Manifest Season 2 Episode 9 Review: Airplane Bottles
Lizzy Buczak
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The Stone family is shipwrecked on Manifest Season 2 Episode 9.
Yeah, I said shipwrecked in the middle of their living room in New York. This is Manifest, anything can happen, so just go with the flow.
Cal's multi-episode absence finally ended as he returned to emphasize our favorite Calling: "It's all connected."
When an episode starts with them back on Flight 828, you know stuff is going down.
We learn quite a lot about the Al-Zuras journal and how it's related to the Callings. It's not enough to give us any substantial answers (and leaves us with more questions piled on top of the questions we already had), but at least we're getting some pieces to the puzzle.
One of the overarching revelations is that the "it's all connected" Callng has been alluding to Flight 828 and the events described in the Al-Zuras journal being intertwined.
While it's unclear why this is all happening again centuries later, the fact that it's happened before is slightly encouraging because it means there's a rule-book of sorts that only TJ, the only one that can read Latin, can decode.
And his findings are pretty darn interesting, albeit largely confusing.
Michaela Stone is a threat, we’ll do what needs to be done.
Simon
The family eventually realized the storm raging outside -- which causes Grace's "seasickness" -- is a Calling and a figment of their imagination. Olive, who isn't affected by the Callings, clarified that when she explained it's a beautiful and sunny day.
As they attempted to find meaning in the text, they figured out that Cal hasn't been trying to build a spiderweb but rather a mast.
Once they stood up the mast, they were transported onto the Al-Zuras ship, where they realized they're experiencing exactly what his men did.
They saw a plane flying overhead that was likely Flight 828, with Ben theorizing that 828 and the Al-Zuras ship were somehow at the same place at the same time. It seems like it was the exact moment they "disappeared."
Well, the Callings will never come out and just say something. That’s the point of the puzzle.
Olive
Since there's a rather large time difference between the two moments in history, this is likely alluding to some time portal or vortex.
It's possible that the Al-Zuras ship and Flight 828 aren't the only ones that this has ever happened to.
However, it doesn't explain Zeke's situation, unless he was somehow at an adjacent point to the location of the Al-Zuras ship.
Or it has something to do with the lightning and the electrical storm.
When Ben mentioned lightning and Captian Daly, I thought we'd get some answers about what happened with him or a confirmation that he's alive and was right about his theory.
Unfortunately, that never happened, but it does feel like we're getting closer to looping back to him and Fiona.
Lightning or "lumen" plays a huge role as Cal saw a flash of light while on Flight 828, while Ben saw it when he opened the Al-Zura's journal. It's possible that the lightning strike connected their fates.
The second revelation is connected to Saanvi as the journal said there was no way to fight the death date. The only way to survive is to accept it, and when many of Al-Zuras' men tried to get rid of the Callings, they went mad, which seems to be happening to Saanvi.
Zeke: Say Saanvi’s cure works, what do you want to do first?
Mic: Escape, I don’t know? Take a year, see the world.
Zeke: Hmm. You do realize that involves getting on a plane, right?
Mic: Oohhh.
Zeke: where do we go? Greece, Chile, Thailand?
Mic: Anywhere that’s not Jamaica would be great.
She's in more danger than we previously thought.
Side note: Did anyone else laugh at the Al-Zuras' painting featuring Saanvi's face amongst his men? Most of the time, I'm able to put aside the wonkiness of this show and fully immerse myself in it, but that painting put me over. It was hilarious.
Saanvi is in a lot of trouble, but we didn't need a journal to tell us that because we saw her tweaking out for much of the episode due to a spike in dopamine levels that needed to be leveled out by her ex, Alex.
Alex was able to successfully bring Saanvi down from her high, but there's no telling what will happen now that she removed the Callings.
Is she going to continue spiraling until she becomes suicidal as the Al-Zuras journal noted?
Will she continue losing parts of her memory or possibly revert to a time before the flight so that she's living in the past?
Seeing Saanvi in such a chaotic state convinced Zeke not to take the cure. It was a sad realization considering how optimistic he was at first when he thought that she found a cure and made a lot of future plans with Mic.
His shot at overcoming the death date hit a bit of a snag, but it's probably for the best. If they don't find a way to stop it, at least he'll be able to go with his mind fully intact. But let's hope accepting the Callings will be enough to cheat death once again.
The third revelation was that "for every blessing, a price must be paid."
As the Stone family began to turn on each other and became consumed with anger, TJ's anger manifested as survivors' guilt. He began questioning why he was spared in the first place and figured that because of his "miracle," someone would be paying the price.
And honestly, Mic seems to be.
Mic willingly met with Internal Affairs to go through her theory that Jared is an X'er, but in an unexpected turn of events, the committee turned against her.
They began to raise questions about all of her mysteriously solved cases and didn't accept that she solved them by sheer luck or coincidence.
At first, I wasn't sure why they cared so much about cases being solved without any evidence. Shouldn't they just be happy that they were solved?
But when they began questioning her professional capabilities and suggested she was manufacturing crimes to improve her record, it was obvious Mic wasn't going to get out of this one. They were out for blood.
Of course, it all led back to Simon and the X'ers and the damn files that Jared stole.
Cal: I think I was there where the plane disappeared.
Ben: You know what happened to Flight 828?
Even the FOP rep that Mic arranged wasn't there to help her, though he sure made it seem like he was on her side.
If it hadn't been for Jared, Mic would have gone to a meeting outside of the precinct and been "taken care of," but he recognized the rep from his meeting with Simon and stepped in to arrest Mic so that he could keep her in custody and safe.
Jared's loyalty has been questioned a lot, but this proves that he's only ever done what he thought was best for Mic.
It's unclear what his plan was with Bowers or if she was being authentic or an X'er using him to do his bidding, but she gave him the go-ahead to arrest Mic, so maybe she is on his side and someone that can be trusted.
Regardless, Jared realized that he got in way over his head. He should've been teamed up with Mic this whole time.
Jared also seemed surprised when Simon mentioned that the passengers have "telepathy" and can see into the future. Was Jared just pretending not to know that, or was he genuinely surprised? Mic has been telling him oe trying to tell him about the Callings since day one.
How else would he explain her ability to solve cases and the "feelings" she gets?
The way Simon described the Callings and that the passengers were potentially "manipulating events around us and controlling us in ways we don't even realize" was a tad dramatic. Relax, Simon; they barely know what's going on themselves.
Also, what did he mean when he said you have like-minded friends in NYPD who will have your back? Did he mean the FOP rep? Internal Affairs? Bowers? Drea?
You really cannot trust anyone anymore!
If you watch Manifest online, you're probably also wondering what happened to Vance and the Major. Is she working with the X'ers? Is she on a different warpath? Let's hope we loop back to that dangling storyline soon.
To summarize, history is repeating itself, the Callings are your only way of overcoming the death date, each Calling comes with a price, Mic is in jail for her own safety because people are trying to get rid of her, and Jared is most likely undercover and trying to help her.
And no, we still have no idea what happened to the plane or why, but we're getting closer and closer to the truth, and that's comforting.
Do you have theories of your own? Leave them in the comments!
Lizzy Buczak was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in June 2021..
