them as they exited the plane, walking right back into 2013 as they should have all those years ago. And it’s as if they stepped through a time machine, with only a few hours passing since their takeoff.

Seeing the passengers arriving in their old clothes, the ones we first met them in, was enough o give me goosebumps, but it was also oddly comforting. Everything they went for wasn’t for nothing—it put so much into perspective for them, showing them what was possible and what their hearts truly yearned for; the leaps they were too afraid to make, the things they took for granted, and the road that lay ahead. 

It was their actual second second chance. And it was both a blessing and a curse because while the passengers all kept their memories of the last 11 or so years (including what transpired in the 5 that they were “missing”), their loved ones who weren’t on the plane with them had absolutely no idea that anything was amiss. 

Ben was thrilled to see Grace alive in this timeline as the only thing missing in his life was his wife, however, he couldn’t share that he knew anything about their daughter, Eden, who didn’t exist at this time just yet. The only consolation is that Ben has always believed that’s what meant to be will be, so he had no qualms that eventually, they would add Eden to the family down the line. 

MANIFEST SEASON 04. Ty Doran as Cal Stone in Manifest Season 04. Cr. Netflix © 2022

Mick and Ben’s mother was also alive, while her father never had a stroke. They were all reunited again, getting the chance to spend more time with the people that have been gone for so long. 

Olive and Cal were also kids again (and Cal’s CGI effects were a little hard to accept but I get it, the kid has aged and no amount of makeup could undo that), but neither of them remembered anything that happened. And so while they may have gotten their childhood back—and the possibility of growing up together—it’s a bummer that they won’t remember all that they went through together to truly cherish this moment. The clean slate allows them to live without the burden and heaviness of what they went through, but I feel as though Cal proved he was strong enough to carry it even since childhood. 

The Stone family, despite all the hits and losses, truly grew together while working toward stopping the Death Date, and it would have been nice for the kids to carry that with them. Cal didn’t even remember Saanvi, and Olive had no recollection of her romance with TJ since he was an adult while she was a child. TJ did, however, connect with Violet, who was alive in this timeline, and he got his mom back, so I would say he’s probably thrilled with the outcome either way.  

It was also heartbreaking to see how Vance didn’t remember any of them, despite being such a crucial part of their lives for so many years. Vance and Ben’s bromance was one of the best things to have happened to the series, but it’s just a reminder that there are tradeoffs in life that are necessary. 

The passengers will forever be bonded and connected through this shared experience—it’s one that no one understands aside from them. Saanvi may not be a part of the family in the same way she once was, but with Ben informing Grace that she’s going to cure Cal’s cancer, she would still be part of it in a new way. 

As for Mick’s endgame, it was always Zeke. And as someone who shipped her and Jared, it makes sense when you look at it through the scope of that final episode. There’s a reason Mick hesitated all those years ago, and it’s because she knew deep down that she and Jared wanted different things. She had the pleasure of seeing that in real life thanks to Flight 828, so when she landed back in 2013—and Jared had no recollection of all that they’d been through as exes, friends, partners, and a couple—she chose to set him free and no longer take a place in his heart. She knew that his destiny was to be with Drea, who Jared met while leaving the airport shortly after. And it felt right. When Mick said “you gotta have Hope,” it gutted me because it showcased just how massive her decision was and how much consideration went into it. She wasn’t just thinking of herself, she was thinking of everyone. 

Mick, however, recalled Zeke telling her that he was at the airport the night her plane landed—one of the many near-misses of their fated meeting—so she ran to fetch his cab, calling him her “husband” and promising to explain everything afterward. Zeke was definitely confused, but he was also in awe of Mick because he felt their connection. And even if you didn’t ship Zeke and Mick in the post-828 timeline, their reunion here, even with his lapse in memory, just made sense. It all fit into place in the way that it should have, but might not have without all those experiences granted by the missing plane. 

Some things, like Vance investigating the mystifying and “impossible” disappearance of 11 passengers on 828, still needed to happen, but in different ways.

And I’m sure the passengers that survived will tell you that nothing is impossible, including a fitting finale that covered all of its basis and gave fans exactly what they wanted and then some. 

Turning it over to you because I totally understand if this finale wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea and you expected something way different. What did you think? What parts did you love? What did you hate? What would you change?

Are you ready for Flight 828 to make its final descent?

On April 7, Netflix revealed the release date for the second half of the plane drama, along with a new teaser trailer to hold fans over. 

