The following recap contains Manifest spoilers.
Manifest this Monday night (at least partially) resolved a mystery nearly two seasons in the making.
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Back in October 2018, during the NBC series’ second episode ever, a family drawing of Cal’s featured an inexplicable “smudge” standing behind him and between his two parents. At the end of that hour, 828er Kelly Taylor, soon after sharing on the TV her “conspiracy” theory about government involvement in the reappeared airplane mystery, was sneaked up on at home by a shadow figure and brutally slain.
The shadow element was largely ignored for a full season and a half, until evangelist 828er Adrian was recently confronted by no less than three ominous, towering shadow figures in an alley, his fate still unknown. Then in this week’s episode, just as the smudge on Cal’s original drawing had multiplied into three, the silhouettes in his bedroom matched those created by, as showrunner Jeff Rake recently told TVLine, “three of the most important characters of the season.”
One of the characters is Kory Jephers (played by DazMann Still), a metro bus driver who helps stolen cold medicine get delivered to a meth lab run by the other two characters, brothers Jace and Pete Baylor (played by James McMenamin and Devin Harjes). Michaela first learned of the meth operation when she caught a young man stealing from a bodega; heeding a calling to “let him go,” she did just that, only to learn moments later that he had nicked not a candy bar but 20 boxes of cold medicine. With help from Drea, Michaela and Jared tracked down the meth lab and, a foot chase or two later, hauled in the Baylor brothers — though Jace had firmly warned her before being cuffed, “You don’t want to do this…. You best walk away. You know there’ll be Hell to pay. The pain I’ll bring down on you…. A vengeance like you never seen before…. This is bigger than both of us.”
Michaela this time ignored a similar calling to “let him go” and cuffed Jace and Kory, while Jared nabbed Pete. And at episode’s end, we see the three shadows that emerge the corner of Cal’s bedroom match up with the shadows being cast by the Pete, Jace and Kory, while locked up in jail.
Elsewhere in this season’s antepenultimate episode:
♦ Ben began to wonder, more than ever and despite how things turned out with Grace’s childbirth, if the callings are in fact leading them to do good for bad reasons, to “lull us into obedience for some end-of-the-world scenario.”
♦ Ben and TJ followed their individual callings to a subway platform, where they kept an old man from lobbing himself in front of a coming train. As the stranger recuperated at the hospital, they found among his belongings a music box that played the same lullaby that Cal had been humming to baby Eden since her birth. What’s more, said tune was written by Zeke’s father — aka the man from the subway platform! Already at the hospital to be monitored for his own Death Date-related deterioration, Zeke hesitantly paid a visit to the man who bailed on him and his mother years ago, giving him a closure he did not know he needed.
♦ In the midst of minding Zeke, Saanvi found herself locked out of her office/lab, and then hauled away by security guards!
♦ While staking out the meth house, Jared — despite having furnished Michaela with her most favorite deli sandwich ever — assured her he’s not angling to get back together. Which is good, since…
♦ After meeting up with his MIA dad, Zeke showed up at Mick’s and surprised her with an engagement ring — and she happily accepted his proposal.
What did you think of the episode “Unaccompanied Minors”?
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