Go-Around
Episode 4 of Manifest Season 4 starts with Michaela out running, stopping by the cemetery to pay her respects. However, a lightning bird shows a Calling that Michaela is desperate to share…but Ben doesn’t want to talk. He scrambles for his keys and heads out to meet Eagan, wanting to hear what he has to say. Michaela immediately rushes to her laptop and searches through Google images. Honestly, it’s a real shame that no picture of Zapdos the Pokemon shows up! Drea shows up to find a guy called Kyle, who happens to have missed all his appointments with the 828 Registry. She has a warrant for his arrest, but she receives a pretty frosty reception when she shows up. Drea phones Michaela to riff but as she does, the screen inexplicably scrolls down to a crest, giving more clarity to the Calling. It turns out it’s to do with Shinnecock Nation Land, which is precisely where Drea is. Ben shows up at prison, where Eagan negotiates to be released from prison in exchange for telling him where Eden is. Ben doesn’t believe him, until he brings up a Calling he had, including drawings of spiders. Ben realizes that Eagan is telling the truth but is in quite the predicament over what to do. He heads off to see Vance, who’s not exactly happy at how Ben has been blanking them all for the past couple of years. He brings up that Eagan knows where Eden is, and wants him to try and sort out an immunity deal too. Vance reminds him that he’s overstretching and they don’t have anywhere near the resources they once did. Still, Vance agrees to do what he can. Michaela shows up at Shinnecock and notices the lightning bird again, which hovers over a house which belongs to Kyle. Now, it turns out Kyle’s mum is dying in the hospital and he’s unable to go visit her. If he leaves this sovereign land, he’s immediately going to be arrested by the Registry. Michaela helps him out though, taking him to the hospital and using Zeke’s empath powers to reassure his mother that Kyle loves him and in exchange retorts that she’s forgiven him for not visiting sooner. Cal and Olive work together and try to find clues by starting with the boards u[ in the attic and rewinding to the very beginning again. Everything they’ve uncovered thus far – the compass, journal and tarot cards – all seem to be linked to the star card, the one with the peacock on, that Olive was given in the previous season. Olive realizes she was given this for a reason but needs to remember exactly what that is. The pair lay out all the clues they have and realize the top is linked to the compass, which includes an inscription that reads “Divine Consciousness” in Latin. Cal believes that the bright light they experienced on the plane was just that – divine consciousness. Ben heads back into the prison, where he presents Eagan with the contingency plan he asked for. They want answers. Vance queries Eagan’s moral compass, bringing up how he destroyed his family and held a gun to his 15 year old son’s head. Ben finds himself conflicted off the back of this but eventually allows Eagan to sign and hand over the location of Angelina and Eden. As a result, Ben feeds Vance some bad intel after a damaging Calling that shows him in trouble, switches off his phone and goes it alone. The location happens to be the same hideout that Adrian and his group are held up at. And naturally, he’s knocked out from behind and taken captive.
The Episode Review
As we approach the halfway point of this first part, the writers are doing a pretty good job trying to tie all the clues we’ve had along the way together into a cohesive narrative. It’s certainly far from perfect and the interpersonal drama continues to slide into soap opera territory. You can also tell that there are parts of this written specifically for cable; musical stings for mini cliffhangers intended for ad breaks. It’s a mini stylistic tick but worth pointing out as it is a little annoying. Meanwhile though, the gang continue to stumble into trouble and it all seems to be leading toward this Divine Consciousness clue that everyone is starting to uncover.