Manifest Season 4 Part 2—all 10 episodes—will land on the streamer on Friday, June 2, 2023. For those that are keeping score, it’s a year ahead of the June 2, 2024 Death Date (so does this mean they find a way to beat it?!). 

Netflix typically releases new episodes at 12:00 a.m. Pacific Time, which means it will drop at 3:00 am Eastern and 2:00 am CT. 

And according to the teaser trailer, things are just as ominous as we expected when we saw the final shot of Season 4 Part 1 of Angelina bringing forth destruction via volcanic fissures.  

The end may be near, but there’s still plenty of story left to tell—and we hope that they do right by the ending, giving a satisfactory conclusion to longtime fans who have rallied behind the series from day 1 when it was still on NBC.

Catch up on all of our Manifest reviews leading up to the final season right here. 

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Series Finale Review – Four Minutes (509)

And that’s a wrap on Part 1 of Manifest Season 4! Remember when I sad this season was forthcoming with answers, well, that same can’t be said for the midway season finale.

Manifest Season 4 Episode 10 was absolutely bonkers, in the best way possible, but I also have zero idea how to make sense of any of it. I was on top of it all until this episode where the confusion set in once again. Did we learn anything in these 10 episodes? Sure, we have a lot of the pieces of the puzzle, but they aren’t exactly fitting into each other right now. 

We know that Cal is definitely the dragon and Holy Grail as he seems to possess the powers of the sapphire within himself, but the rest is a little murky. It seems as though the final half of the season will be a battle between good and evil—Cal versus Angelina—to save the entire world. And while it’s clear that Cal is undoubtedly stronger as his powers come from within whereas hers were external from the Omega Sapphire she stole, she’s still a small sociopath that continues to rise from the ashes and keep finding ways to be worse than she was before. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a TV show character more in my life.

The sapphire seemed to be the key to unleashing the Callings, but in the wrong hands, it was a dangerous weapon that could bring upon the world’s destruction. The moment Angelina got her hands on it, she yielded a lot of power.

When Grace showed up in front of Ben as a what seemed to be a Callings, it was so good to see her. I disliked Grace initially when the series started, but it was nice to see Ben feel whole for a brief moment. And kudos to Athena Karkanakis for nailing Grace’s body infiltrated by Angelina because it was bloody brilliant. Ben wanted so badly for the moment to be true and believe that she came back to give him all the answers that he completely disregarded the obvious signs that it wasn’t actually her—Grace never said “my love” and she would never cryptically talk to Ben and urge him to bring Eden to her. She would also never tell him to hand Eden over to Angelina, which is what she did at the cemetery. That’s when Ben noticed Grace’s eyes weren’t her own, and it was very clearly a trap by Angelina. It was the first true moment that we saw the immense power that the sapphire possessed.

You can tell who the better and more loving parent is simply by how they interact with Eden. Angelina was all about manipulation, whereas Ben trusted that his daughter would do the right thing and choose him, which she did. Children are incredibly perceptive, and Eden finally understood what true love was by spending time at the Stone household surrounded by their warmth and care. This obviously didn’t sit well with Angelina, who let out a shriek so loud that it literally brought all the 828ers to their knees. 

And this is where the beginning of the end truly began for them. A new order to detain every passenger on U.S. soil was enacted, and they began rounding them up like cattle, much to Jared and Drea’s horror. The two of them couldn’t do anything but stand and watch the situation unfold. What a first day on the job for Jared, huh?

It wasn’t immediately clear why they were being detained, but when Gupta showed up at Vance’s HQ to seize all of their equipment, it started to make a little more sense. Saanvi and Vance don’t trust many people, and they were truly foolish to trust Gupta, who was worked for The Major and had a hand in those extreme experiments on the passengers using sapphire to reach a divine state and generate more Callings. Why wouldn’t they consider that she was the enemy or working against them? They divulged way too much to Gupta, who realized they located the Omega Sapphire and was there to shut it all down as she knew the immense power it possessed. 

The look on Saanvi’s face—and the way she completely exploded in anger—was so good. She didn’t mean to kill The Major before, but I truly believe this version of Saanvi wouldn’t hesitate to do some damage to Gupta. It’s a disappointing turn of events as it truly seemed like she was becoming an ally. People disappoint you, I guess. But what’s her end game? To simply hold passengers agains their will until the Death Date? 

The only person that they should be holding in lockup is Angelina, and it boggles my mind that she’s evaded capture this whole time when she’s a clear threat to about 8 billion people. 

With the sapphire in hand, Angelina saw herself as the most powerful being in the world. Or, as she informed Ben and Mick, an archangel sent by God. She was able to control Callings and manipulate people the way she manipulated Eden. Her perception of angels is skewed because if she’s anyone, I’m convinced she’s the devil incarnate. Yet she believed in her delusions that she was to bring vengeance upon the evil and to lead the righteous to salvation. All because she had a stone… a stone she was completely powerless without. The moment she lost it, she was aware of how absolutely pathetic she truly was. 

Cal, whose sample lit up as he was dying and whose dragon tattoo began to move, pulled her into a Calling back on Flight 828 and even tried to stop her from delivering more, but she still tried to manipulate him by conjuring up Grace’s image to convince him to give up and let go. It seemed as though it was working, but then Cal informed her that the whole time he was sick, the one thing his mother never did was tell him to give up. The nerve of Angelina to impersonate the woman she killed. He’s not a little boy anymore, and she needs to understand that.

The fissures of lava continued to open up the more Angelina used the sapphire, and we learned that it was the same as when Saanvi missed the Noah’s Ark driftwood. Missing these objects is what created the bubbling lava cracks, which had dire effects on the world. There were a lot of crazy and intense moments at the school/church as Angelina brought on the apocalypse with her carelessness. Flight 828 is just a backdrop at this point, which is unfortunate because the plane mystery is what drew so many people in in the first place. While I don’t mind the mystical, mythical, and Biblical references and inspiration, the the lengths Angelina took it to were a little much for me. However, it did occur to me that maybe Flight 828 returned because Angelina was never meant to experience the peace of the divine since she was rotten, and their mission has always been to stop her and save humanity. 

While Mick and Ben were battling Angelina, Zeke was trying to hold things down at home with Cal, who was seemingly fighting a losing battle. At first, their final day together started off pretty chill with a ball game and a game of Monopoly, but things escalated rather quickly. When Cal informed his brother-in-law that it was time and asked him to get Olive, Zeke was an emotional mess. When he heard Olive and TJ working to find a solution, he was inspired by something they said. Olive suggested that Cal can save all of them, but who can save Cal? That’s when Zeke realized he knew exactly what needed to be done—he needed to sacrifice himself for the kid/now teen who went above and beyond to save him in previous seasons. Cal did everything to help Zeke, and he now had to repay the favor. He finally understood why he was given the powers of an empath.

As he grabbed Cal’s hand and began to take away his pain, he started getting sicker. And his call to Mick absolutely broke me because it was so devastatingly beautiful and summed up their romance so well. They truly were soulmates from day one, and she made him feel alive and taught him what it was like to live. He said that she was his “breath,” his “blood,” and his “soul,” which is where I began sobbing harder than Mick. 

It was the most selfless decision, but one that was almost evident when Mick and Zeke shared their sweet morning kiss and when she left the house that day. There was something ominous looming in the air. Even if you’re a Jared and Mick shipper, this is not a time to rejoice. Calm it down, wait your turn.

Ben was able to save the children trapped inside the collapsing and lava-filled church, and they made it back home in time for Mick to say her final goodbye to Zeke. As she sat on the ground holding his lifeless body, Cal’s body regained color and he returned to life. 

But what now?

Surely, the registry is just moments away from getting Ben and Mick and locking them up. They don’t know Gabriel’s true identity, so he’s safe, and with Zeke gone, it’s in the hands of Cal, Olive, TJ, Jared and Drea now. And maybe Vance, who may still be free since he wasn’t a passenger though he definitely aided them.

While Ben surely thought that Angelina was finally no longer a problem, he’s about to find out just how wrong he is about that. As mentioned before, she rose from the rubble and ashes looking even more unhinged with her sapphire-infused arm and walked into the world proclaiming, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled,” as the world split open in lava fissures around her. 

This truly is the beginning of the end, but again, what does that even mean?

Other Thoughts

• It was nice to see Angelina’s Calling connect back to the shattered angel she had a few seasons back. 
• Olive and TJ determined that the sapphire, in the right hands, could help them balance the scales of Maat and save the Lifeboat, but it’s easier said than done, obviously.
• Mick’s been holding onto the guilt of Evie’s death, which Angelina was able to use against her. It was a low blow, but simply more proof that Angelina sucks.
• Also, the way she looked pleased with herself when telling Ben that Cal was dying was pure evil.
• Can anyone undo the damage that Angelina has done or is the world doomed?
• Where are Daly and Fiona and why can’t we know more about it?
• Is this what Adrian meant about the end of days and false prophets?

What did you think of the final of Manifest Season 4 Part 1? What are your best theories?